It happened on one of those rare opportunities I got during a monsoon season. Not wanting to waste the fine weather, though it was during night time, I took my camera equipments along with me and ventured out to the famous tourist spots to capture some night landscape shots.
As much as I wanted to say having a tripod for night photography does help a lot, but walking for 4 hours with 4kg of camera equipments on one shoulder and another 1.5kg tripod on another shoulder isn’t fun at all. The total weight was killing my shoulders and the walking from Esplanade to Merlion area to Clarke Quay to Suntec was killing my legs, especially my right ankle. Thank god, my battery grip and speedlite weren’t with me. Or else, my arms will literally fall off.
I remembered clearly that my shirt was soaking wet with sweat and I was pretty dehydrated as I forgot to bring along a small bottle of water. But, I got a good reason to enjoy my Toffee Nut Frappuccino from Starbucks while sitting beside the Merlion soaking in the relaxing environment.
But, having said that, with the complaints and all, at the end of the day, looking back at the suffering what I went through, it’s nice to see that all those photos that I wanted to take turned out alright, or at least I think they are. It’s really rewarding to have all those equipments with me as I get to shoot with ease.
Furthermore, one thing that I’ve learned during that night is that night photography requires a lot of patience and persistence. I really do mean A LOT, by a mile or something more. With aching feet, sore shoulders, hot humid weather and slow shutter speed, you get the idea of what I meant by a lot of patience.
While I was minding my own business, there were a couple of tourists approached me for one reason; to teach them how to use their own camera. And that’s because I was holding and fiddling around with my DSLR camera which made them think that I’m good at what I’m doing (taking photos), which I’m not by the way. Learning new stuff (how to operate their cameras) there and then while minding my own business (taking my own photos) wasn’t the easiest thing to do. But, to help them out and getting the results they wanted did make my day a lil better though I’ve wasted much of my time.
All in all, it was pretty fun yet tiring ‘expedition’. All the walking and the waiting and the cursing and the people-watching was kinda relaxing in a way. I hope you like the photos and please feel free to give comments / suggestions / critiques. Head over to my Flickr for more though they are more or less the same.
