If you read my two blog posts over the weekend you’ll know that this time last year I was enjoying a holiday in Malaysia with Ayesha & John’s wedding there providing the perfect excuse to visit. I never really spent time properly processing the photographs from that trip, so recently I’ve been browsing through the images I took and selecting a few for the blog – you can expect to see more here in the near future.
Today’s photo is actually from Singapore, which is where we flew through, and where we spent the last few days of our trip. In many ways it’s a very western city, and after Penang and Terenganu, felt perhaps a bit like a city that is trying too hard to fit in with the rest of the developed world, sacrificing its own culture along the way. I suppose this is inevitable – it is one of the financial hubs of the world and the first language here is money.
Having just come from Malaysia, with all its sights, sounds and smells, it was a little disappointing that all Singapore had to offer during the day seemed to be shopping. We did the usual sights of course, but even the guidebooks were continually pointing you towards the large shopping centres. At night however, Singapore did offer something a little more to its visitors.
Alongside the river that runs through the city were numerous restaurants and bars with covered outdoor seating to take advantage of the near-equatorial climate. There was a real buzz around this part of the city in the evening, and river boats ran cruises along the river as you ate or drank along the riverbank.
At night the city lit up to become a visual feast, and on our last evening I took this photograph as we sat in one of the bars lamenting the fact that tomorrow we would be returning home.
The overall light levels were, obviously, low so I needed to keep the camera steady for the exposure. I didn’t have my tripod with me, but a railing along the riverbank proved to be a good resting point for my camera, and I used the self timer function so that the camera had time to settle after I pressed the shutter release before the sensor would be exposed, thereby reducing the risk of camera shake blurring the photograph.
The exposure for these shots is difficult to get right, so the easiest thing is to employ some trial and error, using the LCD screen and the histogram to determine if the exposure is good. That’s exactly what I did, and the slow shutter speed that was required gave me nice light trails from the passing river boats, and softened the water to give the reflection of the building a pleasing look.
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