A new menace has hit the streets of Greenville. Last night the Falls Park area was invaded by a roving gang of photographers. Two rival factions actually joined forces for this assault – the Exposure.Greenville! group on Flickr, and the Travelers Rest Photography Group.
I arrived at the appointed spot at River Place at 7:15, and spotted one other person with a camera bag and tripod already there. It was fairly easy to spot the gang members because each carried similar gear. There were a few I had met at other gatherings, but most were new to me. We had a group of over twenty the braved the cold to come out and take night time photos.
We roamed along the River Place/Falls Park area taking long exposure shots and just shooting the breeze in general. As we shot different things, we would compare exposure and f-stop settings, as well as discuss the best possible angles and lighting. One young photographer, Kimberly, was doing some neat things with zoomed images. I decided to try my hand at it and got some pretty good results. These images were created by zooming out the lens during a long exposure shot. The lights and any bright edges streak toward the middle of the shot. It’s an interesting effect, but one that could easily be overdone.
The streetlights tended to give all of the shots a greenish haze. However, the lights on the Liberty Bridge tended to wash it in blue. It was hard to predict what you would actually get, and I had to do a bit of post-processing with color curves, etc., to get a result I liked.
It was fun meeting all the new folks, and I was very impressed by some of the talent these guys have. For example, Ben Howard, who posts on Flickr as “stunnaben” has some amazing work. He didn’t have a camera but did bring some examples of his photography. He specializes in shooting automobiles, and has his work published in several magazines. Others there ranged from professional to semi-professional to hobbyists, like me.
The time went quickly. Our large group broke up with one segment heading to Mellow Mushroom for pizza and beer, and a few of us going to Starbucks for coffee.
Wow, Tom. Those last two particularly (the Coach Factory and the Bridge at the old RR crossing/dam) and really the falls shot as well, could make great prints. I like night colors anyway. Question is whether to print natural or do some color adjustments/saturation stuff in Photoshop.
Great work.
Ken C.
nice shots. I was ALMOST able to come out. I hope to be able to next time. I ended up shooting an engagment portrait for a couple. Originaly we were to do it at falls park at 5pm, but it was too cold so we moved it elsewhere. Sounds like a great time.