I know, I know…my first image here is overdone. Every photographer has taken this photograph before, and I’ve done it numerous times as well. I can’t help it. If I’m in the area I will usually stop at this bridge to snap a few shots, just to see if something spectacular happens when I least expect it. I don’t know what…somebody jumping into the canal, a fish jumping, a bird doing something strange (maybe swooping down on a fish). Actually I’m not really sure if there are even fish in the canal. However you never know if something awesome will happen, right?
Downtown Indianapolis By Night
I’ve shot the skyline from this part of the canal before, but I was set up south of here before the bridge seen in the image and from a down low angle. This is my first image of the start of the canal walk from a bit higher up so I could get all of the circular pool in the shot. This is where the canal begins, just south of 11th Street. You can make out the walking bridge in the bottom left of the above image. Right before that is the waterfall shown in the image below, which pushes the water under that walking bridge out to the circular pool and starts the canal. Oh and those are Koi fish in the bottom left of the waterfall image. The long exposure I used makes them look funky…I like it!
Downtown Indianapolis By Day
For these images of Indianapolis By Day, I went downtown right after a storm had moved through, so the lingering clouds looked cool. As the sun began to come out from its hiding spot, people began to come out of their hiding spots to bask in it. The day was quite chilly before the sun, so it was a welcome sight. It also added some great shadows to my photographs.
Noblesville, Indiana
It had been raining for a day and a half straight, and when it let up I grabbed my camera and headed out locally to find some reflection shots. Luckily I found this composition rather quickly, because I had only taken a handful of shots before the rains started back up again. At least I brought my camera bag with me so I could keep things from getting completely soaked.
Carmel, Indiana
My photographer friend, Bonnie and I were driving around one night looking to do some long exposure architectural shots, and came across this office building in Carmel. We stopped here because it had this piece directly in front of the flagpoles that was lit up all blue and thought it might look cool against the starry, cloudy night. I ended up making this image black & white so you can’t see the blue…but I like this one in monochrome. It shows a symmetrical building from straight-on, and as the sides of it fall back, the clouds move out and up against the walls. The left side of the image is lit and the clouds form almost a perfect line, while the right side is dark and the clouds have a more sporadic edge. Also in the image is the security guard’s car that had to stop to ask what we were doing. “We’re taking pictures.” You’ll see light trails from his car as he leaves in another image below.
In the above image: light trails from the security guard’s car.
For more on shooting Nightscapes, view my post 5 Reasons to Start Shooting Night Photography.
This is my favorite shot from the night! It happened by chance, as I was sitting up by the guard rail waiting for a long exposure of the building to finish. My back was a little sore and I laid down for a stretch. When I looked at the highway I saw this. I had to wiggle around a bit to get the composition I wanted, and I think it turned out pretty cool!