I did a bit of “concept” shooting this past week. This means I have a theme or topic to shoot and then plan and create a photo to fit or represent that theme. This week over at the Digital Photography School the theme for the weekly contest is Bridges. While I am sure there will be plenty of great entries with terrific shots of the golden gate or other stunning bridges, I chose the other meaning of bridge; namely connect or reduce the distance between. In particular I wanted to create a shot that portrayed the saying that “music is the bridge between heaven and earth”. My first attempt below turned out very well.
I used a wider aperture to create the bokeh (blurred out background) using Christmas lights to create the colorful bokeh. I had considered using an aperture mask to shape the bokeh lights to musical notes, but thought it a bit too much (gimicky).
But, I had simply used ambient light and with that lighting and the brown walls I had some color balance issues. Also, I wasted a lot of space on the upper half of the shot and thought what about the colored bokeh stretching up to “heaven” and maybe a bright light at the top to represent heaven? So I redid the shoot using off camera flashes and the Christmas lights arranged to extend up to the light representing heaven. I had my white balance set to flash and the black color of my guitar came through correctly this time. I also changed the orientation to allow more room for extending up to heaven. The shot I ended up below with is my entry for this week’s contest. Hopefullly the judges/moderators will like it as much as I do 
