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Holidazzle Christmas Shopping Parade

The Festival of the Illuminati returns to Minneapolis. New York has a Christmas shopping parade on Thanksgiving, but in Minneapolis they have one every Thursday through Sunday night from turkey day 'till Christmas. It's pretty interesting, a few floats, a band and lots of people. What makes the Holidazzle Parade so unusual is that it's in the dark at 6:30 and all the people in the parade are covered in lights. I want to know how they are powered — must be some big batteries. This is a ten second exposure at f10 & ISO 100. I'm using the new Tamron 11-18mm to fit all this in, as you can see, there is very little distortion. Pretty cool getting both sides of the street, a parade and the top of a skyscraper all in the same frame. That skyway you see is not unique. Minneapolis has a habitrail system that spans the whole city. You can walk on the second floor in the warm air from one side of the city to another. Since you are above the traffic, it's actually the fastest way around too. I took quite a few images of the Holidazzle, so check back tomorrow. There's another place for you to check too, I met Greg from View from the Tundra photo blog for the first time. We scurried through the skyway and took lots of pics along the way. After shooting the parade, we stopped and took some shots of Sam who runs the Red Wagon Popcorn Stand across from Gaviidae. The popcorn stand is on the other side of the skyway in my photo above. Sam's a real nice guy, he offered us hot cider and hot chocolate. He said he'll have chili there tonight, so if you get down to the parade, stop by and see Sam, he'll set you up with some warm goodies.