Tag: Night Photography

Blue Hour

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Blue (Dutch goes the Photo!)

Blues have a clue here!

Created by photographer Frank Jansen, the Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography.

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Blue (Dutch goes the Photo!)

Blues have a clue here!

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Blue Waters

When I checked Frank's website for the challenge theme and I saw his image of .. in Iceland, I couldn't help thinking of the beaches of Antigua and Bequia. I just love all that blue. I find blue very calming and that water reminds me of one of the places in Antigua where I lived when I was in high-school. The house where we lived was just up the roads from the aptly named, Blue Waters beach. I have many fond memories running along the sand and playing in the shallow calm water.

New Jersey is the world far away from Antigua. New Jersey has many beaches -- some good, some are just casino's on the sand -- along with her long Mid-Atlantic coastline. I've visited a few of these beaches -- Sandy Hook, Seaside Heights, Island Beach State Park, Barnegat Light, Asbury Park and Wildwood -- but in my opinion, none compare to the beaches I had in the Caribbean. I live in Skillman, Montgomery Township, a few kilometers (~ 4 miles) from Princeton University) but a little under 64 km (~ 40 miles) from the nearest beach (Asbury Park). With New Jersey traffic that translates to 10 minutes drive to Princeton compared to just over one hour drive to Asbury Park. For this challenge, I knew that with rain expected Saturday and Sunday I would have no chance of photographing sunny blue skies. So I left myself open to alternative ideas.

Rutgers University

blue, Center For Latino Arts, structure, building
Center For Latino Arts - AF-S Nikkor 18-55m f/3.5-5.6 @ 24mm, f/4.0, 1/32s, ISO 100
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Last Tuesday, Shaan started his four-year program in biology at the Honors College at Rutgers Univerity. Bhavna and I took the day off to help him move into his residence hall. The campus in New Brunswick is only a 30-minute drive from home and 45 minutes by trains. But with teary eyes, we left our teenage adult to be on his own for the first time. The change is a bit unsettling. My wife has observed that even though he would sometimes annoy us by talking while we watching on of our cable dramas, we missed his voice.

We were back on campus on Saturday to drop off some items that Shaan felt he needed as well as to satisfy our need to see that he adjusting to his new home. He only had 45 minutes to hang out with us before he had to run off to one of several campus-wide orientation events. It was lunch time so we walked the campus looking for lunch. I remarked to my daughter that doing a photo challenge for the word blue on a college campus whose logo colour is red with a football team called The Scarlet Knights, would indeed be a challenge. And for opening weekend, the campus was a sea of red. As we walked College Avenue toward the Panera Bread, I noticed the artwork on the building for the Center For Latino Arts. I had a bit of blue and a decent photograph but still not what I was looking for.

Rain

blue, blue hour
AF-S Nikkor 18-55m f/3.5-5.6 @ 24 mm f/4.0, 5s, ISO 100
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It rained on Saturday. It's Sunday as I write this and it's still raining. Tomorrow's forecast is sunny and warm but rain is expected the rest of the week into next weekend. I have a camera poncho but rarely use it. I mostly shoot near the woods and streams of the nearby towns -- Hopewell, Princeton, Skillman, and Hillsborough. When I do get out in inclement weather I just have to be aware and alert. Trees (I'm surrounded by those) are attractors for lighting and streams (lots of these too) can quickly become dangerous.

The camera poncho might be useful when shooting in light rain but useless in a downpour. Of course, the camera is protected but the photographer gets wet. But last night as it rained I looked outside, taking a break from binge-watching Van Helsing on Netflix, and saw that the sun had set. It was blue hour. A few seconds later, I realized what that meant.

Oh, you fool! It's blue hour! Get the camera! Get the tripod! Get the remote!

Within minutes I had a few shots that I felt good about. I especially like the one with the light trail of the passing car. I snapped several shots at various exposure times and went back to watching my show. Did I mention that blue is my favourite colour?

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Created by photographer Frank Jansen, the Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography.

Boathouse Row at Night

One weekend this summer, I was on a photography field trip to Boathouse Row along the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. Our guide, Richard Sherman, obtained private access to Boathouse #4 and, early in the evening, to a launch boat (the little boats used by coaches) from which two photographers at a time were able to shoot the boathouses and Philly skyline from a different perspective.

Philadelphia's iconic "Boathouse Row" offers photographers a variety of colourful and interesting subjects, including the restored Fairmount Water Works, skyline shots of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the 19th-century boat houses and rowing shells along the Schuylkill River.

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We had private access to Boathouse #4 and, early in the evening, to a launch boat (the little boats used by coaches) from which two photographers at a time will be able to shoot the boathouses and Philly skyline from a different perspective. From the launch boat, I got a unique water view of the boathouses. Some members of one of the boathouses were celebrating with dinner on the veranda.

The launch boat took us along the Schuylkill toward the lighthouse on Turtle Rock. This lighthouse was built in 1887 to aid traffic on the Schuylkill River near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The view of the lighthouse from the launch boat was awesome. I was capturing some images of the lighthouse and zoomed in for a close-up when I noticed this couple basking in the glow of the late afternoon sun.

 

It seems that some debris came down the river and collected in an area in front of the boathouses. It formed a small island which has become inhabited by some ducks. The island also blocks the flow of water leading to the growth of a greenish plant. The ducks seem to like swimming in it.

I love this image. The instructor came running over to me. I had my camera pointed toward the Fairmount Water Works. He said, "Khürt, look up to your left". I wish I had a pano head.

Boathouse Row, Schuylkill River, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.??The instructor came running over to me. I had my camera pointed toward the Fairmount Water Works. He said, "Khürt, look up to your left". I wish I had a pano head.

The class had opportunities to exercise all our photographic muscles, from photographing people to shooting architectural details, from wide panoramas to close-ups, from high F-stops to shallow depth-of-field, from dynamic hand-held street shots to using tripods during "blue night" to capture the boathouses and their reflections on the water.

Boathouse Row just after the sun went away for the day. I was trying to expose for the foreground and the sky.

When the sun had disappeared completely for the day, the lights were turned on at Boathouse Row on the east bank of the Schuylkill River, just north of the Fairmount Water Works and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Lights on Broad Street

These are two of the images I captured of City Hall in the Center City section of Philadelphia taken during the night photography course Philadelphia After Dark field trip led by the instructor, David Hartz.

These are both HDR images with one image used as the main element for the light trails. I applied the perspective correction and a film filter to both HDR images.

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The best of my images taken during the Philadelphia at Night field trip led by instructor, David Hartz. The blue hour image license is CC0 via Unsplash.
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I'm not sure which one I like better.; the one that was captured at blue hour while the sky was overcast or the one captured during the cross over to full night.

Which one do you prefer?

NOTE: The feature image license is Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial.