Burmese Nightlife: Star Trails Through History

Shooting at night is always a challenge. First off, the low light means long exposures and additional equipment. (tripod, cable release, flashlight etc.) I've always enjoyed shooting in low light, showing motion and in general the technical challenges of creating images in the dark.

In addition to my photography addiction, I also have an "Indiana Jones" complex at times. Those two coupled together led me to Bagan in Myanmar (aka Burma) to photograph the 1100 year-old temples by moonlight. It just sounded like an interesting trip. The complete story of that adventure will come in a future post, but for now I'll share one of the simplest shots from that expedition.

The above shot is a 40 minute exposure of some of the temple ruins just outside the town of Nyaung Oo. Shooting in the dark is always an experiment. In most shooting situations I'm pretty confident in the camera meter's ability to determine a proper exposure. However, in a night scene like this with virtually no light, I'm confident that the camera's meter has no clue. So what do you do? Go manual, guess and take notes.

The Black Cat-Halloween edition

In the spirit of Halloween, here's a shot I put together using the Nikon CLS system. I'm really getting to love the possibilities.

First off, the cat is one of my favorite animals and "Eddie" this black persian is a fine specimen. (He's named for the rock guitar icon Eddie Van Halen)

I first imagined the shot one morning when I saw Eddie sitting illuminated by the streaming light coming through a window. His long black hair was glowing in a halo of fire.

More pics and the lighting setup below.

Mirrored Aviators

This is a fun shot for a lot of reasons. It's a simple recipe, if you can get the ingredients together:
-a beautiful woman.
-a white sand beach in the Caribbean.
-mirrored Aviator sunglasses.
-a little Photoshop masking.
Done.

Street Portraits-Fast and Simple

It’s never easy approaching complete strangers on the street, not for me anyway. I like to photograph people though and I’ve found that shooting with a long telephoto lens on the sly can yield interesting candid portraits, but it’s cowardly and some might say a little creepy. I think the word is paparazzi.

If you want to get nice intimate portraits of your fellow humans you just have to go up and ask. Cooperation is necesssary. But… You need to be prepared to get the shot you want. You have to have a strategy. I figure if you’re going to approach somebody and ask him or her for something you might as well get what you want.

I get prepared before the “approach”.

Tripod on a boat?

I always get a funny look when pull a tripod out on a moving boat. I understand. I mean, where can I set it up so my camera won’t move? Believe it or not, there are ways to use a tripod on a moving boat.

Angkor Wat and small flash.

Angkor Wat in Cambodia is one of my favorite places in the world. The 1100-year-old temples are the jungle ravaged remains of the mighty Khmer Empire. I have been lucky enough to visit Angkor more than two dozen times and it seems I always find something new.

This shot of the apsara relief in the central gallery of Angkor Wat is a good one to demonstrate the need for off-camera flash. It was early morning