light trail & full moon
Aug, 2016Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
I have taken this photo in the Central District, Hong Kong Island, which is the heart and financial center of Hong Kong. The traffic jam there during working daytime is a nightmare, however, on the contrary in the late evening it will be difficult to see cars occupying three lanes together, especially during weekends.Time
Timing is a big challenge for taking this shot. As I have mentioned, this place is the financial center of Hong Kong, if the shot has been taken too early, the traffic jam would only allow me to capture a little traffic movement; however, if too late, most people would have gone home and left very little traffic, it would not be easy to capture smooth light trails. Therefore, I have started shooting at around 7:45pm, since the huge traffic would have already been gone and I could then capture “moving actions” of the cars. I have waited for some time and at 8:00 pm, more traffic have appeared and kept moving on three lanes together! I was so excited at that time! Given that the frame could create lovely unbroken lines, therefore I took the shot immediately. Of course, I have taken several shots, but this one is my favorite.Lighting
As I wished to draw the attention of viewers on the light trails only. However, the road lamps, lightings from the surrounding buildings and strong illumination from the billboard would have distracted their attention. Therefore, I tried to keep the color of the light trails only. It then looks like a small river flowing beside the buildings, thereby creating an interesting cityscape.Equipment
The shot was taken using a Nikon D750, with 24-120mm f/4.0 lens, a Rollei TL0815 tripod, and most importantly, my immense patience :)Inspiration
In Hong Kong, people frequently neglect their work-life balance and the beautiful cityscape around them. That has inspired me to create the feeling of calmness and peacefulness within the beating heart of the financial center, but concurrently capturing the energetic city movement represented by the light trails. I hope people, by seeing this shot, could cease their hectic life for a moment and be rejuvenated by this breathtaking cityscape. Through adding the full moon into the shot, the entire presentation has become more dramatic. People here just do not bother to look upwards, but instead always drilling their heads onto their tablets. I have deliberately placed the full moon in the middle and above the light trails, hoping that their leading lines can lead people seeing the moon in the sky.Editing
For this shot, I only kept the color of the light trails. Afterwards, I have added a layer of full moon into it.In my camera bag
My usual kits are a Nikon D750, a 24-120mm f/4.0 lens, a 50mm f/1.8G lens and a few ND filters. As I cannot carry kits which are too heavy, their weights are just suitable for my built. No matter when traveling around to capture shots on close or distant objects, these component setups can always satisfy my needs and produce good quality shots.Feedback
Timing is always the most important challenge. As there are too much traffic lights and the traffic itself moving very slowly and always stopping, therefore in order to shoot the light trails with unbroken lines, make sure that there are many cars moving on the road at the same time and hit the shutter just after the traffic light turning green. Only by this way one can capture the lovely “actions” of the traffic. Last but not least, as for all photographers, patience always takes the utmost credit when capturing any of their “lifetime” shots.
