Anchored Sailboat

Anchored Sailboat

Two weeks ago I visited Changi Boardwalk and made a couple of night photographs and the above photograph is one of the them. I've always wanted to make night photographs of sailboats and fishing boats. Not the floating anchored types but I prefer those stationed along the seashore during low tide, be it in good conditions or in dilapidated states. They seem to draw my attention and I find them to be interesting subjects to make photographs of.

Satan Left His Icebox By The Beach

Satan Left His Icebox By The Beach

Last weekend I went to Changi Boardwalk to make some night photographs when I came across this deserted refrigerator lying by the beach right outside Changi Beach Club.

Well it's scarce to come by such interesting subject at such a location. So without any hesitation I went down during the low tidal period and walked around the icebox just to find the best vantage spot for good composition. In the end this is the perspective adapted with the sidewalk and shoreline forming 2 straight lines leading to the distant street lights. The icebox was positioned on the foreground with casted shadows of the sidewalk railings which gave more lines and forms.

I made 4 exposures of 1-stop difference and merged them for HDR during post production. I made one additional exposure of filling the fridge internals with red color light. Next I stacked the 2 photos to achieve the above result.

It was a fun and straight forward photography and I wanted to make more from other vantage spots, but in vain. Either the background has too many other lights from the boardwalk, which are way too distracting and messy, or the background is too mundane and uninteresting to justify for the foreground subject.

The Empty Page

The Empty Page

It's been a long time since I last visited Changi Village and took a stroll along the Changi Boardwalk. I just did last night and rediscovered some little changes. NParks has had removed the rooftop covers of the resting sheds along the boardwalk, right outside the seafood restaurant by the beach.

I believe NParks wanted to prohibit members of public not to camp or stay there for a prolong time period. Most of the folks are there for their fishing hobby. If it rains they have to find their ways for covers.

I walked all the way to the end of the boardwalk for this pair of empty seats. I didn't make any night photos in the past so I thought I want to do it now. With that said, the above photo is the result of stacking 2 photos - one exposed for the foreground seats and the other for the cloudy night sky.

I exposed the first photo for 120 seconds at ISO 200 just enough to open up the shadow details and retaining highlight details. Next, I exposed for the night sky for another 120 seconds with higher ISO of 400.

Here's a little snippet - A 9-stops Variable ND filter was fit on my Tokina 11-16mm lens, stop down to 5 stops hence I was able to get good exposures.

The main reason why I made all my night photos in RAW just so I have even more controls during post-production. To make the stacked result more pleasing, I used Auto WB for the foreground seats for warmer color and Incandescent WB for the night sky, just to get that bluesy cool color. Based on art drawing/painting theories or color theories, place subjects with warmer color against cooler color background would make them more outstanding and POP!

No light painting needed. Take a closer look and study the shadows, you would know where the light sources came from i.e. one on camera left and one behind camera right. After much retouching on the wooden floor (some wet surface and minor stains) just to digitally clean up and make it more presentation. All except the large portion of stains on the far left. I kept it untouched just to keep things back to a natural state and not to over-do. In the end, I am very satisfied with the final result.