24 October 2016

The afterglow

Sunsets: I have shot at least a couple of thousands. And I never tire of them.
From my very early days doing the mistake to just wait for the sun to come close to the horizon and then point in its direction before it disappears. If I was smart enough, I would have at least a subject in between so I could end up with a silhouette, of dubious quality.
As film could not hold the high contrast too well I then tried to wait for a softer light, post sunset, if my subject was back-lit. Suddenly the colors will start to show up in my slides, way more pronounced that my eyes could see. Little I knew that our eyes adapt to the changing light temperature and what might have looked "normal" with my eyes, film would record as very warm tones as the whole landscape was lit by candlelight.

Broken fence sunset_d_c
adapted C-mount Navitar 75mm f1.3 @ f2    1/25sec

With digital photography things change a bit: one can adjust the color setting and the sensor can capture way more details in the shadows than any film ever could. But the soft light remains the same.
I wait, knowing that the real show will happen when people are gone :-)


* and thanks to technology I was able to create this image that otherwise would have been totally blurred in my film days: 1/25sec on a 150mm lens!

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