Showered In Light

This morning at 0105. The city sleeps, but there are still a few lights on. Most of the office buildings have the lights turned off for the weekend. Of course the hotels and what not always have some lights on.

The weather is still incredibly mild here, especially for January. Most days this month the temp has been just above or below 0C. Wonderful weather,very strange.

This shot is one of a series that I took between midnight and 1am this morning. I was out earlier in the evening, but there were too many distractions, time wasters. 1 am on a Sunday night is an excellent time to wander around. The city that sleeps was at my feet. Of course there are still those that live, work , move and otherwise exist in the night.

These pictures are all part of my ongoing photography apprenticeship. There is a lot of learning in the repetition, both during the day and night. I especially enjoy being out at night with the camera and tripod. I have gotten over the little bit of self-consciousness that I had when first using the tripod. Which is good because the tripod is absolutely required for night shots with their 2 to 4 second exposures. To be honest the tripod should always be used. Even for the day shots it is obvious when the tripod has not been utilized. It is an essential tool. I find it all very interesting. I now understand why experienced photographers apoligise for neglecting to use one. My $35 Optex pod from Walmart will be replaced with a quality Manifrotto or something comparable with in the next week or two. The Optex will become the lousy weather spare.

Most of the time it is taking the same pic with a number of different settings related to shutter speed, aperture, and white balance. Usually shutter speed, sometimes aperture, and occasionally WB.

While taking some photos from the Carfrae bridge yesterday afternoon I was able to get some information on where some Great Blue Heron's live. Great Blues remain a challenge because of their very elusive nature. The thrill of seeing and photographing the heron in the river last May is still very fresh, and it drives home the point that I should be acquainted with the video capabilities of the camera, my new best friend and constant companion.

I was five days late in learning all of this! Had I learnt this a week earlier, I would have been able to get some shots of Willie P. Bennett at the London Music Club last Friday the 13th! C'est la vie! I will not be denied again. I'll wait for him to come through with The Fred Eaglesmith Band and get some of all of them then! It was a full house, of only a hundred in the audience ... good deal, great venue! I was able to get down there last Thursday night for the open jam and get about 90 shots of the performers. Most end up getting culled, but I e-mail at least two pics of every performer to the website guy, so they at least have a record of who gets up on stage.
It was pretty nice not to have to fuss with a flash. All they do is use up batteries and make you have to worry about non photo related stuff. Now I am able to set the pod up in one spot and take photos. Four performers asked that I send them pics, which I did. When I get requests like that, I take about 20 or 30 pics for them.
There is a wonderful social aspect to it all as well ,which makes it an even more worthwhile experience. I think some may think that I am the officially sanctioned LMC photographer, which I'm not. None the less Pete appreciates the photos for his purposes and I get to take photos at night even if the weather outside may not permit it. Win/win.

All the photos do tend to clutter up the Flickr account a bit, but culling that is a way of life anyway, so it isn't that inconvenient.

Today is election day today in Canada. Hopefully those insincere sycophants will be turfed from office. Enough about that.

The sun is starting to shine. It's a good day, I hope yours is too.

Rember to click on the image to see the larger version.