Seattle Night
Aug, 2015Views
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jmatthewlarson
January 30, 2016
Excellent shot. Nice vantage and just the right exposure for detail!
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
Kerry Park is a small public park on Queen Anne hill in Seattle. It's just north of the Space Needle. It's a very popular site for photographers which is easy to see. I have been there at all hours of the day and night and there is usually a lot of people in it. I even saw a wedding party there once.Time
It was about 10 pm. I was actually attending a photography class that day. We had spent the entire day at different locations around the city capturing different scenes and putting different principles into our shoot that the instructor had talked about. We ended the day and the class at this park arriving just before sunset. The instructor talked to us about light painting and demonstrated it for us. Then he asked each of us to try our hand at light painting. We were also capturing the incredible view.Lighting
I didn't use any flash but I did use a tripod, obviously.Equipment
My camera is a Sony A300 DSLR. My tripod at that time was an old Vivitar that I have had for more than 30 years. I didn't use flash for this shot. For the shutter speed I put it on "B" for bulb and I actually just guessed the time. I don't remember exactly now but it was about a 13 second exposure at f/8. I recall I was thinking about Henri Cartier-Bresson and how years ago I had read that f/8 was one of his favorite apertures. So I chose f/8. I don't recall what lens I used but I think it was my 17-70 f/2.8 Zoom.Inspiration
Well I had been to this park multiple times and as I stated above, the photography class I was attending that day ended at this location with the instructor talking about light painting. After I finished the light painting exercises, it was now dark and so I decided to capture the wonderful view. While I have captured this view multiple times in the past I had never captured it at night. On that night I actually didn't have much hope of it working out successfully but this image is one of my favorites and one of the best I have ever done.Editing
No post processing for this shot. I am not very skilled at post processing and tend to avoid it when I can.In my camera bag
My camera, at least two and sometimes three lenses, three or four batteries and one or two filters.Feedback
Experiment with different exposures and shutter speeds.Bracket each shot with +1, +2 and -1 and -2 stops
