This last weekend it was Worldwide Photowalk time again. For those who don’t know what this is allow me to link to a video with Scott Kelby, the man behind this event who published this invitation where he describes what it was all about.
This was my third time participating in this event and second time in Copenhagen. I was attracted to this particular walk for two reasons: one - it was in an area of the Danish capital I’ve not photographed a whole lot, and two - it was a night photowalk, something I’ve only done once or twice with members of my photo club.
The group before we started our walk. I'm in the top right corner. Photo by Ann Malmgren
The night shoot experience
This is a prime example of an "Unintentional abstract"....
The experience of shooting photos at night is a very different thing than doing it during the day. The pace has to be slower and more meticulous because there is one major, and rather obvious shortage - namely light. You just can’t run and gun it like I sometimes tend to do when I do street photography, because if you do that you’ll end up with what might generously be called “unintentional abstracts”, or more accurately “complete failures”! You pretty much have to use a tripod or at least find something to place the camera on, because you just can’t (at least I can’t) handhold a shot that has to last several seconds.
We managed to hit the sunset over the harbor inlet and we got some cool shots near the Royal Library’s futuristic building ‘Sorte Diamant” (or The Black Diamond) and that was neat. There was also a geodesic dome structure that functioned as a night club which provided a bunch of cool pictures.
A social event
After that it was pretty much time to gather again after the walk for some social time at a nearby restaurant and that was fun too, to talk "shop" for a bit. Because after all, other than getting some cool shots the photowalk is all about the social interaction and that was a lot of fun too; to hang out with fellow photography obsessed people. There isn’t much of a language barrier either for me; I understand Danish reasonably well, provided it’s not spoken too fast or with too much of a regional accent.. Hopefully the others could understand my Swedish well enough as well. It’d feel pretty weird to start speaking English with Danish people as some sort of intermediary language, especially when our languages are so similar!
Handheld at night
When we were done chatting there I took a stroll through Copenhagen with my 50 mm lens on with the ISO setting at 3200 and sometimes at 6400 to see if I could get some cool handheld shots at night. Sure they'd be blurry in parts or grainy from the ISO setting, but I figured they could still look cool. I didn't land that many keepers there, but I was happy with the few that turned out okay, given how dark it really was!
