Monthly Archives: May 2011

Wild Shot #4: Vividness

This is the week where Vivid Sydney 2011 starts. Vivid Sydney is a music, lighting and creative festival happens in the month of May each year. The most famous activity is the Lighting the Sails where the Sydney Opera House will be covered in light and animation projections every night throughout the event.

Projections on the Opera House are animated, which means pattern on the resulting photos are effected by exposure seconds.

This is one of the design featured this year, which was taken with 4 seconds exposure allowing animated graphics to run across the surface of Opera House creating a ribbon like effect. Check out my flickr page to see other photos I took during this event.

Summary

One random, inspired photo will be picked each week for the ‘Wild Shot’ segment: something along my journey as a photographer.

Wild Shot #3: Harbourside, Sydney

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This is a HDR representation of the Sydney Darling Harbour. This isn’t a particularly popular angel of view nor does it cover the iconic scenery of Darling Harbour (, which should be the cityscape on the other side), however the luminance of the bridge and vividness of Harbourside Shopping Centre in the background prompt me to capture this amazing view.

Summary

One random, inspired photo will be picked each week for the ‘Wild Shot’ segment: something along my journey as a photographer.

What I’m bringing to Vivid Sydney Next Week

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Vivid Sydney will be starting soon and even though the event span out over 2 weeks, I want to ensure I make each visit to its fullest by bringing only the right equipments with me.

Since this is a night shooting, you will be playing with long exposures often and that means tripod will be a must. The equipments I will be carrying are:

Nikon D90, my only DSLR.
AF-S DX 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5, my kit lens as wide-angel.
Full Size Tripod, a steady tripod good enough for 30 seconds exposure in landscape mode.
IR remote shutter release
Pocket torch, for seeing things or light painting

I try to keep light weight and bring only the essentials, If I decide to do street shootings, then that day I will be carrying 35mm f1.8G without tripod and 18-70mm. This way, you can stay agile and focus on taking photos and not busy changing lens.

Optional equipments I may consider to bring with me just for fun:

Graduate ND filter, to play around with exposures.
SB-800 Speedlight, for creative lighting.
Glowing sticks, for light painting

And the non-camera related item that will come along with me:

A comfortable backpack to put all my stuff except the tripod (since I’m not a fan of camera bag).
Beanie, gloves and really warm jacket.
Umbrella, better prepared than sorry.
Snack, because you will go hungry for all night shooting.

Wild Shot #2: Silverband Falls, Halls Gap

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This is another photo I took during my Easter trip to The Grampians in Victoria, I visited Silverband Falls area which was affected by Victoria flood earlier this year. Trunks are lying randomly off path either by force of natural or purposely logged down to prevent unexpected injury. A tree did stand tall in the wood, aged and present a very moody scene on the spot.

I did a 3 exposure shots, however did not make an HDR vesion, instead I took one from ev+1,increase black to create stronger contrast and mildly decrease saturation of green leaf to put more emphasis on the tree itself.

Wild Shot: Brighton Beach, Melbourne

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This is one of the last photo I took in my Grampians trip during Easter break. Harsh lighting condition as the sun is setting opposite of the beach, tanning everything in the scene include water. However, after striping away some warm color, I start to get a nice vintage look, as if it is a postcard that is going to remember I was once there.