Ephemera

As I promised, here are a few of the Christmas light displays within easy walking distance of my house. I'll probably add more later because I'm not entirely happy with these.

I thought I'd start off with a fairly refined and dignified display.

This house has gone in for the latest trend in home light displays... giant inflated glowing "things." It's hard to get a sense of scale in this picture, but each of these hellish apparitions is over seven feet tall.

Now this house featured an interesting touch that doesn't quite show up as well as I'd like. Look carefully next to the mass of pink lights covering the tree and shrub in the foreground on the left. You can just make out the string of lights running up the flagpole.

And a few feet farther along, I get a shot of the other side of the yard. (I couldn't get it all in one shot.)

A very bright display, but somewhat tasteful in that it's all white. This might even be spectacular if it snowed. (But remember, I live in Georgia, and that ain't happening.) Another interesting feature are the helical spirals of lights. They're wrapped around the trunks of large oak trees. Proving you don't need cute little evergreens to make Christmas trees. Or do you?

More giant inflated glowing "things." That's not false perspective. Santa's hat does stick up higher than the eaves of the house. And we see another innovative use of a non-traditional tree for decoration. Just shoot a couple strands of lights as high as you can into the bare tree.

And, finally, I admire the way this one extends the lights so far from the house itself. The lights on the left actually form a right angle along the top of a fence around the side yard, at least 20 feet from the house. (The one very bright light in the center is not a Christmas light. That's a street light on the next street over.)

I had a lot of problems with camera shake. I hope do better with that on my next set. Actually, none of these houses are in the truly garish category. Unfortunately (or rather, fortunately for me) I have to go a bit farther away from home to find those.