Urban Landscape (write up)

I was quite excited for the week topic of “urban landscape” as I had in my mind exactly what I wanted. I’m currently living in the centre of Leeds, which inevitably gives you a brilliant view of the city if you’re lucky – which I am. Living on the 13th floor of my halls, I had the ultimate advantage for this project to begin with as the view is utterly astounding whether it’s day or night. Without balconies, I had to shoot through the window of my flat, which created some mild issues of light reflections from lights within the room. However, it’s easily solved. As I was shooting within my bedroom, the risks and precautions involved were very minimal so I had quite an easy point and shoot routine. As the building is one of the highest surrounding the area, it was absolutely ideal for the panoramic images. I used my own tripod on each windowsill of my room and my 2 other flat mates room, which are spaced out over the flat facing the city, with obvious permission from them to take the shots from their rooms. As I didn’t have a pano-head, I had to be very careful with positioning and composition. I took a couple of photos from each room to create a city nightlife-esque panoramic image, stitching the photos on Photoshop afterwards.

To add to the set, I took some photos on Bonfire night, again from my bedroom. Obviously with taking photos of fireworks, a high shutter speed is ideal – however, playing with lower shutter speeds can also be effective. A slow shutter speed with fireworks will create a blurred image, almost like shooting water. I kept the aperture fairly high to keep all the landscape in focus, along with the fireworks. I used an ISO of around 400 too so the photos weren’t over exposed. The shutter speeds range from roughly 1/8 – 1/30.
I was really happy with the outcome of the photographs. A couple of images in particular stand out from the set – a burst of small, bright fireworks to the left of the photograph is the main attraction. However, looking closer you can see the subtle lights from buildings from all over the city, which give the impression of stars surrounding the city centre. Overall, I had great fun playing with the shutter settings and would love to try more techniques within the area of motion.