Grass Trails

Grass Trails
© 2005 Martin Liew Photography

Grass trails left by the lawn mower in a northern residential park. Somehow the trails formed an interesting patterns that spoke to me. The trail lines lead the viewers' eyes to the tree on the upper left frame and then right across to the lamp and more trees on the right side, finally coming back to the foreground. The overall ambient illuminated by the lamp and a hidden one behind the tree on the far right, created such beautiful night scenery and atmosphere that revealed textures from the tree leaves and grasses, that I couldn't resist in making this photograph with my Shanghai TLR. Kodak TMAX 400 was exposed for 220 seconds. Negative was scanned on Epson V700 with post-process in Photoshop.

Block 308

Block 308

Abandoned building in a decommissioned military base. With Kodak TMAX 400 loaded on Shanghai TLR camera, a long exposure timing of 3 minutes and 36 seconds was set, with a snooted LED flashlight illuminated on the building number. The film is developed in Kodak D76 for 6 minutes and scanned on Epson V700. Post in Photoshop and cropped in 6x7 format.

Sundial

Sundial
© 2007 Martin Liew Photography

Do you remember this sundial?

This gigantic sundial was formerly situated at the old Marina City Park, way before Garden By The Bay was built. I believe it is one of the most forgotten landmarks in the park after 7 years of development.

This sundial was exposed under the full moon with 3 pops of flash-painting at one minute interval to create rim light for a 3-dimensional effect. In the end the strobe light caused the large blob of light at the bottom frame. However I find it interesting as it adds up to the overall mood of this photograph. During the long exposure, the moon shifted as time ticked by for 9 mins that created this elongated light orb.

Night Bridge

Night Bridge
(from Dwell In The Night series)

Good evening night dwellers!

Since June, I have had posted some night street photographs made with my Nikon D70s which I think most of you had seen them. Well, tonight I want to show a night photograph from my Dwell In The Night project as shown above. Night Bridge was made 5 years ago and I thought it would be a good idea to show it here as a teaser.

Currently I'm reviewing and re-editing all the night photographs from this project and I will make an announcement once all pictures are ready for view on my website. Do subscribe to this blog for new updates or visit my other photography blog here.

Pleasant viewing.

Night Street Photo - Negotiation

Nikon D70s on 50mm f/1.8 @ f/2.8, 1/50sec. E.V. +0.7 AWB ISO 1600 Matrix Metering. Mono-conversion in Photoshop.

Night Street Photo - Bubble Girl

Nikon D70s on 50mm f/1.8 @ f/2.8, 1/30sec. E.V. +1.0 AWB ISO 900 Matrix Metering. Mono-conversion in Photoshop.

Night Street Photo - Night Shift II

Nikon D70s on 50mm f/1.8 @ f/3.5, 1/8sec. E.V. +0.7 AWB ISO 200 Matrix Metering. Mono-conversion in Photoshop.

Night Street Photo - Night Shift

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

Night Street Photo - No Entry

Nikon D70s on 50mm f/1.8 @ f/2.8, 1/30sec. E.V.+5.0 AWB ISO 1600 Spot Metering. Mono-conversion in Photoshop.

Night Street Photo - Back Alley

Nikon D70s on 50mm f/1.8 @ f/2.8, 1/30sec. E.V.+5.0 AWB ISO 1600 Spot Metering. Mono-conversion in Photoshop.

Night Street Photo - Pre-Occupied II

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

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.

NEWS Announcement!

Good evening fellow night dwellers! I hereby proudly announce that a new night photography group has set up in Flickr on 18 May 2014, Sunday, founded by fellow night photographer, CS Lee and myself.

It's called Night Photography Asia Community (NPAC for short).

Log on to Flickr now and find out more. You can do a Group Search in Flickr by typing the full group name or click on the image above.

The main reason why we set up this group is that both of us have not really come across any night photographs, be it on film or digital format, made in any part of Asia countries. We've seen many night photographs from US and Europe. But why isn't there any in Asia regions?  Maybe there are but just that it's scarce to come by seeing one.

Many photographers would pack up when night falls and call it a day. There are so many beautiful things at night to make photographs of. Night Photography covers a wide aspect of techniques and subjects namely landscape, cityscape, urban streets, abandoned buildings, Milky Way, star trails, moving clouds, light-paintings and many more.

Lee and I are both passionate about night photography and we want to create an awareness so as to promote Night Photography as well as to inspire many others to pick up this photographic craft. So we hereby call out to all night photographers from Asia countries to join us at NPAC.

We're still at the early stage and we do have plans for future NPAC activities. But for now we're taking one step at a time working our way to make NPAC active. Do spread the word and let your friends know about NPAC.

Last but not least, we have also set up a night photography fan page on Facebook. Do LIKE us here and get new updates on tips and tricks and many interesting topics on Night Photography.

We hope to see you guys and your work at NPAC. Cheers!

Night Street Photography

Tonight I'd like to talk about night street photography. In case you do not know that I do lots of day time street photography and it isn't the first time I did night street photography. I used to shoot color negatives on my Nikon FM10 with a 50mm f/1.8 lens at night. Did a little with my Nikon D70s with the same lens. Hand-held shooting technique certainly poses a great challenge for night street photography.

The night photo shown above was taken in the same wee hours after my visit at the Fort Canning Park (the Fort Canning Lighthouse). I was heading back home and walked past this back alley, next to this Ritz Mansions condominium. Literally I walked past the openly displayed couches. I did noticed but subconsciously my mind told me to turn back and I'm glad I did. I set up my tripod and made two quick exposures at 15 seconds each.

Lighting condition was drastically great in contrast with super hot spots from the street lamps on the far right frame and some from the wall lights on the signboard and under. The 2-persons seat couch on the foreground was lit and illuminated by the street light on left behind camera, while the other couch on the background was lit by the street lights as shown.

Really love the lights and shadows displayed here, with vertical lines, shapes, textures which caught my attention in the first place. I managed to get the "correct" exposure timing. In post-production, I tried to retain the original output results in Camera RAW and Photoshop but couldn't get the desired result I wanted. So I resorted to apply HDR effect by tone-mapping and some color correction adjustments.

Next, I converted the color to black and white just to see how this scene looks like and it looks great. Somehow it rekindles my love for night photography on film and digital night street photography.

Each medium would produce different results. Night photography on film is more towards fine art style and project basis. Night street photography is similar to day time street photography where daily night activities/events are captured candidly. Some film examples of night street photography I did back in October 2006 which I posted here. Some other night street photos using Nikon D70s below.

Simple Contentment

Dozed off

Indian Store

I'm planning to do more night street photography, both on film and digital, perhaps every fortnightly, and lesser light-paintings as I've mentioned before that there are lesser or no ideal abandoned places in Singapore left to make good light-painting photos. Well, I've always keep a lookout and keep searching. Alternatively I'd have to venture out to overseas where there are many interesting subjects, though not necessarily doing light-paintings.

Urban Lighthouse

Urban Lighthouse

This urban lighthouse, also known as Fort Canning Light or Fort Canning Lighthouse, was built in 1903 on the southern side of Fort Canning Hill. It was formerly one of the 13 important lighthouses in the Straits of Malacca, which was to guide ships safely towards the Singapore Harbor.

Due to its historic significance, a replica of the Lighthouse was later erected near its original site by the Singapore Government. Though its lights are fully functional, it no longer serves its original purpose but stands today as a legacy of its contribution to Singapore maritime history.

FENIX TA21 was used in the making of this night photograph, light-painted on the left side of the Lighthouse which took 15 seconds exposure.

Below is another night exposure under 15 seconds with a medium size aperture to capture the clouds motion across the beautiful night sky. Same flash light was used on the top of the Lighthouse. Actual crop and composed on camera.

Fort Canning Light

It was a disappointment that those strong daylight white spotlights were not switched off after midnight. It would be good to do my own light-painting. Well I don't think I'd go back to remake for a long time.