
This is a photo from the beautiful French town of Annecy where I was lucky enough to be able to spend a few hours with my tripod taking some photos of the place at night.
It had been raining all day as you can see from the wet pavement but I think this made the photos even more interesting.....shiny pavements at night can be very photogenic!
Like what you see here and are interested in photographic composition?.....the blog section of my website now has a complete set of 5 articles covering my personal approach to the subject: Ian Bramham Photography - Blog
For purchasing high quality archival prints of any of these photos you can send me an email by clicking here or by going to my website Ian Bramham - Fine Art Photography where prices are listed in the gallery sections under each individual photo.
@alun lambert: Thanks very much Alun!
@Ana Lúcia: Thanks Ana!....I think that wet pavements always make for more interesting urban photos at night.
@Ron: Hi Ron,
To answer your question, I don't think I do anything special. This Sigma 10-20 lens however is really special and when I put it on my camera I see photo opportunities and compositions that I don't with my other lenses. It has very good contrast compared to my other lenses and I think that's part of it as well as the super wide angle obviously.
In post-processing I use a digitiser tablet instead of a mouse and do a fair bit of selective dodging and burning.....sometimes to accentuate a feature of the photo and sometimes to tone things down.
On this one I accentuated the shiny pavement from the foreground to the doorway by boosting contrast just on the pavement area.
When I first started taking photos with this new Nikon D40 in November '07 I was lucky enough to meet on-line at DPReview a very talented photographer and graphic artist called John Leech ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/leechypics ) who gave me some great tips about post-processing.
He encouraged me to make a statement with my photos and to use them to express my feelings......that's the goal that I set myself these days. I'm lucky, like most of us on this site, to be an amateur so I'm taking photos for myself and no-one else. If others like my photos that's very pleasing and flattering but ultimately it's for my own pleasure and fulfillment that I take them.
NIKON D40
8 seconds
F/11.0
ISO 200
15 mm (35mm equiv.)