Finally Out and About

Wonderful news. I have begun to go out and take those cityscape shots I talked about before. They say the first part is always the hardest, and that phrase is very true for a reason. It was hard to get  yourself to leave the comfort of your room to go outside, in the dark, and take pictures. Even so, I managed to drag my sorry behind out the door with a tripod and a camera. I had forgotten one thing however, and I didn’t really notice until it started raining. An umbrella…Vancouver is known for it’s rain and I neglected to bring an umbrella. Now wanting to keep my camera nice and dry (water wreaks havoc with electronics in case you didn’t know), I went back to my house (thankfully I had not gone far at the time) to go get an umbrella. This is where bad luck comes into play. As soon as I get that umbrella, I use it for about 5 minutes and the rain ceases to fall for the rest of the night. Great, just great; another object to carry around.

Ignoring my bad luck though, going out at night does give one time to think. Some thoughts make you feel smart, some thoughts just make you feel like a complete moron. Examples? A couple times I imagined what course of action to take should a couple of undead zombies step into my view. Those zombie movies just don’t help at all. Thankfully, I also had a few enlightening thoughts. I actually noticed the clouds in detail this once. I never realized how bright they were under a city. The amount of light us city dwellers  expel is astounding. It’s enough to clearly brighten up clouds that are so many kilometres up there.  Just being by yourself, you kind of notice quite a few things that you probably don’t notice before and wonder about a few things even more.

Walking by a car with its headlights and tail lights on, I wondered if the guy who left these lights on would be able to start his car in the morning. I wanted to let the owner know, but I didn’t know which house he/she was in. So much for a Good Samaritan =(. If you didn’t go for a walk or photo spree outside at night, you wouldn’t notice a number of events. You wouldn’t notice that the same guys who were out in front of their house during you’re grad night would be out there again the night you go pictures. You wouldn’t notice that the same 2 old aged couple go for a walk around the park every night at 11:15 PM or so. You wouldn’t notice that everything that you’re so used to in the day, would be just completely unrecognizable at night. So first, but not last, long exposure photo of the day:

This was just after I grabbed my umbrella. It was still raining at the time, but it soon stopped. The weather really does like to mess with you.

 

 

This shot was along the way to the park on a street corner. I really wanted to get some movement of the clouds in at least one shot. It kind of worked.

Yet again, along the way. Was pretty much on the road to get this one. Thankfully there are few cars in residential areas at night.

This was my last shot of the night, but there was a rather…interesting story about getting it. I was setting up composition and I felt something brush past my ear. I was literally scared out of my mind for a second there and looked around me for some explaination for the brushing. There wasn’t really any I could see. The hair on the back of my neck just stood on end with no end in sight, so I made up my mind to get one shot and just leave.

So here are my shots. I’m thinking of putting these through lightroom and trying out some effects. See what I get. Maybe I’ll post those up as well.

~ by thisbikeofmine on May 20, 2009.