Sale Sale Sale

Of the places I’ve visited around the world Penang, in Malaysia, is definitely high on the list of places I would go back to.  It’s a vibrant, multicultural, visual and noisy city which feels, unlike Singapore and to some extent Kuala Lumpar, that it is still, at its core, authentically Asian.  On a walkabout of the city I wanted to try to capture some of that in a photograph.

My visit to Penang was primarily for Ayesha and John’s wedding, but I took this shot the day before the wedding while on a hunt for some food, and while exploring some of the sights.  I couldn’t tell you on what street this shot was taken, as they soon blend into a fuzzy maze and you find yourself relying on instinct, landmarks or taxis to get back to where you started.  That’s not to say all the streets are the same – in fact every corner had the potential to reveal something new – and it would be easy to spend hours photographing the city and get different styles of images at every turn.

On every street there were plenty of mopeds and scooters, and I spent some time taking panning shots, usually less successfully than I was to manage on a trip to Rome later in the year.  On this particular street I was struck by the contrast of the luxurious cars parked at the side of the road, the Honda 50s  travelling towards me and the sheer volume of signs offering all sorts of goods at “sale” prices.

The colour of the street is representative of the colour on display in the city, and in post processing I was keen to keep that vibrant.

In terms of composition, I was careful to stick to the rule of thirds, and the buildings on the left hand side draw the eye into the frame, contrasting to some extent with the vehicles on the road which may tend to draw your eye back out.  In this respect I think the figure walking towards the camera on the right is important, and balances the shot nicely.  The fact that he is looking across the frame is a bonus, and hopefully a visual hint to the viewer to do the same.

I processed this shot by taking full advantage of the fact that I shot it, as I shoot everything, in RAW format, and blended elements from 3 different variants of that RAW file, allowing me to keep some detail in the shadow, highlight and midtone areas.  It’s similar to the HDR techniques I’ve been experimenting with in recent weeks, but more subtle, and gives a nice result, and a nice sculpted feel to what is entirely natural light.