Canterbury Cathedral
A view of Canterbury Cathedral from Neal's Place road with the Marlowe Theatre in the foreground.
A view of Canterbury Cathedral from Neal's Place road with the Marlowe Theatre in the foreground.
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Feb, 2017Views
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Awards
Peer Choice Award
Winner in My Hometown Photo Challenge
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Behind The Lens
Location
This is one of the best places to see Canterbury Cathedral at night. The picture was taken from a viewpoint about 3 km away from the center of Canterbury to the north, just off Neal's Place road, the small tower at the front of the image is St Dunstans Church, beyond that is the new modern Marlowe theatre, and then dominating the whole scene is Christchurch Cathedral in Canterbury, UK The seat of the Anglican church in the UK.Time
The image was taken quite late in the evening, after the blue hour as I wanted the Marlowe theatre lights to be on in the foreground. I had been in place for more than two hours, but the lighting seemed to work best at this time. There was also the added advantage of the mist just sitting below the roof line of the houses which added to the effect.Lighting
My priority was to have the lights on on both the Cathedral and the modern building in front, so although I lost the lighting from the sky, the final result made up for that, and with the lights behind the Cathedral, the building stood out far more.Equipment
This was taken using the Nikon D 800 along with a 150-600 Sigma lens with the focal length set all the way out to 600 mm. I used a Manfrotto tripod and ball head as well.Inspiration
I have always admired the majesty of the Cathedral towering over the skyline in Canterbury, which is nestled in a valley, and have taken images before from other locations. I went to see what the building would look like from Neal's place road, and was at first disappointed that the Marlowe theatre, which is a new building, was spoiling what used to be a fantastic view from the outside of the city. Having spent some time thinking about it though, and knowing the theatre is lit up at night, I wondered if it might work by being included as past of the image, sort of Old meats new. The lights in the theatre change colour every 30 seconds, so I tried a picture using each of the 5 colours the theatre uses. As soon as I saw this imgae, I knew this was the best colour, it blends in with all that is around it.Editing
I did quite a bit of post processing, starting off with cropping the image to remove some distracting elements, then did some basic adjustments to the shadows and highlights. After that, I used the graduated filter to even up the exposure across the frame, and finally added a little clarity, sharpening and dehaze.In my camera bag
My standard bag for night shooting is my D800, a 15-30 Tamron and a 50 f/1.4 along with a flash and spare batteries plus memory cards.. Then I have a couple of different torches for light painting and seeing what I am doing.Feedback
If you are going to try to capture a city landscape at night, do a daytime reccy so you know where you want to set up, keep an eye on the weather, and try to find out what lighting will be used on the area you intend shooting, and any ground between you and the point of interest. be prepared to stay out and take a number of images as the lighting conditions change. Another thing to take into account is the moon phase and if it would benefit being in your image, I personally usually try to go out when there is no moon, but it will always depend on the effects you are looking for.
