Taking only photographs – leaving only footprints
The photograph above was taken from in front of office buildings at Salford Quays. To the left is the Manchester Ship Canal. I took this photo on the Friday the 2nd of this month. Ciaran and I decided to take advantage of the fine weather and walk from my flat near Oxford Road along the ship canal towards Salford Quays. I really want to get a sunset photograph from this spot I think that it would look fantastic, given the right sky.
Last October I was taking some photos of Salford Quays when I managed to get the picture above of the sun setting behind the Imperial War Museum North. I have enhanced it slightly in Photoshop but I am still not sure if I really like it. The whispery clouds in the sky are nice but the silhouette of the building doesn’t work well for me. Still one of my photographic goals to get a really nice sunset behind the buildings at Salford Quays, this example isn’t a good enough in my opinion but the building does have a nice shape so I thought I would share it.
This is the second of the two good photos I managed to capture on Saturday afternoon. I wasn’t sure which to publish online but decided to post both in the end. This image was taken from the opposite side of the bridge to the previous, and as a result the sun was behind me. It was however an hour or two earlier so the light is a little more intense. I like this area and have taken it many times before, I find the design in the bridge and buildings pleasant to look at. Although the Lowry Centre, just behind the bridge is very shiny and reflective thus making it difficult to get a correctly exposed photograph of the whole area. So far this is the best image I have managed to capture of Salford Quays but I am still looking for that perfect sunset behind these interesting buildings.
Any professional photographer will tell you that the best landscape and / or outdoor photography is done around sunrise or sunset, and its true to a certain extent. I really wanted to go further away from Manchester today but in the end I choose to explore the Salford Quays area. We have both been here many times and the weather and lighting today were surprisingly good, although the wind coming off the water was extremely strong and bitterly cold. Once I had taken about a hundred photos we had a look around the Lowry Shopping Centre, and for a Saturday afternoon I was very surprised at how empty it was. When we came out from shopping this was the view that I saw and I couldn’t help but get a couple of photos. I love this style of photography and think that sunsets are very beautiful. This is a classic candidate for some HDR (high dynamic range) photographic techniques. I wished to digitally combine this photo with another taken where the bridge structure has light on it rather than being silhouetted like it is in this image. This photo will have to be taken one morning in the future, but from exactly the same view point. Then I will try to combine the two pictures into an even more interesting (if not a little fake) photograph.