Abandoned Playground

It seems like I'm on a hiatus again, for 3 months since my last nocturnal activity last November. So I'm back again with a little blog post tonight.

In March 2012, I embarked on a night photography project on old school playgrounds and I took the opportunity to make some night images on film. I recall my last black and white film night photography took place 2 years ago in July at the defunct Tanjong Pagar Railway Station.

In fact I got so many back-logged negatives that are developed but not scanned. It's Easter today and so I took the time to tidy up and edit all those negatives. I chose to scan this abandoned playground as shown below.

Abandoned Playground

On that same night after exposing a few frames, I switched to digital and made some interesting light-paintings.

How interesting it is to compare the images with each using different focal length. For monochrome, it's simplicity and the visual induces a mood with mystery and tranquility. For colors, it's vibrant, playful and whimsical. Both medium have its own visual impact which I like very much.

Well, more negatives on night photography are yet to be scanned and in the next couple of months I would spend more time editing and scanning the best work to be featured on my website. Will definitely post some updates here. So stay tuned.

I hope you enjoy viewing the three photographs shown tonight. Good night!

Demolition of Nissen Huts + A Tribute

Nissen Huts

It came to me as a sad news that one of the abandoned military bases is undergoing demolition at the time of writing this blog. Demolition started since August I think. Yes the Nissen Huts along Kranji Road, formerly known as Ordnance Supply Base, OSB in short or aka Woodlands Camp I, is making ways for some new land redevelopment scheme or something else. Read on for more images as I pay tribute to this great abandoned place.

My First HDR Night Photograph

Dove Playground in HDR

Since my last blog post on a sculpture in a park 3 months ago, I've picked up on HDR photography, primarily for my video project on old school playgrounds which consists of 3 parts. On the side track, you can watch the videos on my website here, or over at my Vimeo channel here. You can also read my other photography blogs on these old playgrounds, too.

The image shown above is my very first attempt on HDR for night photography. If you have already seen my videos, you would notice some HDR images in it which are all made in the day time. There's really no difference in terms of technical aspects i.e. exposing the subjects with multiple shots of five, seven or nine for more dynamic coverage with each image exposed in one or two f-stop interval of timing. Of course the variety of HDR results during the post-process, either in Photoshop, Photomatix or Nik Software's HDR Efex Pro, can be of great difference on subject to subject basis.

For this HDR image of a Dove playground, I made a total of seven exposures. Images are merged in Nik Software's HDR Efex Pro and some tweaking with its Tone Mapping settings. Lastly, some retouching in Photoshop. I wanted to create a "realistic" image that represents the actual night ambience or atmosphere I experienced. Yes, not entirely the same as normal long exposure shot but not too edgy or over-saturated. Most HDR "Surreal" effects that I've seen, look horrible with heavy ghosting halos and over-saturated colors. To each his own. Some people like it, some people don't. To me, it doesn't work for me.

After working on this image and compare with the rest of the images of the same playground, I'm not too sure if I want to do more HDR night photography. The downside is that I spent more time tweaking the Tone Mapping settings to find the desired result than the time I spent on my usual light-painted night photographs. However on the flip side, it's helpful to do it when there are mixed lightings surrounding the subject. Not every night photograph has to be light-painted or in HDR effect. It' depends a lot on what the photographer wants to achieve. For me, it's all about capturing that ethereal night atmosphere for dramatic effect.

On end note,, do check out my new work of this Dove playground on my website.