The Shambles
An evening walk through our home town of Chesterfield. We set out mainly to capture some of the Christmas lights but I've had an idea of a shot in the sham...
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An evening walk through our home town of Chesterfield. We set out mainly to capture some of the Christmas lights but I've had an idea of a shot in the shambles for a while and conditions were just what I wanted - wet floor after all the rain we've had, dark, and just enough fluorescent light to provide a bit of detail.
See more of my work at rjberesfordphotography.co.uk
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See more of my work at rjberesfordphotography.co.uk
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Dec, 2020Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This was taken in my home town of Chesterfield in the U.K. My wife and I had gone into town to photograph the Christmas lights. While walking around looking at and shooting the lights we walked past a small alley known as the shambles. As you can see from the image, it's a narrow alley with a few small independant shops, a pub and a slot machine arcade.Time
This was taken early one weekday evening, just after 5pm. Given the poor weather, and the local covid restrictions, the town centre was very quiet with very few people around as what few shops were allowed to open were closing up for the day. I've had this shot in mind for a while but never had the conditions I was looking for, I wanted to visit when it had been raining and after dark to make the most of the lights reflecting on the wet floor.Lighting
The alley is narrow and not particularly well lit with only a few street lights and a few Christmas lights, the main light reflected is from a store on the main street that runs across the top of the alley. I wanted to make the most of the narrow streets and use the light from the store at the top to lead people along the path through the image. Converting to black an white helped to emphasise some of the details that would have been lost in a colour image. The black and white conversion helps add a certain moodiness to the image.Equipment
This was actually shot with my phone, a Samsung S20 FE. It's the first time I've used this phone for photography and I have to say I am impressed with it's performance. It was shot handheld with no flash used.Inspiration
I've had this shot in mind for a while but never had the conditions I was looking for, I wanted to visit when it had been raining and after dark to make the most of the lights reflecting on the wet floor. I've seen some impressive black and white street images and thought that this alley might give me a chance to create something special myself.Editing
I edit all my photos using Affinity Photo. This image was edited with small adjustments to brightness, contrast, shadows and highlights then converted to black and white using Nik Software's Silver Efex.In my camera bag
A normally shoot with a Canon 7D Mark 2. I shot a couple of images of this alley using my main camera and a sigma 10 - 20mm lens and a 18-250mm lens on a manfrotto tripod, however, I preferred the image taken on my phone in this instance, purely because it was a slightly different composition.Feedback
Chesterfield is small historic market town in North Derbyshire. Its jewel is the famous crooked spire church which has been shot many times. It's always worth exploring your local area for something slightly different, you never know, you might just find a unique corner that is often overlooked by everyone else, somewhere different to the honey pot locations. It's always worth trying different edits as well, in this instance a black and white edit worked far better than teh colour version so its worth keeping an open mind when shooting.
