How to Photograph a Sky Lantern Festival (Without Getting Hit)
Two surprise proposals, one sky lantern festival in the Poconos, and one lantern straight to the future groom's face. Everything I learned about shooting in the dark.
I've photographed a sky lantern festival twice, both times at the Night Lights Sky Lantern Festival in the Poconos, Pennsylvania, where I was there to capture a surprise proposal. After two shoots, I learned a few things I really wish I had known before the first one. So here are my tips for photographers — and anyone who wants to come home with something better than 200 orange dots floating in a black sky.
1. Choose Your Spot Carefully
The middle of the crowd isn't necessarily the best place to shoot. When lanterns are first released, they can stay surprisingly low and occasionally choose a flight path that seems to say, "You know what? I'm going directly into someone's face."
And this isn't theoretical. During my first shoot, a lantern flew straight into me. During the second, we decided to make things even more romantic, so one flew into the future groom's face right in the middle of his proposal. True romance.
I prefer shooting closer to the edge of the crowd, ideally somewhere with at least one side where nobody is launching lanterns. It's safer and much easier to work — and if you shoot toward the main crowd, you get hundreds of glowing lanterns behind your subjects.
2. Bring Extra Light
For my first shoot, I brought an off-camera flash on a light stand with an octabox. I loved the results, but quickly realized that having some continuous light would have been extremely useful too — both to help the camera focus and so I could actually see what my subjects were doing.
For a few more atmospheric shots, I used the light from one of the small s'mores fire pits already set up at the festival.
For my second shoot, I came prepared with a very sophisticated piece of professional photography equipment: a headlamp. I looked slightly more like a coal miner than a photographer, but it gave me a portable continuous light that conveniently pointed wherever I was looking.
3. Experiment With Your Settings
Don't be afraid of higher ISO, but remember that sometimes darkness is your friend. If you're lighting a couple with flash, you don't necessarily need to reveal the crowd, bags, random people bending over, and all the beautiful festival chaos happening around them. Let the darkness hide the mess and use your light to emphasize your subjects.
With flash, you can also experiment with slow shutter speeds. I shot some images as slow as 1/10–1/20 sec: the flash freezes the couple while the lanterns and ambient light create some motion blur.
For portraits, you can open your aperture to something like f/2.8; for groups, stop down a little more. There is no magical setting that works for every shot. Experiment. One of the joys of digital photography is that bad experiments no longer cost you a roll of film.
4. Use the Lanterns as Your Light
Lanterns aren't just a beautiful background. They can also be a beautiful light source.
One of my favorite images happened right after the proposal. The couple wrote their date on a lantern, and I positioned it in front of them just before they released it. The lantern softly illuminated their faces, the date was still clearly visible, and the result felt warm, intimate, and completely different from the flash-lit photographs.
Sometimes the best light is literally burning right in front of your face. Just try not to burn the face.
5. Be Prepared Before the Launch
If you're photographing a proposal, make your plan before the lanterns go up. Once thousands of them are launching at the same time, it's a little late for a production meeting.
For my first shoot, I approached the couple beforehand, introduced myself as a photographer at the festival, and offered them a quick photo session. In about 15 minutes, I learned how they behaved in front of the camera, helped them with posing, and showed them a few good shots. Later, the girlfriend knew I would be photographing them releasing their lantern — she just had no idea that a proposal was coming immediately afterward. The surprise stayed intact, while I already had comfortable subjects and my lighting ready.
The second proposal was completely secret. The future groom was supposed to discreetly send me his location, but the internet at the festival apparently wanted to participate in the drama too. Luckily, he'd sent me photos of the two of them in advance, so I found them in the crowd, spread out a blanket nearby, pulled out my own lantern, and pretended I was just another person there to enjoy the festival.
The moment they started releasing their lantern, I put on my glorious miner's headlamp and started shooting.
The plan can be completely different every time. Just know who you're looking for, where you'll be standing, how you're going to light them, and what you're going to do when the launch begins.
Because your window for improvisation is approximately the amount of time it takes a lantern to disappear into the sky.
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