Initial shots

I have been experimenting with night photography in Bath. These shots are a small edited selection of hundereds that I took over 3 nights. I started of by taking photos of general things in Bath that captured my imagination/that I thought would make an interesting composition. Then I narrowed down my subject matter and started taking photos that were directly relevent to the Ipad app and what I want to explore.

This photo was taken in Victoria park in Bath at dusk. I quite like the sillouette of the trees against the sky and the misty feel to the background. It creates a sense of myseriousness and the branches of the trees create a sense of complexity.

This was an experiment with bukah. It was taken at one of the highest points in bath that overlooks the whole of Bath city. I set the appeture at F2.8 and focused so that the background was heavily out of focus. I used a low ISO, around 200 so that I had a clean image that had minimal grain. The shot time was around 15 seconds as the lighting was low. The result is a great image that is high in contrast and visually interesting and dynamic. The colours are intense. The photo is very cleche and this is a technique in photography that has been heavily overdone, but I quite like this photo. It is crying out for some simple white type. It would look great as a banner for a header of the Ipad app. 

This is a photo of Bath Abbey. At the moment, I am just capturing aspects of Bath that I think are beautiful. I will contextualise them later. This photo was taken using a tripod with a wide appeture and a long exposure of around 5 seconds. I really like the lighting of the abbey. The photo utalises the lighting that occurs from the lights placed underneath the Abbey to illuminate it at night. With this long exposure shot it has created a very powerful light source. I particularly like the movement that I have captured in the two people walking on the bottom left corner of the image. I think it gives the composition a little bit of dynamism. The Abbey is the most powerful aspect of the composition with a dominating presence. 

I am trying here to capture people in the photos. I want to show that Bath is not dead at night and has a busy night life. Also, I am starting to notice that this yellow hue to the lighting is consistant throughout Bath at night and I think that I should embrace it. 

This photo is not great, but I have included it because I am starting to think about how to capture the different aspects of Bath at night that I want to show. Naturally, some places such as large chain restaurants will not let me take photography inside. This is a solution to this. I could take photos of the menus and signs that are outside in interesting ways. 

I think that this image is rather strong. Bikes are important in Bath, many people use them as a form of transport. But I also want to highlight the danger of leaving a bike in the lock ups overnight. Often I have seen bikes that have been damaged and wheels stolen after being unattended overnight. I want to highlight that Bath, although being a very safe place to live, still has problems with youths and criminals. It is very easy to get extremely complacent in Bath. 

It was this photo that has inspired me to think about the potential of low shot levels. It creates particularly interesting shot compositions. I like the way that the ground creates a smooth surface when it is out of focus, drawing your eye upwards through the composition and to the nando's signs and restaurant.