STREET LIFE
Venture out after dark to explore vibrant nightlife and push your street photography to the limit
THE FEELING of exploring a new city and capturing the day-to-day moments and hustle and bustle on camera is hard to beat. I found myself going out to take photos after dark when night markets open and the cities come to life. It’s a good idea to go out with a friend, not only for your own safety but also because it can be more enjoyable!
Look for those unique experiences that make extraordinary photos and use reflections and artificial lighting to add contrast to street scenes. Many modern digital cameras offer excellent stabilization and can record brilliant image quality at high ISO values, which makes night street shots like these easier than ever.
ADD MOTION
Slowing down your shutter speed is a great way to add some dramatic motion to your city scenes. Moving cars, trams and trains in cities can be turned into a fantastic blur. Stabilization can be good enough in modern cameras to shoot scenes like this handheld, but if in doubt, set up on a tripod, then slow your shutter speed down to between 1-5 secs.
Panning is where you track and follow a moving subject, such as this tuk-tuk, and use a slow shutter speed so that the moving object is sharp but the background is creatively blurred. Use Shutter Priority (Tv on the mode dial) and start with a shutter speed of around 1/50 sec. Take a test shot and tweak the shutter speed if needed.
PRO SHOT
I’d seen a few motorcyclists riding down this narrow alleyway, so I framed up and waited for another one to come along. Shooting at night, I boosted the ISO, opened my aperture wide and used image stabiliza
