Saturday night was the monthly night shoot with Illuminate Workshops meetup group. Soon after leaving the house, we got a massive rain storm that deposited 2 inches of water. Having parked at Highlands, I waited for some 40 minutes before the rain slowed enough to head across the highway to the meeting location. After meeting other photographers over a coffee and chat, we headed out to start making images. The rain had stopped by this time.
The final location for the shoot was the skateboard park, just before the lights went out at 11pm. One skateboarder made repeated jumps to mount the rail. Eventually he completed the jumps. During his repeated attempts, I made several images that were later composited into one image. This was my first such attempt in Photoshop.
Skateboarder Composite
The night shoot began at Highlands Bridge. I started the evening by shooting with the Fuji X-E1, capturing this image of “National Velvet”. This was the first time that I used the X-E1 for a night shoot and was extremely pleased with the results.
National Velvet
The night sky was a deep blue, that created a great backdrop for the white bridge steelwork.
Highlands Bridge Steelwork Against Night Sky
We made our way to the Little Man Ice Cream, where lines of people were waiting in line.
Little Man Ice Cream
Here is one couple placing their order.
Ordering Ice Cream
Outside on the sidewalk, several bicycles had been parked during the rain storm. After the rain stopped, water drops were left behind, hanging from the handlebars.
Water Drops On Handlebars
Making our way to the skateboard park, we passed a condemned building. Here we spent an hour making images of the beautiful brickwork in the alley. Huge puddles of water made for some great reflections.
Building And Reflection, No 2
Finally, we got to the skateboard park. There were a lot of shapes and curves in the park. Walking around, I found one very interesting set of curves. When converted from color to monochrome, this created stunning graphic images of drab concrete.
Skateboard Park Curves
After this I made several images that resulted in the composite image at the start of this post.