MNS: Infamous Shwedagon Pagoda

Exposure: Aperture F16|Shutter Speed 25s|ISO100

Shwedagon Pagoda is one of the most sacred Pagoda in Myanmar. More information can be found in the wikipedia regarding it. Most of the time I avoid tourist attraction when taking photos at night unless I can find new perspective to present it.

Thought process: Staying in Yangon City, you will certainly see the Shwedagon Pagoda, and I have been seeing many images of the Pagoda, be it in real life, in post cards or drawings. I keep looking for new perspective to create fresh image for Shwedagon Pagoda until I found the location shown in the image above.

The big red triangle gate is not the entrance to Shwedagon Pagoda, in fact it is the gate of decommissioned army base, Shwedagon Pagoda however is located at the other end, what attracted my eyes to create image like this is the shape of the gate and Shwedagon Pagoda(they both have triangle shape), when the gate and Pagoda aligned properly in the image, it does bring our eyes directly into the Shwedagon Pagoda even though it is very small in the image, then I control the exposure properly so that the golden glow on Shwedagon Pagoda doesn't overexpose until detail is gone.

About the light steak, it requires timing and luck, there are traffic lights nearby so basically I just made rough calculation on timing to get where I want the light steak to show in the image, it requires couple of tries because you may get caught into something in 25 seconds time.

NPT: Auto-Focus At Night?

I would like to introduce new section for my blog, it's called Night Photography Trick(NPT).

One of the common challenge that must be encountered by most night photographers is to get subject in focus, shooting at low light condition is not simple as auto-focus won't work most of the time due to lack of contrast in the scene. Getting bright len may help a little but not much, seriously.

Manual focus and Hyperfocal distance are the best friends for night photographer. Night photographer usually relies on them to get subject in focus.

Two widely used techniques are -

1. To get manual focus working, night photographer will illuminate the subject temporarily with torch/flash light(just like using  modeling light), then tune the focus ring until subject in focus. Otherwise switch on auto-focus and get camera to focus quickly if there's enough contrast, then switch back to manual focus once the subject in focus. Using this technique has advantage because you don't have to re-focus again in case want to re-take.

2. Hyperfocal distance is way simpler to operate, just tune the focus ring to infinity, as long as you have your subject in effective focus range/field, you are all good.

The first technique has shortcoming, especially the subject you want to focus is quite far from the camera position and you can't throw enough light on them easily, and this technique is more practical when you have accompany(since you can't move away from your camera when focusing so getting someone to help is a must), second technique is good to get subject in focus, but it also brings greater depth of field and you can't get close distance subject in focus easily(need to do some calculation), you may want to avoid this technique as well when you are shooting below F5.6 aperture setting.

 I have experimented with new technique to get subject in focus at night, one of the problem I want to solve during focusing at night is to focus anywhere I want in the viewfinder, and to get subject in focus as quickly as possible. I normally out for shooting alone at night, and this technique works very well even if you don't have accompany.

The key to this technique is make use of laser pen(laser pointer), I get green laser pen because it works very well in low light condition, read the link here and you will get what I mean. With green laser pen, I can point to the main subject and get my camera auto-focus easily, once the main subject in focus I can quickly switch to manual focus mode to lock down the focus. It also allows me to work quickly when I just want to move my camera slightly for better composition, I can re-focus by pointing the laser to the subject again. Do you want to focus on mid-range subject, no longer you have hard time doing so. The only catch with using laser pen is you must be careful not to point to someone which may cause eye damage.

Grab a green laser pen, it's so small and portable, and experiment with the technique I'm sharing here, then tell me about your experience, the laser pen has become my best friend for the night out for a while now.

MNS: We Are Colourful

Exposure: Aperture F11|Shutter Speed 20s|ISO 100

In Myanmar, it's quite easy to see old-school car, I always think that old car has better design in term of outlook compares to new one, maybe it's just me. There are many hawker stalls painted with vivid colour can be found in Yangon, Myanmar as well. 

Thought process: Colourful car, colourful stalls, and extreme orangish background, there's fluorescent light on the camera right(45 degree). I really like the color contrast setting here, but I want to add some light so they have little bit of cartoon look; snooted blue light on the car head lights and generate specular green light to the bumper of the car to show its iron teeth.

Most of the time we will try to separate the foreground and background subject using low aperture number(below F8) to blur the background so they get less attention, but for this one, it's the RGB color!

MNS: Painting The Rusty Beauty

Image 01. Exposure: Aperture F16|Shutter Speed 74.5s|ISO 100

Image 02. Exposure: Aperture F9|Shutter Speed 30s|ISO 100

For this post I will go straight to thought process since the location is introduced in previous post. This location basically opens up a lot of opportunities for night photographer to try out stuffs.

Thought process: There are times when I want to be playful with light so the image comes out interesting and dramatic, there are also times I want added light to look real.

When I want the subject to look real, I usually fill neutral/warm white colour(high colour rendering index(CRI)) light to the subject, especially to bring out shadow detail. If I want them to look surreal, I will blend different colour of light into the scene.

This time I want to add different colour of light while making them look real and believable as if no light has been added. I'm still experimenting and hope to improve over time. Two important keys here, one is looking at the ambient light around so that you can plan on how to blend your light into the scene, second is examine the surface and its colour you plan to paint the light on. For me I want to create the image that brings the feel of rustiness here.

Image 01. 75 seconds exposure, just enough time to paint the light, I painted two portions in the image, one on the camera right, I filled the shadow with red colour light, it plays well with the background because you can see few stripes of red colour light at the back wall which illuminated by the existing light. The second portion is actually done inside the car, where I actually ran into and illuminated the wind-shield with green colour light, why green light, apparently the wind-shield has growing moss and I want them to be seen.

Image 02. Only one green colour light is added at the open door of  the second truck which is just beside the main truck, I hid behind the main truck and illuminated the open door, I tried to narrow the light as much as possible to bring out the detail even though it looked subtle.

Post processing wise, no image stacking here, just tried out couple of times to get the result, and slight contrast adjustment in lightroom.

More experiment to come, stay tuned.

MNS: Yangon Twins

Exposure: Aperture F9|Shutter Speed 30s|ISO 100

I have visited Myanmar couple of times, way before I started night photography journey. After gotten into night photography, I realize how much night needs attention than the day in order to photograph them.

In fact this should be posted first in my Myanmar Night Series(MNS) so I'm doing a flashback here.

First night discovery of Myanmar, Yangon, it was full moon night, I picked up my camera gears and took the taxi to China Town, after that walked alone without direction in mind but to discover what is around. It sounds adventurous because you don't plan it, and never know what you are going to encounter.

Everywhere is quite dark at night, because there are quite a distance between each street light or no street light at all. Walking in the dark is challenging especially in the location you are not familiar with.

Walking out of China Town into small village, where a lot of locals are living. I found that it is a gem for street photographer, really. Not only you can see but feel the living of people here.

Keep walking and suddenly, something hits me, not stick but the scene(as shown in the image above). I didn't rush into the location, just walked slowly to meet the people and asked permission to take photos. I felt grateful to get a "YES" from them(thank you Justin, one of the locals who can speak good English), but they were curious why I want to take photos at night. So the night is not alone, people who live here came out to see how I make the night photos, children were having fun by chasing each others and playing, it ended up becoming some sort of night activity for them as well. As this is the first time visit, and to respect their will since they usually sleep early, I finished my shooting at 11:15pm.

Thought process: For this image, what strikes me here are two identical trucks, and two identical houses, with the weird sky line which I have never seen before, it is so contrasty and surreal. There are two main light sources, the front street light, and full moon light, no light painting applied here, hopefully I able to capture the sense of place here. For a little bit of history, this location survives strong cyclone before, the houses around are in diagonal shape.

On the other hand, along with another 49 images, this image is selected to be showed in Night Light exhibition organized by Darkroom Gallery. I also plan to go back to the same location again, the people there become my friends now.

MNS: Kandawgyi Lake In Black & White

Image 01. Exposure: Aperture F8|Shutter Speed 30s|ISO 160

Image 02. Exposure: Aperture F8|Shutter Speed 1/4s|ISO 800

Image 03. Exposure: Aperture F8|Shutter Speed 1/5s|ISO 400

I hardly make any B&W image, it is just not my thing.

To gain more knowledge about this genre, I did spend sometime finish reading few books about B&W photography, and learned some cool techniques but become forgetful as I hardly practice it that much. Few keys for good B&W photos are looking for/pre-visualize -

- Shape & Form
- Texture & Pattern
- Contrast
- Tonal Range

So why B&W this time? It comes down to the visit of Kandawgyi Lake at night. Today Kandawgyi Lake becomes famous leisure park and there are a lot of people visiting the lake, especially family and lovers, however the most interesting aspect of this lake to me is "you see a lot of hard light and strong shadow almost everywhere".

Thought process: Kandawgyi Lake seems to be a good playground for B&W photography, my friend has accompanied me to the lake since he want to see how I capture night photos. I spent sometime sharing my experience and showing some spontaneous light painting to my friend, after that I focused on hunting strong shape and shadow that reflect the objects I was capturing.

Post-processing wise, I'm gearing towards neo-noir style.

MNS: Waiting For Nothing

Exposure: Aperture F8|Shutter Speed 10s|ISO 200

Shooting this is fun, most of Myanmar people never shy away from my camera, to be honest I don't know what are they waiting for, neither do they talk to each other as well.

Thought process: I compose carefully on this one, position the camera to include the path in the frame, white balance is set to sunlight to retain the sense of place because it is hot night. What I don't expect is the 3 musketeers at the other side stays still for like 10 seconds, as if they are really posing for me ;)