Playing with Light

Can I start with a disclaimer? If I begin weird and end meh, please forgive me.

This will be my jab at responding to a prompt from @JonicaBradley 's week theme: Darkness. I got tagged by @deedum in her very brave recent writeup.

We have always associated darkness with a lot of sadness and pain. I am not going to deny that when it is sunny, the mood is far lighter and cheerful compared to when the dark clouds start flying in and they change the mood to gloomy, sad and frightful. I think I started thinking of darkness differently when I started wanting to capture light trails, star bursts and the Milky Way.

When I am bored, I go out and shoot. I chase the sunset and then linger longer to capture whatever the night brings to me. There are things you can shoot at night and there are things you can shoot in broad daylight.

Light trails and star bursts are easy to come up with. I only need the light posts, the moving traffic and just a little darkness. Easy in the city specially. The challenging one for me is getting the Milky Way.

One night in Bucas Grande while I was with my friends stargazing and playing crazy round of Truth or Truth (nope no one dares to dare), we were also toying with our cameras. Not one of us knows how to "shoot the stars properly” then. So we were trying our best to capture what our bare eyes can see. This is one limitation of technology that amazes me – the way our eyes see things near and far very clearly in one frame. Our eyes see a grand carpet of glittering stars above us, the camera registers white dots like dead pixels or specks of dust.

 Fast forward to another time that I stared up at the sky and my heart ached to capture what I see, I grabbed my camera again and with the same result – dots. I wondered out loud to my friend if there is a way to get good shots at the stars. And she showed me tons of pictures of the Milky Way on the internet and I thought those are impossible shots. Further quick searchers for how-tos gave instructions about the shutter speed, the aperture, and ISO. I tried but failed even. I downloaded an app that tells me where the milky way is at and what time it will be “visible” and that only helped in frustrating me more because now that I have the application, I know when the Milky Way is just above me BUT I cannot capture it.

 More reading and more YouTube videos and I started hearing and reading a term that I never understood at first. And because I tend to block off information that I think is “too much, too soon, too fast” I shrugged it off. I was concentrating on understanding three things they said I need to understand and master: ISO, Aperture and Shutter speed – the exposure triangle. 

 Then another friend told me I am crazy to think that I can capture the Milky Way in Manila. I thought that is absurd. He said it is not dark enough. And I was like it is nighttime how darker should it be? He said we have so much light pollution. Ah! Light pollution! Sounds familiar. It is one of the terms video tutorials were mentioning that I just keep on blocking off. I must be sure to be shooting where there is less light pollution and that certainly is not easy in the city.

You see, sometimes too much light ruins the picture. We need a mix of both. I needed the darkness to be able to let the camera gather just enough light to bring out the picture I want. The result is delightful - at least for me. Shoot dark. Shoot RAW. Play with it at post.

Besides, great pictures were developed in the darkroom. 

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darkness makes way to light?

or is the other way around more right?

When night gives way to day

Does it lose the tug of light they play?

Taken from: https://itravelight28.wordpress.com/2014/06/21/330/

 And another one  taken from: https://itravelight28.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/blend/

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What is your take on Darkness ? I am curious.. The rules are simple:

1. Write about darkness

2. Write 100% original content

3. Write at least 600 words

4. Tag me @JonicaBradley

5.    Have Fun!