A while ago, when I was taking a photography class, shooting black and white film, I did my final project on night photography. ; Nothing spectacular, I just walked around my neighborhood with a tripod slung over my shoulder and looked for things to take pictures of. ; But I liked some of the shots I got. ; For it being my first time I thought I did okay.
Cut to the present, the digital age. ; I've been trying again with my DSLR. ; And I'm not happy with anything I get. ; Partially I just feel the composition is awful. ; Either I was better at it then, or less critical of my own work. ; Or both. ; In general I've been feeling that about landscape type shots. ; I thought I did okay at it back then, now I feel that I'm lacking. ; Another problem is color, though. ; In black and white I felt the images worked. ; In color it never looks right, thanks to the high pressure sodium vapor street lighting that blankets the area. ; The sky ends up glowing a pinkish color, and the ground is yellowish or orangish tinted. ; In black and white it looks somehow classy, in color it looks deeply wrong.
I'm working on black and white conversions, but so far am not too happy about my results. ; But for now, I do have this one shot. ; I like it, and while that's all well and good I'd like to know what others think.
The story behind it is that I was simply testing out a lens that I later returned for sharpness issues (that aren't visible in this shot). ; I had no landscape chops whatsoever, so I just pointed the camera at things and took pictures without a concept of what I was doing. ; I call it my shotgun method, lacking an idea of what would work I just try to take a lot of shots and hope that some end up working accidentally. ; This shot ended up feeling like it had potential, and as for the white balance, I found that the auto setting gave me this result. ; Absolutely not "real" looking, the blue sky is really reddish light reflected back down from clouds. ; The ground lighting wasn't near that cold a color temperature, it was a very odd yellowish-orangish type color.
My hope is that it ends up looking accidentally surrealistic. ; Like the blurred trees and sharp ground, almost a reversal of a standard landscape trick of blurring a waterfall. ; Instead of a ground feature being blurred, it's the sky. ; This again wasn't intentional, but it was windy and the long exposure made the trees blurry.
I seem to be almost completely incapable of judging white balance, I've learned this from other white balance demonstration pictures people have posted. ; Lacking "realism" as a target, I can't really say if this color is "good" or not. ; So I'm looking for input. ; Is it pleasing? ; Too weird and fake? ; Maybe the ground color is too cold?
How about the lines and the light? ; I find them pleasing, but again I'm looking for the input of others.
This has left me with a problem. ; I keep trying to mimic it when I go out and shoot more night pictures. ; But I'm fairly certain that this is not something to use as a model. ; There's more that I need to be doing, there must be more potential scenes out there that I'm not even seeing. ; I KNOW there's more out there, hidden drama and beauty in the bland streetlit suburban night.
I'm starting to think it's time to take another class. ; I need some artistic intensive care.
[attachments posted prior to 4/27/2010 have been deleted by admin. be sure to link images to make sure they don't get removed]
Cut to the present, the digital age. ; I've been trying again with my DSLR. ; And I'm not happy with anything I get. ; Partially I just feel the composition is awful. ; Either I was better at it then, or less critical of my own work. ; Or both. ; In general I've been feeling that about landscape type shots. ; I thought I did okay at it back then, now I feel that I'm lacking. ; Another problem is color, though. ; In black and white I felt the images worked. ; In color it never looks right, thanks to the high pressure sodium vapor street lighting that blankets the area. ; The sky ends up glowing a pinkish color, and the ground is yellowish or orangish tinted. ; In black and white it looks somehow classy, in color it looks deeply wrong.
I'm working on black and white conversions, but so far am not too happy about my results. ; But for now, I do have this one shot. ; I like it, and while that's all well and good I'd like to know what others think.
The story behind it is that I was simply testing out a lens that I later returned for sharpness issues (that aren't visible in this shot). ; I had no landscape chops whatsoever, so I just pointed the camera at things and took pictures without a concept of what I was doing. ; I call it my shotgun method, lacking an idea of what would work I just try to take a lot of shots and hope that some end up working accidentally. ; This shot ended up feeling like it had potential, and as for the white balance, I found that the auto setting gave me this result. ; Absolutely not "real" looking, the blue sky is really reddish light reflected back down from clouds. ; The ground lighting wasn't near that cold a color temperature, it was a very odd yellowish-orangish type color.
My hope is that it ends up looking accidentally surrealistic. ; Like the blurred trees and sharp ground, almost a reversal of a standard landscape trick of blurring a waterfall. ; Instead of a ground feature being blurred, it's the sky. ; This again wasn't intentional, but it was windy and the long exposure made the trees blurry.
I seem to be almost completely incapable of judging white balance, I've learned this from other white balance demonstration pictures people have posted. ; Lacking "realism" as a target, I can't really say if this color is "good" or not. ; So I'm looking for input. ; Is it pleasing? ; Too weird and fake? ; Maybe the ground color is too cold?
How about the lines and the light? ; I find them pleasing, but again I'm looking for the input of others.
This has left me with a problem. ; I keep trying to mimic it when I go out and shoot more night pictures. ; But I'm fairly certain that this is not something to use as a model. ; There's more that I need to be doing, there must be more potential scenes out there that I'm not even seeing. ; I KNOW there's more out there, hidden drama and beauty in the bland streetlit suburban night.
I'm starting to think it's time to take another class. ; I need some artistic intensive care.
[attachments posted prior to 4/27/2010 have been deleted by admin. be sure to link images to make sure they don't get removed]