When I first wrote this blog post it was before the days of lockdowns, restrictions, social distancing and covid. The post was initially written with the intention of offering a nice magical experience where one could go and take photos, go on a date or even visit with friends & family. However due to the festival being cancelled this year, this post will instead be of me sharing my experience with you of when I visited the festival.
By now most people are probably aware of the German market normally comes to Birmingham City centre every year, but many of you might not be aware of the Magic Lantern Festival that has recently started coming to Birmingham Botanical Garden. These next few photos are just a taste of what to expect, for those that are interested in going and want to know what the Magic Lantern Festival has in store for them.
As the main attraction are the lanterns, that’s what I focused on however the festival does have a wide range of food and drink that you can buy on the path that they layout for you to follow. All of these photos were taken with a 18-55mm. To give you some sort of idea how big some of these lanterns were, the picture with the two unicorns can give you some sort of suggestion. This is one of the first lanterns that you see, the almost symmetrical lantern is darker on the right side than it is on the left and therefore did make for a semi difficult photo because it was hard to get the right balance of light on both sides.
I decided to take this picture at a slightly low angle to make the presence of this lantern even greater, and it makes for a good opening photo. There are some changes that I would have liked to have made, for instance remove the metal fencing, the lantern and also the stalls that stand behind it. Majority of the lantern photos haven’t been edited due to the fact that I wanted them to look as real as possible and not deceive anyone that looks at these pictures or has an interest in going to the festival.
What I liked most about this is festival is that there is no theme to the lanterns, it has a variety of creative designs so each year there can be new and old lanterns. The next two picture are an example of the different creative designs, one of a lotus flower, this being one of my favourite lanterns and although there is not much going on in terms of being a complicated design like the lantern with the unicorns. I like the contrast between the dark and the strong red tones alongside the white and purple lights.
From a lotus designed lantern to lanterns of unusual looking cats, the designs are unique and graceful. These lanterns make for some great pictures due the natural dark background of the night sky, the lanterns really stood out more as they are the only thing that can really be seen, making for a great picture. And although the lanterns in the background are not part of this display, their presence and variety in colour gives a nice balance to the darkness so it doesn’t look too plain.
You really don’t know what to expect when you’re there. I could have posted a lot more photos on Instagram than I did. However I didn’t want to spoil it for anyone that is interested in going, and wanted to see it for themselves.
I really enjoyed going to this festival and would recommend it. Hopefully next year things will at least look close to normal again and hopefully the Magic Lantern Festival will be up and running with more impressive lanterns. It’s a shame they won’t be able to do it this year it was something that I was looking forward to, be on the lookout for it next year I might see you there.
Thanks for reading hope you come back soon.
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