Tonight I thought I’d post another one of my park at sunset pictures. This image was taken just after the sun had gone down over the trees, it hadn’t completely set yet as you can still see the orange glow in the distance, but the lights in the park had just come on.
As there was no direct sunlight it was a little darker in the park so I put the camera on a tripod and shot the image with a long exposure. This was a really pretty scene, there were trees to my right leading down the path and the path was covered with fallen leaves. The lights along the path also added to the ambiance providing a line of lights off into the distance.
At this end of the park, nearly every light had a couple of flags attached. I really wanted one of these sets in the foreground to provide some near interest but had to take lots of shots as the flags kept blowing in the breeze and showed motion blur with the long exposure. Then of course I’d get a good image and found someone had walked into shot! Very frustrating. But eventually I got the image I wanted.
For the composition I wanted the entire flag in the foreground in the frame and some of the leaves visible on the floor. I also wanted the path to wind from center round to the left, this is kind of a leading line, so called as it leads the eye. Hopefully you look at the image and follow the path around the bend and are left wondering where it goes. Ideally there’s some payoff at the end of the a leading line, something the line takes you to, but the park didn’t really have anything.
The lights around the path threw a nice orange glow into the trees and the blue sky above the setting sun added a nice color to the image. Ideally the nearest lamp would have been in line with the sun (that would have been cool) but the sun actually set off to the right hand corner. So quite a lot happening in this image, and I’m really pleased with the end result.
When I started photography a few years ago I’d occasionally get some really nice pictures. In hindsight this was more down to luck than anything else. I didn’t consider the composition as I took the shot. I didn’t look in each corner to make sure there were no distractions and what I wanted in frame was there. I guess I was so excited about getting the subject in I didn’t look at what else was going on. So I got some nice pictures but a lot of bad ones too. These days I take a lot longer composing the image, making sure I think through what I’m trying to capture. The result is a much higher percentage of nice pictures. Today’s image is a great example, I walked through everything I have written above in the view finder before I pressed the shutter.
Tonight Master Chief was showing Carter his new winter hat. Apparently it’s very warm, but visibility is pretty poor.
