Splash

Contemplate

Sunset and silhouette

Also, birds!

Street dogs

Not actually on a street but close enough, appearance-wise.

Reflecting

Off of glass... as well as in thought.

Amorous

Light Shaft

Pillars, Posts, Person

Return of black & white.

Reflected Refractions

Abstract.

A combination of reflective glass windows reflecting glass panels that are refracting light. I like how these huge panes of glass sit neatly and square on the sides of buildings, but they never seem to be completely flat, distorting lines into curves and other bendy shapes like a hall of mirrors.

Worm's-Eye View of a Bird's-Eye View

Looking up at a couple of crows looking down. I also like how these birds are framed by the passing clouds into a dark strip of sky.

Leafy Tunnel

Well, it's not black & white but it does have people (a person).

Look at all that green! Shot with my 35mm f1.8 @ f5.6, with just a little bit of post to boost the contrast (particularly the greens) and darken a few of the shadows in the foreground to lead your eye into the background. I think I'll revisit this place when the leafy tunnel has regrown again.

Windows says the max f-stop of my 1.8 lens is 1.6. What?! Not that I'm excited for the added 0.2 or anything (it's a DX lens after all), I just think it's odd that the numbers don't exactly match.

Between 2 Bridges

This is one of the first "proper" long exposures I took with my D5100 back in November last year.

 Behind me was Albert Bridge and ahead of me was Battersea Bridge (hence the post title).

I attempted a whole bunch of other long exposures on the same night but they really didn't come out too well; I left the UV filter on the lens which made some lights flare all over the place, I left vibration control on which blurred the picture as the image drifted off slightly to one direction, and I forgot to set the ISO to the base level which made the images noisy and the exposure much shorter than I wanted. These initial trial and error phases helped me on the road to my later more successful long exposure attempts I posted previously. And, much like my other long exposures, I set my camera on a wall for lack of a tripod. This was a 30 second exposure taken at f22, basically the smallest aperture I could get away with at 18mm.

What I like most about this picture are the different colour gradients in the sky and on the water. There's still a sliver of sunlight over the horizon, so the night sky hasn't completely blacked out. The garish lighting on the Albert Bridge has lit up the brown Thames water in the foreground, fading to blue/black and interrupted by the multicoloured light sources reflecting in the background. I also managed to capture the flashing lights of a passing aeroplane, although it's a bit difficult to see on some monitors and at this resolution (and I don't feel like posting 16Mbit images).

I have taken some long exposure photos along the Thames with an actual tripod and they look pretty good but I'll save them for another day. I think I'll upload some street photos in my next post, I sure do miss posting those black & white goodies :P

Reflections

Looking up... or maybe down.

Taken on a clear but very cold December day. I saw that this fountain was full of old autumn leaves. The fountain was also switched off so the surface of the still water was like a mirror, reflecting the lightly clouded sky. The shadow that was cast by the fountain's figure and her podium cut through this mirror like some sort of keyhole and made the leaves in the bottom of the fountain much more visible. My eye was initially drawn to the stillness of the leaves under the water, but when I flipped the image vertically it looked like I had taken a double exposure of the fountain at eye level and some autumnal leaves.

Let's play with long exposures!

I found a day when it wasn't raining (not easy, what with all the floods around the rest of England), went into central London, waited for it to get dark, and played around with long shutter speeds/tiny apertures. It was a weird thing to do because 1) the lens I had on my camera isn't exactly brilliant in low light, 2) I didn't bring a tripod with me, and 3) I don't really do long exposures, so there was a hell of a lot of trial and error. There wasn't much I could do to fix point 1, except to turn off vibration reduction and set ISO at the base 100 to reduce drifting and noise. To remedy point 2 I just ended up setting my camera on top of walls, using my lens cap to tilt the camera up or down. This really limited my point of view, but I persevered anyway. Point 3 requires practice, so let's say that these photos are part of that whole "practice" thing.

Hungerford Bridge. I set my camera on top of a concrete wall and pushed the aperture right to the end (f22) which gave me a 20 second shutter. Unfortunately the small aperture highlighted the annoying dust spots under the anti-alias filter (yes, under. Long story!). These were shopped out after. White balance set to daylight to preserve the blue-purple hue. This is probably my favourite picture, I really like the colours and the zig-zaggy pattern cast on the floor from the side lights.

Some kind of Eye in London. I think it's also known as the London Eye? It was lit up red like a big ring of fire for Valentine's Day (even though I took these all on the 13th). I tried my crappy technique of using the smallest aperture to get the longest shutter possible but despite the water looking all smooth and buttery the wheel was blurred out and the shadows were too dark. Those pesky dust spots also remained highly visible. I ended up using f5 with a 2 second shutter for this.

Big Ben Tower and a bunch of buses and taxis. I set my camera down on a really low concrete barrier (visible in the lower right of the frame) and tilted the lens upwards using... a brick! I wasn't able to get the top of the clock tower in frame with my barrier/brick setup, but I do like the light trails from the oncoming traffic. White balance was cooled to get rid of the orangey haze from the street lamps. (f22, 13 secs)

St. James Park. I cut through the park even though it was completely dark, and I liked the red light from the Eye and the white light from the moon shimmering on the lake. I balanced my camera on the narrow hand-rail (making sure the camera was still attached to me!) and took a bunch of long exposures. This one was probably the nicest. I also like the black smudges in the water from the coots that were still floating about. Cooler white balance again to cut through that orange haze in the atmosphere. (f8, 13 secs)

Wellington Arch. I rested my camera on the Royal Artillery Memorial and waited for some cyclists to pass through so I could capture their light trails as well. I like that it looks like the moon is lighting the statue. (f10, 8 secs)


So that was one of my more successful attempts at long exposure photography. A few things I've learned while taking these photos:

• Wrap up warm in the winter nights, especially when you know there are storms on the way.
• Bring a tripod!
• Point-and-shoot tourists will often copy other people with DSLR cameras and take shots from a similar point of view. They may also stand in front of your shot for that photo opportunity...

No big deal really, this was a test shot. And anyway, the ghost tourist looks kind of cool :)

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Google's auto-enhance feature ends up pixelating some of my pictures for some reason. I suppose enhance = create jpeg artifacts. I've turned the feature off but some pics still appear blocky in places. Hopefully I just have to clear my cache.

Hat trio

I guess my previous picture uploading woes have been resolved. I can upload from my computer once again. Fanks, Google!

Taken during last week's Chinese New Year celebrations in London. Despite the fairly decent weather I decided not to go to the main stage like last year, I instead walked around to see what else was going on. I tried to walk through Chinatown just after midday, I say "tried" as it was completely packed with people. I just ended up walking through a bunch of side roads, seeing if anything caught my eye.

These three ladies were the only non-Asian people that I saw who seemed to be into the spirit of the day, and that line of conical hats really stood out in the crowd. I kind of shot from the hip, and was pretty lucky to get the image so straight. Normally when I try to blind shoot the image is crooked, the subject is out of frame or my camera focused on something else completely (happens a lot with my not-very-fast Tamron lens).

I can't really decide whether I like it in black & white or colour. In colour it's still fairly neutral, and you're still drawn to the three ladies who have purple toy dragons.

I like 'em both.

Mobility

Speed demons.

One guy freely whizzing by on his bike, being watched by another guy constrained to an electric scooter due to his bandaged legs. Contrasting situations? Perhaps.


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So I haven't used blogger in a couple of months, and Google go and change the way you insert images. I appear to have lost the ability to directly upload images from my computer in the editor window, and instead have to go into Google Drive, upload my image there and then select that in the editor. Ugh!

Can I still do it the "old" way? If it's still there I can't find it... :/