360Photography

For years now, I’ve had this concept of a shoot at night, under the streetlamps with snow coming down… dramatic light and environment… the whole nine yards

Unfortunately I live in Philly, and the only “snow” we get here is usually slush, rain, and more slush…

Course this week was different… practically couldn’t have asked for better conditions.   It was coming down pretty hard, and I think I put the weather sealing on my gear to the test (watching piles of snow accumulate on your lights is a little disconcerting…)  By the time we finished my camera bag on the ground was merely a small white lump.  Luckily no gear casualties though, and some great shots came out…

F/1.0

A tremendous greeting to you! I want to share with you a photograph that has special meaning to me, and the reason why I shot it. Roughly, one year ago I was asked, to participate in a project known as “Silent Night Nothing’s Right”. The scope of this project was to display the beauty of our world despite all the negativity that it contains. In summary, “if people take the time to look around them and see how beautiful our world really is, it may just change your perspective”.

I refer to this photo as, “Evening Shot of the Grand Island Bridge” for obvious reasons. The photo was a low light, long exposure photo, which put my skills and patience to the test. On the eve of the shoot, our weather here in Western New York was typical of a November evening. With the wind whipping and the temps falling, I knew at this point, the task at hand would not be easy.

After choosing the location, I set up my tripod and mounted the camera. A long exposure photo would require a solid platform to shoot from, so particular attention was being paid to the wind and how it was affecting my setup. After using my camera’s on board light meter, it was determined that a good starting point to capture this image was a fifteen second exposure with an aperture setting of f-18. After my first shot, I was disappointed with the results. This prompted me to go to full manual mode, and disregard my cameras built in light meter. To be clear on the matter, the location we shot from was dark, and the available light was in fact coming from the other side of the Niagara River and this was confusing the light meter.

After some experimentation and a few test shots, I felt I had the camera dialed in, and prepared to take my finished photo. You can tell by the shot, that sometimes you have to go with your instincts in order to make the photo. Here are the settings. I used a Tamron 18 to 270mm lens, mounted on a Canon camera, with a focal range of 200mm. There was no image stabilization used, as the tripod was in use. The camera settings; ISO 200, with a thirty second exposure and an aperture of f-22. In addition I allowed the camera to use it’s built in auto-focus feature, but used a 2 sec delay on the shutter release to avoid any shake by pressing the shutter.

Please tell me what you think of the photo. As always I look forward to hearing your comments and reactions.

Michael Sargent is a top wildlife/outdoor photographer in the eastern United States. See more: 

Website: www.mrsargent.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/M.SargentPhotography
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/msargentphoto
Blog: http://msargentphotography.wordpress.com

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