I've had this one on my to-shoot list for a while now. (I can hear the gasps in the crowd....."really?")
Maybe I'm a sucker for the urban decay look. Or there's something that makes me happy about a grocery store that isn't decorated like a mountain lodge. Could even be my many college memories of shopping Winco when all the normal people were sleeping.
Anyway, out of ideas today, so I thought I'd try this. I noticed the interesting cart arrangement on the way home from work.
I think this shot would be interesting without the carts. This one is dying (no pun intended) for a smoker crouched in the corner of the frame.
Technical details: Manual metering because I wanted the easy (two-dial) control of shutter speed and aperture. This happened to work well with the center-weighted average metering -- though I bracketed the exposure, I ended up using the camera selected exposure. Used the 50mm lens because I wanted the brick to be sharp, and didn't want to deal with funky flare. Also it was the perfect focal length for me to be at the edge of the parking lot. Used f7.1 to take advantage of the lens sweet spot and to be sure I got the curb, carts, and wall in-focus. Forgot to check the WB setting so I shot it on Tungsten. No white card, though I should have put on in a test shot just as a reference. I played with WB in post-processing but I really wanted the sickly fluorescent lighting and not a corrected white. Can't remember what I used for the version I uploaded, but I had one WB set to tungsten (as shot) and one where I picked WB off the white advertisement on the cart. I used a tripod for this because of the long exposure and again because I wanted everything to be sharp.
I noticed the shadows from the cart while shooting (and liked 'em!) but didn't really think about it until Seth mentioned that the additional lights helped the overall exposure. I think the parking lot lights behind me gave the vents on the roof the perfect amount of light, and another light (yeah, like they need it!) on a door to the right gave the long shadows from the carts. In a way, I got lucky because I didn't have to use flashes to supplement the lighting. I did take advantage of the great dynamic range (of a GOOD exposure) to compress the range a bit during post-processing (curves/contrast). But at the same time, I think it's this combination of "perfect" lighting that drew me this, what some might call a boring subject.
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Don’t Wait for Inspiration
1 week ago
Jesse, this shot is gorgeous! I'm dying to know how you approach a shot like this, metering-wise. It seems far too easy to accidentally sacrifice either the block pattern, the rich color, or the well balanced shadows and highlights. For instance, it's really sweet how you preserved both the detail in the shadow as well as the fluorescent bulbs themselves (and not just a hot washout). I see you used some kind of tripod. Did you also match a white balance card? My first impulse was also to wonder if you set that shadow up with a hard flash, but I suspect that would have to have been a giant flash... More likely a parking lot lamp.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the inspiration!
Love the urban decay description. I just think of that poor little cart on the right corner, so alone, wanting to join the crowd. It's saying, "Hey guys, I'm here, I swear! Please don't leave me behind." The others say, "Oh yeah! Well, you're the last, you were just used by them human-hand-things. Just used! We on the other hand, we've been pristine. In a line, a blessed line and we want to keep it that way..." Of course it's the last five carts that think this, but the first of the carts says, "Oh dear ones, don't you know that eventually we'll end up like that poor sucker. Be nice to him, why don't'cha. Geez. Little you forget you were just in his situation..."
ReplyDeleteI apologize if I rambled imaginations. See how good the picture is. It spoke 142 words, well 145, really!