I’m a big fan of night time photography. Not as much of a fan as I am of “dusk time” photography, but a big fan all the same. There are two things in particular that appeal to me. The first, on a practical level, is that night time photography is more logistically feasible, especially during the winter months of the year, because I tend to have much more free time outside of daylight hours than during them. So it’s generally easier to find the time to go out and take night time shots. The second thing that appeals is that in general, places look pretty good when photographed at night. Even grotty places. Or Olympic stadiums.
The ANZ Stadium, originally known as Stadium Australia, was opened in 1999 in time for the 2000 Summer Olympic Games which were held in Sydney and it is a pretty impressive structure. I attended it last March during my two week stint in Sydney where I watched the Sydney Swans lose to St. Kilda in their opening game of the AFL season. I believe it holds around 80,000 people for an AFL match, but when it opened first it could hold 110,000, which made it the largest Olympic Stadium ever built. And knowing how the Australians like to claim ownership of these things, probably also the largest Olympic Stadium in the southern hemisphere.
In an ideal world, the stadium would be photographed at dusk, with some colour in the sky and the building lit up. But in an ideal world I wouldn’t have been limited to only one chance to photograph it as I left the stadium before the end of the (very long) AFL game and made my way to the nearby train station.
Leaving before the end of the game meant that the plaza in front was largely empty, so I was able to get a clear shot of the building. Being there having attended a football game meant I hadn’t brought a tripod, so any shot I did take had to be hand held.
Learning to hand hold your camera steady at slow shutter speeds is a valuable skill, and one which I am continually honing. On this night I was able to capture the above photo at 1/20s, which meant I could keep the ISO at 1600 (instead of a noiser 3200) and keep the aperture at f/4 – a stop down from the lens’ widest aperture, and so a sweeter spot in terms of sharpness than f/2.8 would have offered me. Of course I could have gone to f/2.8 at ISO 800 if noise was too much, or to f/5.6 @ ISO 3200 if I was concerned about depth of field. f/4 at ISO 1600 was a nice compromise.
The photo above is the second frame I took as I walked towards the train station, but my preferred shot for two reasons – the way the top of the image is framed by the overhead gantry, and the figure sitting on the steps on the left. Capturing him was a nice side effect of not having a tripod – had I had one I’d have used it to shoot at f/16, ISO 200 at whatever shutter speed that required and chances are I’d have had a blurry figure sitting on the steps as he would have inevitably moved during the exposure. Although that might have looked ok too of course.
The first frame I took is below. Probably more of a standard view of the stadium, but definitely a shot that would work better before darkness fell – that black sky sucking light from the top of the image bothers me. Then again, it doesn’t have the distracting overhead light shining down on the plaza that bothers me in the shot up top (and that I considered cloning out).
f/4 @ 1/13s, ISO 1600, 24-70mm lens at 24mm, Nikon D700
Here in Dublin we have a new stadium which looks (from a distance at least) to be as impressive, if not more so, than the ANZ stadium. It’s called the Aviva stadium (or, if you’re more old-school, Landsdowne Road) and I hope to photograph it one of these weeks. I suspect it’ll be more of a challenge to capture than the ANZ Stadium because it’s squeezed in quite tightly amongst neighbouring houses and train lines. So much so that I doubt it’s possible to get a view of it like that above. When the time comes, I’ll post my efforts here.
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