Amsterdam Nights

One thing that I really like is night scenes in various parts of Europe. One draw for me is the excitement of new places. When I see things for the first time, I react to them differently then I do when I’ve seen them a dozen times, or every day on the drive to and from work. For me, I find that things tend to get invisible when I see something on a daily basis. Unless I am there to shoot that subject for a client, they tend to become just part for the background blur of life. When its new and fresh, it commands attention and begs to be seen. Very hard to go unnoticed.

Another aspect of European night shots, is the amount of water than can be found in the cityscapes. Water always adds a dramatic element to a shot, and more so when its at night reflecting light. The shot above was taken while roaming around Amsterdam one evening looking for interesting scenes. I would have liked a dark blue sky, but it was pretty late when I took this shot. A deep blue background that also reflected off the water would have really made this shot outstanding in my opinion.

This doesn’t mean we don’t have out own night scapes here in Boston. Boston has lots of water around the city, and some great architecture to shoot. My daughter and I are venturing out one evening this week for night shooting. She has asked to me teach her some of the fine points around night shooting, then scoot off for diner or a comedy show, then some late night shots after. I’ll post another entry with the results from that evening.

This was shot with a Nikon F5, 24mm lens, on Fuji Velvia E6 slide film, standard processing, scanned and converted to JPG.

~ by sfaust on October 21, 2007.