TAOP - Outdoors at night.

Outline: Take a selection of photographs at night to explore the variety of lighting effects and colour in artificial light. Try to include the following:

• A flood-lit building
• A brightly lit store-front
• A large interior wth many people, such as a shopping centre
• A raised view looking along a busy road

I was really looking forward to this exercise however it took a while till I had the possibility to get out and complete it. I decided to head to Cardiff to take the pictures, with it being one of the nearest cities and would have a lot more potential than the town I live in.

First off, I headed to Penarth. I thought that the viewpoint to overlook Cardiff Bay when it is all lit up at night would make a great photograph:



F13 30" ISO 200 WB Auto

I think this image came out really well. The colours of the light and the reflections on the water really stand out against the colour of the sky. I have cropped the original image into a panoramic mainly because the original image has an area of housing lit up in the foreground and I felt it took away from this area.




F13 30" ISO 200 WB Auto

 This is the scene along from the photograph above. You just attach this photograph the right side of the above image and that would be only half of the full view from this viewpoint. I have only cropped out the tops of trees from the foreground of this image and again the bright colours from the lights and water reflections are enhanced beautifully from the night sky.
The sky had a very 'red' tinge to it on this night and it was beautiful, even visible in some of the images from this exercise.




F13 30" ISO 200 WB Auto

While at Penarth, I thought I'd venture to the sea front and was delighted to see the pier all it up, complete with a boat. I think the reflections really make this picture. The green lighting from the building are more visible in the reflection than on the building itself.



F5.0 0"3 ISO 200 WB Auto




F5.0 0"4 ISO 200 WB Auto

After Penarth, I headed to the city centre of Cardiff to scout out floodlit buildings. The above two images are of Cardiff City Hall, taken at two different viewpoints. I think that both images do well to show the lighting effect from the floodlights and highlight the lighting and shadows brilliantly. 



F5.0 1/4 ISO 200 WB Auto

This building is Cardiff National Museum and is right next to the City Hall building. I photographed this building too to show that these floodlights have a slightly different effect to those on the City Hall building.


So for the store windows, I had an idea in my head that was to try and get shops that were in less built up areas. I know the idea of the exercise is to explore lighting at night but I didn't want to go to the middle of the city centre and photograph street after street with rows of shops, all lit up like christmas trees in streets with a tremendous amount of street lighting.
I wanted little shops, possibly in a more residential setting. Low street lighting, few people and so the focus and lighting is purely from the shop. And as luck has it, Cowbridge is just the setting. It is a beautiful place, with a drawn out high street which envelopes into a residential setting at either end.


F5.6 0"5 ISO 200 WB Auto

At one end of the high street in amongst the houses were the two shops shown above and below.  Low street lighting and few other shops really makes the lit up windows stand out. Although, the street lighting can be sensed in the images through the orange tint to the walls of the buildings.
I decreased the exposure by -2/3 to focus more on the windows by darkening the buildings.  The image above  works well. The angle of the interior lighting as well as the lighting itself provide a natural light inside the window and the items can be seen clearly.

F6.3 1"3 ISO 200 WB Auto

The lighting in the above window doesn't work as well as in the previous image. The lights are obviously brighter and even with a lower exposure setting, the inside still looked blown out slightly .

Given that it's mid August and to achieve these images in the dark, it was way past 9pm, it was not possible to take a photograph inside a shopping centre as they were all well and truly closed for the night.

But the final images were taken on an overpass over the M4 motorway.



F6.3 30" ISO 200 WB Auto

This is the very first image I took, of about 12! I lowered the exposure by -2/3 to make sure the road and central reservation were less visible. As I stated previously, the sky did look particularly fierce on this night and it looks spectacular in this image. As my first ever attempt at this effect, I was pretty proud of myself. I love the fact the 'high' brake lights from the lorries make a good appearance too.



F6.3 20" ISO 200 WB Auto

This image is where I altered the exposure to -1/3. The sky still looks brilliant and the difference in exposure doesn't really alter the image at all. 


F20 30" ISO 1600 WB Auto

Here, I altered the aperture to F20 and also change the ISO to 1600 to see if it would affect the image. The exposure setting is still -1/3 and there is an obvious change to the image. Almost all the other detail has been removed, leaving a slight outline of the skyline and the village lights in the distance but the sky as now very dark and all road markings and the central reservation have been made darker so that they are barely, if at all, visible. This has a positive affect on the lighting effect as the focus is completely on the lighting. I prefer the first image though, as I think the sky really adds to the image.  

Conclusion: Wow! I absolutely loved this exercise, especially the final part of the car lights with the slow shutter speed. I could've sat there for hours because every photograph is different, depending on if and when and what vehicles are driving past. Each light effect is different. Some of the images I took had red and yellow intermittent lines from the car indicators. What a fantastic effect!
Overall, even lighting at night can produce a brilliant photograph. The different colours, brightness and even reflections can realy add to an image and can make buildings appear in different shapes and sizes. Really makes to you see things in a different light! Heehee!