Let There Be Light

For the first time I find myself in Saint John, New Brunswick. Almost at the far right edge of Canada. As is typically the case on these trips I have little opportunity to get out and about so I’ll take what I can get. And what I got was the ubiquitous Atlantic lighthouse.

My walk was late afternoon so light was merely ‘meh. And the industrial port nature of Saint John Harbour meant for cluttered backgrounds from my vantage point. So when all else fails go for negative space! Just a peak at the lighthouse having waited for the bulb to swing my way.

Simple, minimal, and turns out I like it more than expected. This dude seemed to appreciate it as well:

And befitting the scene, also to complement the textures of grime on the seawall, I had to take a run at a black and white conversion:

Bricks & Stones

Also in the neighborhood was some nice grit and texture courtesy of hard late afternoon shadows and stone. These always make for good black and white candidates; you can punish the file a bit more and get away with it and just focus on the graphic and textural elements.

There are lots of ups and downs in Saint John. I thought this would probably not be the place to go hogwild at the pub…

Which of course leads me to the ubiquitous pub scene. An awesome staple of Saint John, St. John’s, Halifax and apparently most places in the Maritimes. God bless ’em.

There seems to be an affinity for the color of blue in this city…

Blue Hour

The desk in my hotel is adjacent to the window, which is fortunately overlooking Saint John Harbour. A quick glance between e-mails told me it was time to pack up and head down to the dock. Light was falling and the sky was getting more and more blue. Across the way is shipping/loading dock that accommodates the massive freighters that come through. What I still find comical about the Nikon D800 is that this 3:1 aspect ratio crop from the full frame image still weighs in at 18MP. A massive file with massive potential for embiggening. Almost a waste of time to stack shots for panoramas now.

You gotta love blue hour. Particularly when set against the warm glow of the lights. I wanted to drive that further so went vertical and isolated just the main section of the dock and the trails of the light reflections. Ideally I would have had a 3-stop neutral density filter to slow the shutter and smooth the water even further but I packed “light”. Alternative is f/16. Not ideal for image sharpness, but drops the shutter down enough to smooth the water and has the added benefit of creating diffraction stars from the lights. Would have liked an even longer exposure for truly milky water but you takes what you gets.