Since I don't sleep until late, and I managed to fit my tripod into my luggage, I was able to play around with long exposures. The Silver Strand Bike Path on Coronado Island gives amazing views of the San Diego skyline, with the bay glimmering below. Since Phoenix, located in a desert, lacks such bodies of water, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to take long exposure photographs of a city that actually can be identified as long exposure due to the water becoming glossy. So naturally, the first pictures I took were of the city. The first photo was taken in the late evening, so the blue of day still faintly remained. The other three were taken in the dead of night.
The locations I took the photos at of the skyline were around a mile away from the hotel I was staying at. Thus, it was a bit of a walk to get back and forth, so I wanted to get my money's worth when it came to subjects and photos. So, I turned my attention to the bay and the ferry landing. The USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) was still in port the first night I was there, with her registry number on her bridge glowing bright. I wished I could've gotten a picture of the Carl Vinson and Reagan's registry numbers as well, but their positions meant they were facing the San Diego side of the bay. Also, facing Coronado was the USS Midway museum, with her registry number, as well as decorative lights, glowing. I thought the pictures of their registry numbers glowing in the night would look fantastic, so after trial and error I managed to snap pics of them. Since I had to be on the ferry landing to get these pictures, I also decided to photograph the pier and local beach area, once filled with people, now completely deserted, save for the fishermen... more on that later. It's interesting what happens at night; while taking photos, I ran into a group from Turkey and talked with them a bit- turns out one of the men in the group studied engineering at the University of San Diego some 20 odd years ago. Night time is always interesting; a whole new group of people are out when the sun sets.
Back to the fishermen, the pier that is usually filled with tourists or people simply seeking a relaxing, fun time on the island was now filled with fishermen. Fishing poles and people lined the sides, with some quiet music thumping and muffled chatter filling the air. This being the first time I've ever been out late in Coronado Island, this was a completely new side to the place that I never knew existed. Despite it being so late, they had an energy with them, that I decided to try to capture with long exposures that would show their movement and activity. I call these photos "The Fishermen of the Night".
Of course, how can I forget the Coronado Bay Bridge and the shipyards beneath it? To be honest, from the Coronado Island side the bridge isn't really in an attractive position; it just looks like a thin line stretching across the sky. But, the bay below it stretched far out in all directions, and the lights from the bridge and the shipyards certainly made things interesting, especially in the water reflections.
The walkways emptied out by around 10:30pm or so. Cleverly, the LED lamps that illuminate the walkways stay at half power unless someone walks under them. I always thought the walkways were paved in a fun way, like a race course, and with the lights over them and city skyline in the background, I thought they would make for a perfect picture. Of course, when I first tried taking photos, the half-illumination status of the lights didn't create the bright, dramatic effect I wanted, so I had to run underneath each of them to trigger them before taking the picture. I find a beauty in empty roads and paths; perhaps its the philosophical and metaphorical parts of my brain romanticizing the images. Maybe the stillness invokes ideas of tranquility and quietness. But to see only portions lit makes the effect even more dramatic.
However, these are the images I am the most proud of. Why is the sky so wispy, and why is the water smooth as glass? Well, each of these pictures were 8 minute exposures. I first noticed on one of my bridge pictures that lasted for a minute that the long exposure caused the clouds the clouds to be drawn out and the water to be even more smoothed over than my previous 15, 20, and 30 second exposures (naturally). So, I decided I would use my ND filters to try to create an ultra-long exposure, and after messing around a bit, I got these two photos. Since they took 8 minutes each to take, it was pretty time consuming so I didn't have a chance to take many. But, I am extremely happy with these.
I also decided to take a blurry picture of the pier and edit it, for l'art:
