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Sep, 2014Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This picture is of the incinerator in Stoke on Trent, UK and is taken from the car park of Stoke City Football club. I was questioned by security about why I was lurking around their car park, but after I explained what I was up to they were quite happy for me to carry on.Time
The photo was taken on 14th January 2013 at about 9pm, it was freezing! As you can see from the picture, the skies were very clear and temperatures were well below zero and it was quite icey. In my specialist outdoor gear, I slid across the car park looking for interesting perspectives. The road in the image is the main road between two main motorways (the M6 and M1) and the train line in the foreground is The West Coast Main Line; they are both always busy and I was certain I'd be able to get some interesting light trails.Lighting
It is completely naturally lit; with the road and city lights of the surrounding area, it is naturally quite bright in the evening. With a relatively long exposure (25 seconds, f10 ISO 1000) it helped illuminate the chimney and trees as well as give the smoke an interesting glow.Equipment
Canon Eos 60D, Canon EF-S 18 - 35mm 3.5, Hoya UV filter for lens protection, Camlink Carbon 28 Tripod with Pan Tilt head, Mountain Equipment down jacket, hat and glovesInspiration
I live near by and went with the intention of taking some architectural photos of the football ground. I thought the cars on the dual carriageway and roundabout would make a good light trail and thought the building added an interesting element, once I took a shot, I realised the building was the main subject and the smoke added an interesting element. I took a number of shots, because of the gusting wind the smoke trail was not straight. I had to wait for a more constant breeze and hope that I could capture a nice strait smoke trail; I like how it resembles a light house.Editing
I didn't do much post processing, other than to crop the image to give it a panoramic feel and remove unneeded bushes in the foreground. I wanted to ensure the image had a foreground, (bushes and train line) middle (incinerator) and background (city lights and stars) but also include the leading lines of the smoke and traffic to bring the eye into the centre of the image. I could have gone to some effort to remove the power lines going across the centre of the picture, but I think it gives it more of an industrial feel.In my camera bag
Given that I am a bit of a gear freak, the simple answer is everything... or at least everything I own. I always carry my EOS 60D, its a really sturdy camera and given that I'm not very sympathetic with my kit it has to be tough. I'd like to upgrade to a full frame camera but need to save my pennies first. In terms of lenses I have a EF-S 18-55 3.5-5.6 IS lense, which I use as an every day and landscape lens and get a lot of use. Its fairly versatile and has lasted surprisingly well. I also have a Sigma 70-300 3.5-4.5 DG lense which I use for adventure photography and wildlife. I don't use flash, although I'd like to experiment with it in the future particularly with adventure photography. I use filters and rely on my tripod a lot, in terms of other accessories, at the moment I'm using the shutter delay rather than a cable release I also carry a head touch, some fast San Disk SD cards, my phone with various photo apps on (I particularly like Photopills) some kind of back up camera and all held in dry bags and a back pack.Feedback
Wait for the right conditions, the cold weather and stiff breeze made the atmosphere nice and clear and made the bright stars visible, even in an area of heavy light pollution. Compose your image, you may decide to use "a rule" or theory, or you may decide to ignore it; but composition is key. When I took the picture it very obviously used the rule of thirds. Now that it has been cropped it is not quite as strong, but I felt that having leading lines from the corners of the image was more important. Use a solid tripod and make sure it doesn't move, I was using my body to block the wind, used mirror lock, a 2 second shutter delay and added weight to the tripod to keep it nice and still on the icey tarmac and windy conditions. Conveying movement and action in a still image can add be difficult, so look for details (trees, trains, cars, smoke etc) that can help illustrate the narrative of your picture. Most of all be patient and be prepared return to the same place if needs be. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
