Help me improve christmas lights

I usually don't do any decorations for the holidays, just not my style. But this year I bought some lights and wanted to photograph my dogs.

I think I failed miserably. When is a good time of day to do this?
Any tips on lighting?

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Looks like you are going for ambient light. You will need to shoot earlier before twilight before the xmas lights become your main/key lighting source. Keep experimenting and maybe use your speedlights as fill.

I tried using the speedlights but the christmas lights didnt look good. I think I started too late, but I wasnt sure when would be a good time. I'll try earlier tomorrow.

Use speedlights to light the dog only. Dont let the light spill on the bg where xmas lights are. Set speedlight to very low power level so you wont over power the xmas lights. You just need to try and find what is the best to achieve perfect balance. And shoot wide open

I shot these at 50mm 1.4 and on the speedlight I used a bounce card but it didnt seem to give enough light, and without it it seemed too much. Should I move it off camera?

Definitely off camera. You will get much better light control and lighting will look better. You can make snoot for speedlight so you will get very directional light. Speedlights in manual mode of course

I'll give it a try tomorrow, thanks.

I was bored the other night so I wanted to mess around with christmas lights. I set my camera up on a tripod and set it for a longer exposure. Then I got a small flashlight and shined it on the dog. I held up a dog biscuit with the flashlight to get her to sit still. As soon as my remote triggers get here, I'll start messing around with my flash and a snoot as Vesa suggested.

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I really really like that Chris, Thank you for sharing. I gave it another go, but I still obviously have some work to do. Thanks for the continued suggestions

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I like the first of second set where you have xmas lights on bg. Only thing I would change is get ambient a tad stronger and move strobe more to the side to create some shadows on the dog. Also little warmer color temp would look better imo.... maybe