Day 6: Reflections

Day 6 is all about finding surfaces or objects with a high specular value to compose your shot. This ranges from water to a polished car, to shiny stone or anything that reflects light.

I opted in for the first and decided to go with the “safer” option. The canal by my home was going to be a great place to creatively accomplish my task.

And here’s my second cheat on this challenge. When I first read today’s challenge I knew exactly what I wanted to capture and the exact time I needed to be on location. The only problem was that I needed to be clear skies and the weather forecast was not on my side.

So I took this shot on day 5 instead, since it looked like it was going to be the only relatively sunny day for the next couple of weeks.

To get this, I had to rush to Regent’s Canal well before sunset to ensure I get a few shots during golden hour. I also had to determine the right spot and angle to set up my camera.

Rushing did not help though as I forgot an important accessory for sunset and nighttime photography. My tripod…

I didn’t have time to go home to pick it up, so I had to improvise. I decided that the best way to bring up the colors I wanted would be to expose my photos focusing on the sky, where light is stronger, in order to keep my shutter speed high to reduce camera shakiness.

This way, I introduced a lot of shadows that I was then able to fix in post. I also kept contrast to a minimum to ensure that the colors on the sky wouldn’t disappear entirely.

Looking back I had to use a number of techniques I learned in earlier days. The end result could have been better, but I’m happy I was able to improvise to compose a nice picture and still bring out the colors I wanted.

I kind of started enjoying this challenge now!