Myanmar Night Series

Exposure: Aperture F8|Shutter Speed 15s|ISO 200

I will be posting a series of night photos that I have made during Yangon, Myanmar trip, people may ask "Is it safe to go out alone at night in Yangon City?"

I don't have exact answer for you here, I went out during full moon nights, walking to different areas and making friends with the locals, then asked the permission before I take the photos, I just can't do ninja/sniper kind of shooting at night since I really want to take my time, and capture the night scenery in detail.

Thought process: This is the view from my hotel room, and the infamous Shwedagon Pagoda at the far end channels its light to illuminate the sky. Working with the limited space in the room, I tilted down my camera a little to include the frontal building blocks to create mode depth for the image.

More to come for Myanmar night series.

The Night Shape

Exposure: Aperture F3.5|Shutter Speed 1/4s|ISO 1600

At night where there's not much light, we recognize our surrounding by shape, this is not perfect image to speak, but it does show how shape helps us to recognize things.

Thought process: I don't have second thought on this, the cat was sitting on top of the wall, and I quickly used my torch to illuminate the cat from the left to form strong shadow, another hand picked up the camera and click, the cat moved around quickly after that. I don't get the correct exposure here but it does deliver what I have in my thought.

By the way my friend said it is a giant snail, I can only wish if the snail has tail if he is right ;)

Fishing Village: Loading Stage

Exposure: Aperture F11|Shutter Speed 30s|ISO 200

Another take of the same fishing village, I seemed to be making a come back to the same location for night photography these days, the revisiting always refreshes me to look at the same location in different perspective, in a new way.

Thought process: Shooting wide, with careful composition to cover both left and right end to complete the line in the frame. For the light painting part, I used green light to illuminate the fish boat loading stage on the left. and then cast warm white light to illuminate the whole scene from camera right at ground level.

Oh yeah, the cat is with me again ;)

Night Photography: Location Scouting

It has been raining at night since last week, so I choose to do location scouting in the morning. Normally I just look for location around me because I want to visit the same location frequently, otherwise it takes a lot of time to make long trip to somewhere far for night photography. My location scouting is simple, basically I just drive without destination, to look for endless opportunities out there and this time I'm rewarded with few locations for the night out.

First location is a scrapyard, I have actually noticed about this scrapyard before but never meet the owner, sometimes to shoot the location without concern, all we need to do is socializing, lucky enough I get to talk to the owner and I'm welcome to shoot the scrapyard anytime in future, thank you.

Scrapyard

Scrapyard

Second location is rock mountains, I need to shoot this location soonest as some of the rock mountains have been destroyed and housing development is in progress. The landscape will change soon.

Rock Mountain

Third location consists of few trees, but they all look like growing some hair, shooting them at night will be interesting.

Hairy Trees

Forth location is forest mountain, I don't think this location will be preserved for long as well since some rough paths have been built up here.

Forest Mountain

With more locations available, I need to arrange my time properly for night photography, foresee myself to revisit them at night especially the scrapyard.

Night Watcher

Exposure: Aperture F16|Shutter Speed 15s|ISO 200

Who is watching your back at night?

Thought process: Moonset period, waiting for it to get into the black box(it's a truck actually) so that I can frame it exactly match to what I have in mind, and finally when the timing is right, light painting at the back of this black box from the bottom up to create more dimensional image.

Machine Addict

Exposure: Aperture F8|Shutter Speed 30s|ISO 100

I'm always obsessed with machines/robotics, not too sure if it is side effect of watching too much sci-fi movies during my childhood.

Thought process: To create depth in the image, angle, relative size, distance, contrast and shadow are all important factors. This image is taken during full moon, together with lighting painting using Quark RGB flashlight on camera left.                                                 

Full Moonset: Subtlety

Exposure: Aperture F16|Shutter Speed 8s|ISO 100

Full moon is always the favorite time for night photographer because the moon will be the best light source out there. The moon will rise in the east and set in the west so we can basically track the moon trail. The coming full moon(March 7th) will be decent time to go out for night photography as there's possibility to see moonset at horizon before sunrise.

Thought process: It's all about subtle reflection for me in this image, the moon will set at 9am morning so there's no way to see it at horizon, I have low tide here with the mud land(no sea water here otherwise you will see silky and smooth surface in long exposures), the moon light illuminated the mud land, and it was actually reflected in the only small pool of water in this mud land. We all love to have depth in the image by taking interesting subject in the foreground, and I really have subtle one this time.