My first Middleburg Christmas
I'd probably heard of the Christmas parade in Middleburg in the past, but never gave it any thought. This year, I'd seen a Facebook post on it with some photos of years' past. I immediately knew that I had to go!
I clicked on a link to the Christmas in Middleburg website to do my standard check on what kind of photography was allowed as some places won't allow professional cameras or have other rules related to professional photography. To my delight, there were press passes available to bloggers and professional photographers! It wasn't long before I had my application filled out and emailed off to the Middleburg Police Department for approval.
With a parking pass purchased, directions mapped out, and gear list finalized I was ready for the day! I drove to Middleburg the day before to sign out my press pass vest. While I was there, I walked the main street, some of the side streets, and took notice of how the sunlight fell on the different areas.
I had been keeping a close eye on the weather as it had been raining the day before and rain was expected through the morning. Arriving to the parking area about 15 minutes after it opened, I was one of the first cars there. Before jumping on the shuttle bus, I took inventory of my gear and snacks and headed off.
There was plenty of time to continue to explore the area before the first parade kicked off at 11am. The first mission was to locate the porta-potties! With that mission complete, I inventoried the various food truck vendors while the crowds were still very light for my lunch options. With the necessities taken care of, I tried to get a sense of what the light would look like as it was very overcast and perfect for photography. In pondering which direction the parade would likely originate from, I began to make several initial plans in my head. Right around this time, I began to see a couple other photographers that appeared to have been here before and decided to keep an eye on what they were doing and take their lead.
Prior to the parade, I was concerned with where I was allowed to stand and keeping myself out of trouble. However, once the parade started I quickly noticed the other photographers standing in the middle of the street awaiting the arrival of the fox hunting group coming down the street towards us. With that, I followed suit and aligned myself with them in the center of the street as we all snapped away!
It didn't take long before we were enveloped in fox hounds - the crowd eagerly waiting to pet them or give them a good scratch behind the ears. As the rest of the group moved forward, they all stopped to wave and pose for photos. I was snapping photos left and right and super thankful for a quick auto-focus system on my camera!
As the rest of the group moved past us, I grabbed a few more shots of them trailing away. The crowds lining the street began to disperse to fine a place to eat and shop. I quickly grabbed a spot against a light post and began to cycle through the photos in my camera. There were so many good ones that I couldn't believe it. I'm sure there was a big smile on my face as I looked through them all. Since I was pretty excited, I had to post one right away. Grabbing my smart phone, I linked it to my camera's Wi-Fi to download at least one. Quickly editing in Lightroom Mobile, I posted it to my Facebook & Instagram accounts.
The rest of the day and second parade did not disappoint. I captured so many great images that will probably take me a couple more weeks to go through. The organizers did such a great job. I could tell some of them were nervous early in the morning, but everything was great as far as I could tell.
I can't wait to do it again next year!
