|
 Wheels
of Confusion
It's the big wheel at Place de la
Concorde and completely dominates the Champs Elysées when looking in the
opposite direction to the Arc de Triomphe, which pales in comparison, in
fact.
It's quite a challenge to take it well. For a start there's the light.
It's night, which means less light over all. Next, you've got bright
bright light set against a jet black sky. Tricky. Then of course you
have to find your position, which in this case was a traffic island
thing in the middle of the road - be careful (repositioning only allowed
in a forward or backward direction please!).
Sharpness is a big issue/technical consideration here. If you have your
tripod, you're very organised and serious for a start and I respect you
for that! It's not me!!! And besides, a diamond-edged cristal sharp pic
can actually be very soulless - not generally my cup of tea - where am I
in there, I ask myself - that's for boring tourist postcards, not
creative photography...
I used two simple techniques here to try and make things more
interesting. Primero, I swung the camera around as I took the shot. I
focused on the wheel first. Segundo, I zoomed in and out as I took the
shot - the slow shutter speed took care of the rest.
Normally in these situations you have to take a LOT of shots. You throw
away about 25 and are very pleased with about two or three if you're
lucky. I was left with about three after my weeding out session, but
finally chose this one because I liked the fact that in this photo
alone, my camera movement had turned the lights into a flock strange
birds flapping out in all directions. And that certainly wasn't planned. |
