The aim of this exercise is to explore the variety of lighting effects and colour in artificial light. The recommendation is to photograph in the city centre.
I chose to photograph in Bristol city centre on a Friday evening/night. It was an exciting evening: the photographs below took about three hours to take. The brief was to include images of floodlit buildings, brightly lit store fronts, large interior and a raised view of headlights and tail lights.
Bristol is a very good source of subjects for this exercise, having all the above, plus other photogenic sights.Unless otherwise indicated, the shots were taken using a tripod. ISO 800 was used as default; I have found ISO 1600 adds discernible noise with my camera.
The first image is the only skyline image, taken at about 18.20, of College Green. I took three images and used Photomatix HDR software to merge them. As the notes suggested, I took these skyline images at dusk, so there remained some daylight, which was particularly important for the tented area in the foreground, this being the time when the anti capitalism demonstration was taking place. Even with HDR software, the contrast between the cooler foreground and warmer artificially lit buildings is noticeable.
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| f13, 1/6, ISO 800 |
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| f13, 1/4, ISO 800 |
In Park Street, I photographed two shop fronts, one an upmarket house ware store, the other an outdoor clothing store. I was pleased with the colour range in the first shot, the orange mixes well with the cream and black of the surrounds and signs. The second image demonstrates depth well by virtue of the shadows thrown by the top lighting.
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| f13, 1 sec, ISO 800 |
At the top of Park Street, I photographed the Wills Building as the first floodlit building, standing on an island in the road. Using a wide angle lens, the shot achieves good depth and wide range of lighting, including a small dash of light from a street light on the left.
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| f13, 1.5 sec, ISO 800 |
This was the first shot to catch the headlight and tail light streaks, as well as a variety of lighting thrown by the street lamps and shop windows. Taken near the top of Park Street.
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| f13, 0.3, ISO 800 |
I chose a more mundane shop front at the lower end of Park Street for this image, interested to compare the brightness of the interior with the darker exterior and low lit facade. It was satisfying to get a wide range of lighting yet not lose detail.
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| f13 0.3 ISO 800 |
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| f13 0.7 ISO 800 |
These two images from the interior of Cabot Circus. The lower one is particularly satisfying, a good range of lighting, toning and colour, and very sharp.
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| f1.8, 1/125 ISO 800 |
Having taken several images using the tripod, I switched to my fixed 50mm lens with a 1.8mm aperture so as to include some grab shots. It is a very useful low light lens, albeit with a shallow depth of field.
This was the first one - two women at NatWest ATM - pleased with the lighting range, in particular that the women are not too dark.
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| f1.8, 1/90, ISO 1600 |
I had to increase ISO for this image so as to have a shutter speed that suited a hand held position, albeit resting on the ground. The image of Quakers Friars shows good range of lighting.
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| f1.8, 1/90, ISO 1600 |
I took this image low down, trying to emphasize the lead in line from the sculpture towards the cleaner. I focussed on the distant, necessary with such a shallow depth of field.
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| f1.8 1/350 ISO 1600 |
A grab shot of some potential movie customers provide the next image. Pleased with the light effect here - managed to avoid burn out from the lit screen.
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| f4 1/15 ISO 640 |
This is a low lit shot of Corn Street, reverting to a tripod. Managed to incorporate the bright fluorescent lighting of the food stall with the tungsten lighting in a good range of lighting.
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| f4 1/60 ISO 800 |
Again, a low tungsten lit shot of Queen Square, perhaps better if the shutter speed increased by using ISO 1600 thus mitigating movement blur.
A pleasing image in Queen Square, keeping the slats sharply in focus. Again, only tungsten lighting.
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| f4 0.3 ISO 800 |
Pero's bridge is a much photographed subject in Bristol. The fluorescent lighting is bright without being too bright, and there is a contrast between the brightly lit walkway and the iconic counterweight horn-shaped sculptures that are lit more subtly.
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| f4 0.3 ISO 800 |
In the centre, I was taken with the varied lighting in both brightness and colour that forms a backdrop to the fountains. The reflections, particularly on the right, add to the effect.
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| f4 1/6 ISO 800 |
I took this image to show a range of lighting and in particular to emphasize how the brightness of the light affects the colour: the frontage is the same colour in daylight, but the brighter illumination on the right leads to a pink effect, contrasting with the violet on the left, which is lit less well.
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| f3 1/10 ISO 640 |
This shot of the Corn Exchange is in tungsten lighting - managed to avoid burn out in the middle. Nice detail in the shot.
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| f13, 0.3 ISO 800 |
This HDR image was taken outside the Bristol Hippodrome. HDR software enabled the capture of the tungsten lit entrance and the brightly fluorescent lit sign above.
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| f8 4.0 sec ISO 200 |
This last image was used previously in Elements of Design Real and Implied Triangles exercise. The interaction of different facets of images has interested me through out this course; this time the same image is used to demonstrate the effect of a slow shutter speed on vehicle lights.
This was a very satisfying exercise to complete. I was fortunate to have so many subjects within walking distance of one another, and took full advantage of the possibilities.
On a practical point, I learnt the obvious lesson about movement during slow shutter speed photography - as mentioned above, some movement blur may have been reduced by choosing ISO 1600, notwithstanding my concerns about noise.
As with many exercises, this exercise brought home what one intuitively knows: that fluorescent lighting provides a cooler effect than the orangey glow of tungsten, of which there is a lot in Bristol.
