Spacetime – Night Streets on Slow Shutter IV

Good evening and welcome to another night photography blog post featuring the fourth Spacetime photo shown above taken with a Nikon D70s on Tamron 17-35mm lens.

Make the jump and let me share with you a little fact about this photo. 

Spacetime – Night Streets on Slow Shutter III

Good evening and here's a night street photo on a slow shutter speed that was shot with my Nikon D70s on Tamron 17-35mm lens. I was attracted by the water reflection of the bicycle and the surrounding ambient lighting. I was lucky to capture this man walking by the parked bicycle with his right hand holding a can of drink. Somehow his hand was frozen still and in focus sharp while his whole body was in motion blur. Coincidentally, the drink can seem like resting right on top of the bicycle's rear mount rack. Move the slider to reveal the close-up of his hand and the drink can, and you'll know what I have just described.

I was so stoked when I was editing this photo in Photoshop. I believe I pre-focussed on the bicycle mount rack waiting for any subject to enter the scene. A few subjects walked by and I kept shooting and fumbling with the right shutter speed setting. I wasn't shooting in Burst mode but in Single-shot mode instead because my good old Nikon D70s' 3fps is pretty slow in spite of the super low light condition of the scene. I was shooting with the widest aperture of f/3.3 and a 1/4 second shutter speed at ISO 200. 

In street photography, shooting either in Burst mode or in Single-shot mode requires the shooter to follow the momentum of the subject's body/gesture motion in order to capture that "decisive moment" as opposed to much anticipation. It's so true, especially in the latter mode. Shooting in Burst mode, the photographer simply selects the best shot amongst the many shots during the post-production, which at times can be a hit or miss. Well, it certainly works for daytime street shooting but for nighttime, depends on the camera technology and capabilities. Most of the latest models have super high ISO as high as 102,400, and burst rates of up to 20-30 frames per second (fps), and of course mounted with a fast lens, he/she can get many "good exposure" shots.

Personally, I have more success rates of shooting in Single-shot mode with my Nikon D70s. Despite its shortcomings, I'm still able to pull off some decent photos. Well, not every time in my street photography. Instinct and intuition play important parts as well.

So there you have it. Thank you for the time to read and view my new work. New photos will be posted next week. Meanwhile, take care, stay safe, and have a great weekend. Cheers!

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The Power of Mother Nature

Last weekend, I visited the Singapore Botanic Gardens in search of more ICM subjects to photograph. By the way, ICM stands for Intentional Camera Movement. It is an abstract style of shooting that has no rules – it all comes down to moving your camera over a long exposure to create an artistic or painting-like effect. I got interested and had my first attempt a couple of months ago. If you're keen to find out, I have written and posted a blog on my experience here. 

Back on track, the weather on that Sunday morning was awesome with warm sunlight and there were many visitors, be it strolling in the garden, jogging, doing yoga, or with family and friends gathering for picnics or dining at the restaurants, the Garden is a favorite place for nature lovers to relax. Make the jump to read more.

Spacetime – Night Streets on Slow Shutter II (A Triptych)

Good evening. It's a double eleven 11.11 today. TGIF! Featuring another triptych of Spacetime - night streets on slow shutter. The above animated GIF serves as a trailer. Make the jump to view each photo in high resolution.

Spacetime – Night Streets on Slow Shutter (A Triptych)

Good evening and welcome back to my night photography blog. Yes, I'm back. First and foremost, I hereby sincerely apologize to all my supportive readers for the long hiatus. Yeah, absent for 13 months without a single blog post until now. I have been on hiatus before, sadly. Honestly, I was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. I mean, I wasn't infected with the deadly virus but instead, it was the mentality part. I hardly go out at night to make photographs. Occasionally, I would go out in the day for some street shootings with a point-and-shoot film camera or a DSLR camera.

Picking up street photography again seems a lot harder but I have re-adapted and progressed and am slowly back on track. Lately, I got hooked up on an interesting shooting technique called ICM a.k.a. Intentional Camera Movement for creative and impressionistic effects. Then I got busy shooting and posting on the other photography blog site that I totally neglected this blog site. In case, any of you have missed out, click here for the ICM blog post.

A couple of weeks ago, three days before the local Indian Festival, Deepavali, I took the opportunity to head down to Little India for some night street shootings. I seldom make night photographs on Shutter Priority mode so it was time to do some crazy shootings.

I admit there is nothing new about shooting night sceneries with a slow shutter speed. Good examples like light trails of vehicles and the panning technique that combines a slow shutter speed with camera motion to create a sense of speed around a moving object.  We can definitely make use of this shooting technique for storytelling and emotions.

So, for tonight's blog, I'm showing these three photographs as a triptych for a good start, and more are coming soon. So stay tuned. For new readers, if you like my work do subscribe to my blog sites for new updates. Thank you all for your time and kind support. Good night.

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