Bending light
When first visiting Los Angeles in March of 2013, on a "do I want to move to Los Angeles trip?", my good friend, Kelly, took me to an LA staple, the Urban Light installation outside of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The piece designed by, artist, Chris Burden, always catches the eye of tourists and locals alike. Ever since 2013, I'm amazed by it, and find a moment or two to visit from time to time. On this night, it was a must, as I recently purchased a Rokinon FE8M-N 8mm F3.5 Fisheye and kept thinking of places to try it out. Urban Light was first on the list. I started with a few standard angles, looking from the outside and then of course getting in there and looking up:
and then instinct took over...
Similar to my nights in London and Paris, I was photographing this night scene and enjoying it but then I stopped and realized I had a fun opportunity to create some long exposure shots. Time to make those lights streak...
Ages ago, when I first studied wedding photography I noticed a really cool thing some photographers would do for reception photography. The interior of the reception space would be relatively dark, but of course there are always lights somewhere, and what the photographer would do is frame a photograph of some action and...spin the camera...while pressing the shutter. What that would do is keep the subject of the image in good focus because of the flash, but then the ambient light of the room, from a sconce or candle or anything, would look like it was swirling. [See an example or two here]
With that in mind, I saw the opportunity to swirl a little with Urban Light. I just played, creating a ton of swirl patterns and eventually some other streaks an shapes. Hope you enjoy:
Also see...
