After a frustrating day at the labor camp (work), I took my camera and wandered around 23rd, 24th, and 25th street here in Ogden (at midnight again, because less people, no traffic, and quiet). I feel like a lot of my images are all similar, but I’ve been told that repetition is the key to peace and success. I’m not worried about success. I’m 8 years from retirement, any chance at success is long past, but peace, that happens all the time for me, except today. So I took a stroll and shot some pictures.
The shopping cart was not, in fact, the first image of the night, but it was the most fitting I guess. It was a weird day at work, and it’s weird to see a shopping car flipped over on the sidewalk at midnight, so there you have it. Oddity meet oddity.
One of these times I’ll bring out my other favorite camera (are cameras like kids? You just can’t have a favorite? Because the Nikon Zf with 85mm I used tonight is amazing, but the Pentax K-3 III I’ve been using for years feels like home when I use it. They’re both just so good). So the first picture I took actually was this wall of lights, the symmetry, colors, texture differences.. Love it, I took it twice, still can’t decide which I like better. I also didn’t notice my camera’s f-stop was set to 14. That’s good for a bright sunshine day, but at night? Nope – I fixed it later, but for a while it was having a hard time getting enough light.
Now the images are out of order but grouped together for composition. I love taking pictures of the streets at night when they’re almost entirely empty. There were a few cars, so i made sure to capture them this time. Normally I wait until they’ve passed so the city looks even more deserted.
I had a picture of the street somewhere that I loved, but I guess I found a flaw I couldn’t ignore and didn’t process it. (Took a few minutes, went and processed it for this paragraph.. The stripe on the road for the win, accidentally focused on the manhole instead of Union Station, fail).
The other part of photography at night is the buildings, and the lighting. Where as during the day they are “blagh” at night the buildings change to “that’s cool looking”. With this camera I don’t need a tripod or anything, just my frozen ass bare hand (it was 22* F), hold my breath like when I was shooting guns in the military, then “click” moment stolen from time. Here are some of the buildings I thought looked nice at night.
Then there are just the nice textures of the sidewalks at night. Old and new signs, reflections on the windows, and a few looking inside because, it’s not creepy if no one is home (not residential, just commercial, you weirdos).
A random few while I depart and say; “have a good day, or better yet, have the day you deserve.” ~me
