Driving downtown I was struck by the lights playing amongst the leaf-laden trees. Either they are early this year with the lights or the leaves are late falling off. In either case, I could hardly wait to see how my camera would record what I was seeing.
The settings…
To play it safe, a tripod would help keep the camera steady during a long exposure. The settings for this image were 1/25th of a second, f/3.5, ISO 3200 on the Sony a6000. The lens is the Sony 16-50 set at 16mm (24mm in 35mm terms), one of my favorite wide angle settings. This was made at 9:48PM.
Composition…
I expect that much of my composition is more automatic now; so let’s see what I may have done. First I took about 20 shots, Horizontal & Vertical, with traffic and without, with people and without. But the strength of that moment was the light, the quiet, the lamposts and the glow from the shops. If I captured that feel then I was successful.
Graphic elements…
I notice the Street and bottom edge of the frame and left lower edge of the frame make a kind of triangle. I think Triangles enhance an image. All the light is what was there – no flash. And it is dark enough outside to assure no light spots through the tree – an important thing.
Usually I like to include people; however, the fact that none are there almost makes it feel like we have the street all to ourselves. That’s a different feeling almost like having a secret. Hmmm.
