_

JOIN US NOW!

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Night Street Photo - Pre-Occupied


In my previous blog I mentioned about doing night street photography and last night after work I walked the street with my digital camera. I've been doing day time street photography almost every weekend and based on last night experience, it served as a warm-up exercise. So I wouldn't expect to get any single best shot or so it seems.

I walked and took photos just the way I do day time street photography but with many great challenges like low light ambience, focusing issue, etc. I've tried auto-focus and manual focus with different camera settings. There's no fixed settings for every street scenery. Just have to pre-adjust when the situation calls for.

I was taking some shots of the Clive St coffee shop (in the background shown above) when this Indian gentleman came along and stood still right in front of me. He stood there for a few moments, looking at his cell phone and I took a few quick burst shots when suddenly he looked up, paused and turned to his left side. From the look of his eyes in this street photo, his mind seems to be pre-occupied. Soon after he walked away.

So I considered myself pretty lucky. Luck is quite important when doing street photography. This Indian gentleman didn't even bother whether I took his photos or not. I bet he didn't even notice me in the first place as the spot I was standing on was in low light condition and I was wearing black T-shirts. My camera was set to Manual Focus mode and I literally had hard time focusing on him. But in the end I managed to get it.

Nikon D70s on 50mm f/1.8 @ f/2.8, 1/60sec. E.V. +5.0 AWB ISO 1600 Spot Metering. Cropped and mono-conversion in Photoshop.