Category: Monochrome

Black & white pictures

Two’s Company, Three’s A Crowd

Two's Company, Three's A Crowd
Despite the recent worries about bird flu, lots of people were seen feeding the ducks at the Botanical Gardens. Whereas it was duck (feeding) season for them, it was duck (photography) season for us! 😛 But getting them in nice and interesting compositions wasn’t that easy. You need a super-zoom / telephoto lens to get real close, and the closer you get, the more difficult it gets to frame and squeeze off the shot at the correct moment. Given the 200mm reach of my 70-200mm f/4L, I couldn’t get that close too. In the end, I decided to spot for interesting arrangements within the brood of ducks. By the time I took this, the sun was almost overhead. I decided on a silhouette approach for a change instead. I was lucky to capture this particular picture where the ducks (and their reflections) were just nicely seperated and arranged. I have added a sepia / b&w tone effect to the original shot (which was almost monochromatic to start with anyway!).

Walk, Stand And Sit

Walk, Stand And Sit
Another shot taken during Christmas Eve…

Long-exposure shots of crowds of people are one my of favourites because of the unpredictable nature of taking them. Some element of luck has to be present to catch an interesting shot. The above was taken at the steps leading up to Marina Square from the Esplanade Theatres. The steps are a throughfare for the crowds especially during the weekends and holiday seasons. I managed to get a combination of people walking, standing and sitting in this montage of three images taken with a tripod.

Elation

Elated
One of the tricks I have come across about taking pictures at a parade is not to focus your efforts on the parade/performance. Rather, try instead to look out for candid moments among the spectators of the parade…

This was what I did during the Colours of the World Parade at the Dreamworld theme park in Bangkok, Thailand. The reward was a shot capturing the spontaneous joy and elation of this boy watching the parade. I have adopted a monochrome approach to the final image since this made the boy stand out from the rest of the scene (because of the dark-coloured T-shirt he was wearing).

And in case you’ve missed them, don’t forget to see these other pictures I took from my Thailand trip: this is BAD, Ushering In The Compliments.