How I Edit My Night Street Photos

March 09, 2023 in Post-Processing

I figured, as I’ve been posting a lot of night street photos lately, maybe I should put together a quick post on how I edit my photos. I’ve had a few comments in recent months about the look of my photos, so now seems a good time to run through how I take my photos from this…

The back of someone with a ponytail against a window, an neon sign that says open is above their head.

to this…

In Camera Settings

Before getting into the edits, a bit about the settings I use when shooting with my XT3. I generally stick to as wide open as possible, and so I tend to exclusively use my 33mm f1.4 lens. In terms of shutter speed, I hover around 1/125 and 1/250 depending on whether the subject is stationary. I leave the ISO on automatic (with an upper limit of ISO3200) and exposure compensation around -1 to -2 to protect the highlights. I also always shoot in RAW.

I should also add that all my edits are done on an iPad Air. I tend to find with street photography I don’t need to do heavy edits, use layers and layer masks and whatever. Photoshop isn’t something I find myself needing. What I want is a convenient way of editing that enables quick edits on the fly. Lightroom and the iPad do this perfectly for my needs.

Light

As you can see, I push the exposure up quite a fair amount when editing. This is largely due to the exposure compensation I apply in-camera. It doesn’t impact upon the image quality and, crucially, it ensures I protect the highlights. The highlights too are dropped right down, although in some scenes I might lift them up, depending on how I want to work the light in the scene. Mostly though, I drop it down. I also drop the contrast to soften the image so it’s not too crunchy, I prefer a softening effect in my images where possible (although, again, I may do otherwise depending on what I want to achieve with the image). I also drop the whites, drop the blacks a tiny amount and lift the shadows a small amount (in this case to show more detail from the person’s clothing).

In terms of the tone curve, I tend to lift the blacks a little to give it that filmic quality and very slightly drop the whites. Again, I may lift the blacks on the tone curve or drop them down depending on the image itself.

Colour

With Colour, I drop the temperature right down. Typically my night shots are taken during the winter, and so I find they work best if they are cooled down a bit to around 3200k, adding in more blue tones. I then tint towards the purple and add some saturation and vibrance to the image.

Where I really start to get the colours I want is in the HSL area and the Colour Grading (more on that below). I particularly like my blues to be pushed towards the green/blue and quite desaturated, making for a softer blue that I find more appealing. I also push the yellows more towards the orange and also desaturate slightly. The combination of the two together helps to get the colour palette in the kind of place I would like to be before I move on to Colour Grading.

Colour Grading

This is where I think I have the biggest impact on the look of my images. As you can see, I tend to grade the image with blues in the shadows, oranges in the highlights and, most importantly, I add green to the midtones. I think this is the single most important element in terms of getting the tones I like across the whole of the image. By pushing in those greens it gives the image much more of the kind of atmospheric (futuristic?) look that I like in my night photos. It just seems to really work to lift the images above being a straightforward, “as it looked to my eye at the time” type edit. I think that in combination with pushing the blues towards the green-blue and pushing the white balance to the colder end of the scale really seems to work for me. Of course, I may take a different view in years to come, but for now it gives the night photos a look that I really like.

Effects

When it comes to the effects, in most cases I tend towards negative clarity (-10 to -20 typically) and negative dehaze (-5 to -10). This is largely because I want to soften the image rather than give it harsh, hard edges. In this case, I’ve slightly nudged up both just to add some detail to the hair in the ponytail. Again, it’s about the specific image and what I want to achieve with it. Either way, I tend to be fairly cautious with both clarity and dehaze as pushing them too far either way can lead to some odd looking images. Texture I always increase to add a bit of fine detail to the images.

I also always add a vignette, and quite a heavy one on night photography by my usual standards (around -15 tends to be my default). I sometimes also add a radial vignette over the subject and invert it to darken around the subject and draw more attention to it. Finally, I add a bit of grain just to add to the atmosphere of the image and help to push it towards that more filmic look.

Anyway, that’s pretty much how I edit my night photos. As I’ve kept saying above, some of the specifics are very much dependent on the image itself. Generally speaking I apply a preset then adjust according the image itself (I always see a preset as a starting point rather than a one-click solution to an image), but these are broadly the kinds of settings I go for. The things that never really change are the white balance and the colour grading, other than that, I shift things around to suit the image.

And that’s my photo editing of night street photos regime! Hope you found that useful/interesting!

ian

**Soho and Chinatown**

25th February 2023

Street Photography In Soho And Chinatown

March 01, 2023 in Photo Expeditions

Ever since my last trip to London at the tail end of last year, I’ve been desperate to go back up and do some nighttime street shooting. I’ve been finding myself drawn more and more to this type of photography, but so often I am out and about wandering around the same few streets, shooting in roughly the same places time and time again. It’s fine doing that, there’s always a new composition that draws the eye, or a change in an old one, but after a while you do long for something…different. And so a trip to London on a February evening was the change I needed. It was also an opportunity to give my new Peak Design backpack a proper test run. Since I bought it, it has certainly ticked one box (being convenient for packing camera gear for our flight to Spain), but I’d not really tested it out properly for a whole day out. And with future overseas trips currently being mulled over (although I am still 50/50 on one plan I’ve been mulling), I wanted to put it through its paces.

So I made a plan a few weeks ago to head up on the 25th February. No particular reason (other than it being after payday), but I did want to get up there before the nights got shorter and the days longer. Nightfall at around 5/6pm seems perfect for a quick trip up and getting home at a reasonable hour. I also knew exactly where to head…Soho and Chinatown - with neon lights and interesting windows aplenty.

I planned the day carefully, with the first priority being to catch a train with 12 coaches rather than 6 (six gets way too crowded and I’m still conscious of distancing). Luckily, the first 12 coach train got me to London at a decent time ahead of sunset. Unfortunately, I also discovered that the service was finishing earlier than normal that evening, meaning I had to catch a 2207 train home. Worse still, the train got me to London the same time as the West Ham game ended (I made a schoolboy error forgetting to check the fixtures), leading to a fair amoung of (ergh) West Ham fans heading to the tube station at the exact time I arrived. Ah well, so much for careful planning. At least I wasn’t wearing anything indicating I am a Spurs fan…

Upon arrival at Stratford I headed to the tube stations and jumped on the Elizabeth Line to Tottenham Court Road and made my way along Shaftesbury Avenue towards Wardour Street, a place I’ve been to before (I was originally heading here alone so wanted to make sure I stayed in an area I was familiar with) and knew of a few decent opportunities to capture some interesting shots of the city at night. Of course, it being a Saturday, it was absolutely rammed, which made it quite difficult to isolate people and (as London often can be) it was a bit overwhelming at first. However, once I started to slow down and look around me, opportunities started to present themselves. One of the first places that really stood out was an amazing cake shop called L’ETO that seemed designed for passing photographers with it’s big windows and fantastic, very tempting display of cakes. Needless to say, I spent quite a long time there shooting people mulling over the cakes (although sadly I did not buy any cakes).

Up until this point, however, I hadn’t really spotted many of the shots that I like to go for in the evening. I’m always drawn to the more abstract shots, silhouettes, condensation, anything that lends itself to photos that aren’t just standard captures of people on the streets. I wasn’t having much luck on Wardour Street at this time (it was around 6:30pm at this stage, so still quite early). So after a bit more of a scout around Wardour Street, I headed back down to meet a friend and on into Chinatown to see what I could find.

Needless to say, Chinatown was heaving. So, again, it was quite tricky to find interesting shots with simple or interesting compositions. Gradually, as the evening wore on, those opportunities did start to present themselves and I was able to take advantage of the condensation building up on the windows as the temperature outside dropped and the temperature inside rose. It was still tricky to find shots that I was really pleased with, but I at least came away with one or two shots that were something close to what I was hoping to capture.

It wasn’t just finding the compositions I was having difficulty with though. It was also proving difficult to handle some of the lights in the windows. I seemed to frequently get the problem of strobing across the image with certain lights in bar/restaurant/shop windows. Often times fiddling around with the shutter speed seems to do the job (I normally shoot at f1.4, 1/250 or 1/125 with around -1 to -2 expo comp), but I don’t often like to touch that as below a certain level I run the risk of not capturing sharp images due to the movement of the subjects. Nonetheless, it is a bit of a drag when I think I’ve got a shot only to find black bars running across the image.

Whilst I am drawn to photos of people behind windows covered in condensation or silhouettes, this also presents its own problems. It’s not always easy to nail focus, particularly shooting at f1.4. The autofocus doesn’t really get on well because it’ll try to focus on the window and the condensation itself, which I don’t always want. Sometimes it’s perfect because I’m not fussed about the people behind the glass being in focus, it’s that which can make the shot. But sometimes I do want to get the figure behind the glass in focus, it all really depends on the subject. And I guess that’s the thing, if I often don’t know which I want to focus on, how on earth would the autofocus? So those times where I do want to focus on the figures behind the glass, I have to switch to manually focusing on the subject. Which then takes time and I can sometimes lose the shot whilst I’m fiddling with the focus ring. But still, you have to accept not every photo will come out perfect and you just need to “focus” on the ones that were successful and try to learn from them.

After a good walk around Chinatown and some very tasty bao at Bun House, we headed back towards Wardour Street for one last look before making our way back to St Pancras via a couple of bars en route. At this point I hadn’t felt I’d really got much I was truly happy with. I put that largely down to the crowds. Of course, in such a busy area of the city on a Saturday evening, there is always going to be a lot of people around and it can be difficult to spot opportunities amongst the noise and the hustle and bustle. I’ve gotten used to shooting at night in Canterbury where, even on a busy night, you have some time and space to look for shots. Nevertheless, it’s all about the challenge and the change in scenery and overall I was feeling that it was a good opportunity to challenge myself a bit and try to get some shots.

Just as I was mulling over my evening as I headed back to St Pancras, I looked across the road and saw one of those opportunities I’m so often drawn to. A pub, with misted up windows and lots of bright lights inside. Checking my watch and the train time, I had about five minutes spare…so we dashed across the road and I set about working as quickly as I could to get some shots of the silhouettes in the bar. At first, nothing special…then, as if they knew I was waiting for it, someone got up close to the window and BAM! I got the shot. Happy with this forutuitous spot on the way to the station, I hurried my way through St Pancras and onto the train. Even the disco in my carriage and the person smoking across the aisle (on the train!) couldn’t dent my mood. Maybe there were no bangers, but I got myself out into a different environment and got myself some shots. And the backpack did an exceptional job too. I guess I need to start planning for that overseas trip…

Silhouettes of people behind a window covered in condensation. — 33mm, f1.4, 1/250, ISO640

Anyway, gallery below…do let me know what you think!

ian

(Header image c/o Andrew Preater.)

Christmas in Seville

January 04, 2023 in Photo Expeditions

As we do every year, we spent the post-Christmas/New Year period in Spain staying with my in-laws. Whenever we come, I try to make space for a bit of street photography, but it really depends on a number of factors, the prime factor being whether the car is available for me to use to drive into the city. If it is, and the conditions look right, then I’ll try to squeeze in a bit of time in the city with my camera. Sometimes I end up trying to do a bit of street photography when I’m out with the family, but it’s not always easy, I find I work best on my own as I’m able to concentrate more on my photography and not get distracted.

This time, however, I was only really able to squeeze in a few hours in the city centre to take pictures. To be honest though, it wasn’t a big problem. In the run-up to the New Year, the city centre is ridiculously busy. For the Spanish, the main celebrations are New Year and Twelfth Night, somewhat less so Christmas Day. And unlike the summer, where Sevillianos escape the heat and head off to cooler areas, everyone very much stays local. Which means the city centre can get incredibly busy (it’s one of the largest cities in Spain after all) and the roads can be a complete nightmare. Consequently, I find it quite difficult for photography as it’s really difficult to work a scene or concentrate on particular compositions with all the noise and bustle all around. Nonetheless, whilst I didn’t get anything I was particularly proud of, I did manage to get a few shots in the short amount of time I was able to spend in the city.

Every now and then I wandered down a side street and found some space from all the noise and had some opportunities to do a bit of fishing - waiting for someone to walk into the scene. Like this shot through the window of a bar/restaurant that was closed:

Or this shot looking through an empty commercial building:

And there were the odd street corners to make use of:

And, of course, just some standard street photography shots that really aren’t anything special…just fairly obvious opportunities that presented themselves to me as I was walking around.

I also managed to get some shots at nightfall, which is somewhat of an obsession with me at the moment. Of course, I had to be careful taking photos at night in a vibrant part of the city (we spent the evening around Alameda - a part of the city that is the go to area for nightlife) and opportunities were few and far between as it was more of a social thing. Nonetheless, I managed to get a handful of shots I was pleased with (if not my strongest photos of 2022).

This one would have been nice if someone popped up in the window. Sadly no-one inside came over to look outside…probably because they saw someone loitering in the street with a camera…

Still, someone walked past at least…

Of course, it wasn’t all photography, we had plenty of family, festive fun too…eating and drinking way too much, as is standard practice this time of year. I’ll spare you the family photos, but here’s a few shots taken during the festivities…

It had been a few years since I last ate migas, and was pleased to be able to experience it once more. A hefty dish, it is primarily made of breadcrumbs with a variety of meats (ribs, pork belly and streaks in this case) and peppers and garlic. One thing I’ve learnt over the years is not to overdo it on the tapas before the migas comes out…you’ve got no chance finishing it off if you do!

So that was Christmas/New Year. But how did I get on with the Peak Design backpack I purchased before we went away? Well, it worked out really well. I had dithered over which size to get, but the 20l option was perfect for taking my XT-3, three lenses, my laptop, my iPad, accessories and a couple of books. Looks like I’ve finally found the perfect bag for travelling to and from Spain. So that was a bit of a result too. Should also work quite nicely for day trips out, so overall it seems to have been a pretty good investment. Hopefully, no more camera bags!