The Rocks
The Rocks district of Sydney and the Harbour Bridge
The Rocks district of Sydney and the Harbour Bridge
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Aug, 2013Views
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Awards
Contest Finalist in City Life Photo Contest By Animoto
Superb Composition
Peer Award
Top Choice
Absolute Masterpiece
Outstanding Creativity
All Star
Superior Skill
Top Ranks
Top 20 rankTop 20 rank week 2Top 20 rank week 1
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken from the Marriott hotel in Sydney. It's one of the hotels that backs on to Circular Quay where the ferry terminal is and offers great views over the harbour. Many of the harbourside hotels are not high-rise and so views like this are relatively unique on the harbour.Time
This was not long after we'd checked into our hotel room, about 11am on Australia day. My wife and son were due to climb the harbour bridge that day and I was taking a few shots out of the window.Lighting
The light in the photo is partially due to it being mid-summer, but also because I was shooting through a thick hotel window which had some kind of polarising effect on the image.Equipment
I used my old Canon 550D with the Canon 50mm 'nifty fifty' lens. Just handheld, but wide open at f1.8.Inspiration
I could see all the crowds down on the harbourside enjoying the amazing Sydney harbour on the national holiday of Australia day. I tried to get the bridge and the cruise ship terminal into the shot but couldn't so switched to portrait orientation and it all lined up perfectly.Editing
Yep, there's some post-processing on this image. The main one is that I applied a tilt-shift effect about 1/3rd of the way up the image. This has the effect of making the scene look a lot further down and photographed with a big zoom. I was surprised at how well it suited this shot. I've used it on a few images I've taken from high-rise buildings and it nearly always compliments the shot. The sharpness of the photo is down to the awesome 50mm lens.In my camera bag
I travel light. I know some photographers like to pack all of their kit into big backpacks, but I'm quite the opposite. Up until about six months ago the only kit I took was my camera (then a Canon 550D) with a 10-22mm super-wide lens on and my Mannfrotto travel tripod - literally nothing else. Earlier this year however I got a great shoulder photo bag that suits me perfectly - t's not massive but there's enough room in it for my camera (now a Canon 7D Mark II), my three 'go to' lens (EF-S 10-22mm, Canon 50mm f1.8 and Sigma 70-300mm zoom). I don't want to be fussing about which lens to choose when the light's at its best - I wanted to be pressing the shutter button.Feedback
This photo works because it's quite a unique angle on one of the most photographed tourist icons on the planet. Getting good shots is about ignoring the obvious image and trying to find a unique way of telling the story. That might mean a unique vantage point, a different time of the day or night or a cool technique. I often wonder why some photographers are prepared to take the same photo that thousands of people have snapped before them. I know it's hard when you have something as familiar as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but yet photographers find new ways to view these familiar scenes all the time. In the case of this shot it was the post-processing the sold it, taking the emphasis off the bridge dominating the top of the frame by putting it out of focus and placing the emphasis instead on the tiny people on the harbourside.
