After I enjoyed the night photography workshop run by London Photographic, I thought it would be fun to try the cinematic photo workshop. In this workshop, we focused on finding pockets of light at night in the South Bank area near Waterloo Station and Royal Festival Hall.
I really enjoyed this workshop as it allowed me to take photos of a style which I enjoy, namely black and white with a single subject in a defined light source. For the workshop, I was using my Viltrox 25mm set at f1.7. I used aperture priority mode and sometimes used Centre weighted metering. Often I used manual focus also to refine the final focus as my A6000 seemed to struggle sometimes finding focus I wanted. I tried to expose for the light pockets rather than everything else.
I took some colour photos which I also liked. The one below I took by accident, I found this pocket of light was easier to capture from a higher point like stairs which were nearby. This one is a nice example of main subject (girl) and supporting subject (the father)
The next photo I took at the food market being Royal Festival Hall. Here I found some stairs, from under the stairs I was able to get a picture of this man doing some washing up at his food stall. The stairs formed a border around the light.
This next photo was taken from the upper platform/raised part next to Royal Festival Hall. Here I waited a little bit for different people to walk into the light under the bridge. This was my favourite picture of a man pushing some gas canisters. I cropped photo slightly to make the positioning of the man in the center.
The next one invoked a lot of waiting around, I liked that the light on the walls made a cones of light. We learnt that it’s good to capture people in mid walk as it makes the picture more interesting.
This next one is not one of my favourites but I do like that it captures a man with his cup of coffee on a cold day.
The next one of the man looking at his phone took a bit of prep, I had to wait for a bit and put my camera on burst most. The funny thing is that to the right, there is a big construction wall which is not in this picture. I really liked that the lights in the office was well defined, for me it adds a bit of a background.
The last photo is probably my favourite, there was this nicely lit statue on the South Bank, I was standing there waiting for a few minutes when I heard some running feet and thought this is the moment to take a nice picture. I like that the child looks tiny compared to the statue and there is almost a stand off going on.
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