Memoir Of The Legends

Alfried Stieglitz Documentary

Ansel Adams Documentary

I haven't been making night images, but rather watching documentary about those well known classic artists, watching their documentary is like a brainstorming to me, I don't think I will be able to absorb all of them.

We all love to learn about photography techniques and rules, as it is important to know the technique in order to take things in control and work rapidly. But watching this kind of documentary is truly eye opening as we can study about their thought and approach on photography art throughout entire of their life.

Interestingly though, while both of them are not night photographers, they have taken impressive night photos that should be studied by night photographers.

Be warned, it's quite a lengthy documentary.

NP: Afterglow

This is not sunset afterglow, but rather light glowing after rain.

In order to put little softness touch to this contrasty scene that was created by existing street light, I just pushed little light with few seconds illumination on the shade, angle from camera right. That's enough to bring out the detail of this car while maintaining the sense of subtlety.

NP: The Dark Op

Totally has no idea what's processing behind the wall, hopefully not bomb making ... this area looks very alienated at night, the tungsten street light fills the shadow of the wall makes it even weird.

The overhead flyover looks to me like some sort of gigantic spaceship, very surreal.

NP: Line Me Up

We are drawn by line(whether we are conscious about it or not), we are.

All the rested container trucks are parked in very organized way, and the overhead flyover with very strong outline is dominating, it leads us to look into the frame. Interesting enough, it also leads us out of the frame(from background to foreground subject).

Not all images present very strong line to us obviously, when they do, it brings direct impact.

NP: The Evil Factory

Yes, size does matter! Often our brain will process in this order, bigger size subject means closer to us, smaller size subject means further away. So size and distance are very much related and it creates depth to viewer.

Foreground background stuffs again, using shipping container as foreground subject and that makes me curious about what's inside the container especially if it has the evil code, our background subject here is the factory tower, it is smoking hard enough to grab attention!

MNS: Ground Fire

For this image I'm focusing on - foreground, mid-ground and background. The mid-ground and background already has the depth I want, which is created by colour contrast(cold vs warm color). The foreground is just empty road, so I need to create something interesting to attract the viewer.

Hence the foreground is on fire, light painted with white colour EL-Wire, as I know I'm going to use Tungsten white balance for this image, the white colour will turn into blue. Why not use orange color EL-Wire? Because I don't want the warm, cold, warm colour mix to break the rhythm of this image.