Night Street Photo – In The Park: a Tribute to Brassai

Two nights ago I was on my way home, walking past this park with many street lamps and I thought it would be interesting to make some experimental shots with my Ricoh GR2 along with a transparent plastic bag as a soft focus filter. I took many shots and results vary. Eventually I got this one and since I shot in DNG format I have more controls in post-production.

After much tweaking, I find the image has this vintage feel that reminiscent of the late photographer, Brassai's night photographs in the 1930s. So I decided to pay a tribute to him. I wasn't trying to copy his work but most importantly I was experimenting for fun. I will keep trying and shoot more with the plastic bag.

Night Street Photo – Night After Sidewalk No. 2

RICOH GR2 – f/2.8 1/15sec. -0.3 EV ISO 110
Color DNG post-processed in Photoshop Camera RAW and
converted to black & white in Silver Efex Pro 2

Night Street Photo – Night After Sidewalk No. 1

RICOH GR II – f/8.0 1/25 sec. -0.3EV ISO 6400
Color DNG post-processed in Photoshop Camera RAW and
converted to black and white in Silver Efex Pro 2

My New RICOH GR II

Yesterday I got my hands on a new toy – RICOH GR II. Yes the most favourite compact point-n-shoot digital camera beloved by many street photographers. The main reason for getting this camera is that I want a small and unobtrusive camera for daily street shootings and to take up the task of shooting for Not Quite Night project.

This camera is so light in weigh and yet feels so solid good on my palm. Its ergonomic design on the hand grip is comfortable and the furnishing is pretty nice too. Before I purchase this camera, I've downloaded the user manual from the internet a couple of weeks earlier and read it through a few times. So when I got it on my hands, I know how to handle.

I felt so excited and after recharging the battery for about 3.5 hours, I made my way out in the streets in the late evening for some low light shootings. Like a beginner with his first camera, I shot almost anything that caught my attention. Well, 99% of the street photos are failures and I'm still learning to master the shooting techniques as I'm used to shoot cameras with viewfinder. I'm still learning to know which features work best for certain lighting condition and to know them at my finger tips as this camera is designed for one hand operation purpose. Every single button is easily within reach of your index finger and thumb.

I can customised the camera settings to my likings and preset them in 6 individual memory slots. In addition, I can assign any one of the presets to the main Memory Dial - MY1, MY2 and MY3 respectively. This is helpful when certain lighting condition calls for that camera setting and I can quickly dial to that setting and start shooting.

After a few hours of shootings, I managed to get that 1% chance of some decent street photos. As I always shoot images in RAW format, the GR2 comes in DNG (aka Digital Negative) format, which Adobe Photoshop supports. After some post-processing in Photoshop Camera RAW, I am really impressed by the results which I would be showing one of them in a new blog later tonight at 10:10PM. I will post the rest one by one, with a little caption, on a weekly basis as usual, starting next weekend.

So do subscribe to my blog and check out new updates on the night photos made with GR2. Thank you for reading this blog.

Night Street Photo – Mystery of the Headless Man

Night Street Photo – Take A Seat

Night Street Photo – Back in the Alley

Not Quite Night series #50 – Into Warm Summer Night 2

This Used To Be My Playground serial – PEACE Tank playground (2017)

This is one of the many newly designed playground equipments built in the modern city of Singapore. I came to know about it while doing some research on the internet and I find it pretty interesting and decided to make night photographs of it. 

This playground is located in the west region of Singapore and it's not too hard to find it. Like any other playgrounds, it's situated right in the Housing Estate residential neighborhood where children love to play at and probably a favorite haunting spot for group of young teens hanging out in the wee hours.

The Tank poses many lighting challenges but it was still fun and leaves plenty of room for creativity. I spent a great deal of time lighting it at various angles and it may sounds tedious but the end results make all the efforts worthwhile.

Make the jump to see the fruits of my labor.

This Used To Be My Playground serial – Dinosaur Fossil playground (2017)

Last weekend I traveled north to a large playground where there's an interesting playground equipment in the form of a dinosaur fossil bones, as shown above. As I reached there quite early at around 9:30PM, there were little children running about playing at the playground. So I waited for an hour plus until all parents brought their children back home to rest.

Make the jump to see two of my most favorite night photographs to date.

This Used To Be My Playground serial – Sea Monster playground (2017)

This Used To Be My Playground serial – Abstract Animals playground (2017)

What does this odd-shaped structure look like to you? This is neither a statue nor any artistic sculpture. Well, it does look like one but it is meant for little children. Its abstract form resembles that of a bird or a duck or some sort. Actually it's part of a small scale old-school playground equipment, along with 2 more other abstract animals. Make the jump to find out more.

Abstract Animals Playground – a trailer

A sneak trailer on one of the oldest playgrounds in Singapore. A new set of night photographs will be released soon on this blog as well as on my website.

Night Street Photo – Sodium Vapor Shower

Not Quite Night series #49 – Into Warm Summer Night

Cross Path – a Night Cinemagraph

Last week I took another trip to this location near Chinatown, on an overhead bridge, where I was trying to create the above night cinemagraph. I was there in mid December 2016 where I made some nautical twilight photos for my project, Not Quite Night, of the same photo title.

Days after making those photos, an idea came into my mind on creating cinemagraphs at night. I wrote down some interesting ideas on my digital notebook, Evernote. It's 6 months now and finally I got the chance to create one using my iPhone 6 Plus. I know it's not the best tool to do video with its quality limitations but for a start-up, I think it's good enough. Previously I've created Everlasting Heinken – my very first cinemagraph, with my iPhone too.

For Cross Path cinemagraph, I spent more time to process it and refine it than the first one, and in the end the result pays off. I would continue trying to think more new interesting ideas and create more in the near future.

Thanks for reading my blog. Hope you enjoy viewing my cinemagraphs. If you like my work, do subscribe my blog to get updates on my night photography projects and new work.

Night Street Photo – Trishaw Workshop

I took a stroll along Joo Chiat Road last week and came across this trishaw repair shop. I believe this elderly man is the shop owner and he seen to be exhausted after a hard day's work. Head bowed with opened arms on knees and sighed. It was 8:30PM (SST) when I made this environmental portrait.

To show some close-up details of his working environment, I decided to do a 16x9 vertical panorama crop as shown below.

Photo info: Apple iPhone 6 Plus on Camera+ app and post processed in Snapseed. Black & white conversion in Photoshop using Nik's Silver Efex Pro 2.

Night Street Photo – Joo Chiat Street Under Full Moon

Night Street Photo – Untitled

Not Quite Night series #48 – Split Head 2

Not Quite Night series #47 – Shadow in the Light 2

Not Quite Night series #46 – Sunset Industry 2

Not Quite Night series #45 – Sunset Industry

Not Quite Night series #44 – Perumal Blue Stars

Not Quite Night series #43 – The Beginning of Departure