M A Andrew Black and White Photography Blog

In Hong Kong, I am always drawn to the view from up here on Victoria peak. Getting this shot is not as easy as it looks as Hong Kong can be quite smoggy depending on what time of year you visit. I took a taxi ride up there at around 11.30 p.m. Even at this time, the place was still surprisingly busy. Thankfully, visibility was good so I set up and this was the result. The shot is around 6 seconds exposure time. If you look closely in the harbour you can see the trails of boats captured by the delay.

The technique for doing this is quite straigthforward but I thought people might be interested in how to get this type of shot.

1) Use a tripod (or sturdy place)

If you don’t have a tripod, then try and use something to balance your camera on. A wall is usually as good a place as any.

2) Turn off your flash.

It was funny but the majority of people I saw up at the peak that night were shooting with their flashes on as if you could illuminate the whole of Kowloon with flash. Flash is useless in this situation so it is better off turned off.

3) Watch for glare.

Sometimes a street light just out of the shot that you haven’t noticed might introduce unnecessary glare into your shot. A simple way to avoid this is to shoot well away from overhead light sources. A lens hood is a good idea but if you don’t have one, you could use your hand.

4) Use the timer

If you set the camera up and then press the shutter, you will introduce camera shake. This is not what we want. Use the cameras timer and then stand back to avoid nudging the camera.

5) Set your camera to aperture mode (if you can) - This is the tricky bit

Most modern digital cameras come now with a plethora of presets most of which you do not need. It’s a bit like most washing machines. You don’t really need to bother with most programmes on your washing machine, they are simply included as part of the marketing. Aperture mode is usually indicated on the dial with the letter A. This mode will allow you the user to control the amount of size of the hole allowing light into your camera. The smaller the hole, the less light into the camera so the longer the exposure. In aperture mode, the camera will adjust the shutter speed as you control the size of the hole.

Aperture (or the size of the hole) is indicated by an F Stop number. i.e. F2 , F 2.8, F 4 , F 8 and so on. If you set your aperture to 2.8 say. This means the hole is wider. A wider hole means a faster exposure but it also means less depth of field. Depth of field relates to how much of the photograph we want to have in focus. To ensure most of the photograph is in focus, set your aperture to somewhere between F8 and F11.

The camera will now calculate the shutter speed.

6) Watch for wind/ movement.

Any slight movement to the camera will blur detail. Try to make sure the camera is perfectly still throughout the exposure. The following are images shot with this technique

Yesterday, I took my Sigma SD10, which is still a great camera, and removed the filter from in front of its mirror. I then spent the day shooting with, and without, a Hoya R72 Infra Red filter attached. It produced some outstanding results. I particularly liked this shot. The web version really doesn’t do the colours of the image justice.

I think this will be the way I will use the SD10 from now on. - As a sort of experimental/infra red back up camera. I have trips to London and Tuscany booked for the next month and am looking forward to trying this combination out.

What was interesting was that the Hoya filter could be discarded and the camera would produce very interesting images. I found without the Hoya the best way to expose was to dial in a negative -3 stops. I will probably come back and post more images as they arrive.

 Update….

 These are two more from that session. The images themselves are not much to look at but they are not bad considering I didn’t venture out of the house!

I get asked a lot about equipment so I thought I would list out the cameras, lenses and gear I use.

•  Sigma SD9
• Sigma SD10
• Sigma SD14
• Sigma 10-20mm 4 - 5.6 Lens
• Sigma 17-35 mm 2.8-4 Lens
• Sigma 28-70 mm 2.8 lens
• Sigma 70-300 mm 4 - 5.6 lens
• Sigma 50mm 2.8 lens
• Sigma 18-50mm 3.5 -5.6 lens
• Super Takumar 135mm 3.5 lens
• Pentax fit Auto Revuenon 50 mm 1.4 Lens (manual focus only)
• M42 fit 135mm 2.8 Kennex (manual focus only)
• M42 16mm Zenitar fish eye (manual focus only)
• Sigma EF500 DG flash
• Sigma EF500 DG Super Flash
•  Assorted filters including Hoya R72 infra red filter.
• x1.4 and x2 teleconverters

Some of these lenses are obviously much better than others.

The flight took 12 hours from the UK. We followed the West coast of Africa for most of it before crossing the Atlantic. This was my first time in Rio and I knew that I wouldn’t get this chance for very long time to come. It was Christmas 2005. Snowfall and cold weather was what I had left behind. Blue skies and beaches was what I imagined lay ahead.

The taxi ride from the airport took about 25 minutes. I was immediately struck by the slums. Upon leaving the airport, the Favelas were soon apparent dotted either side of the made arterial road into the city. The occasional wasteland, a welcome break from the carpet of shanty town housing, were full of young children kicking mishapen footballs.

I strained to look out of the window of the taxi, searching for the famous landmark of Christ the Redeemer, as we entered the city. Suddenly it came into view. Small - much smaller than I had anticipated - but majestic and proud, the statue would look over me throughout my time in this city.

We passed through a tunnel on the way to Copacabana beach when I heard my first Rio gunshots. It was probably a car backfiring I remember thinking. It wasn’t. The reports on the nightly news highlighted Rio’s problems with guns only too well.

Copacabana is where I stayed. Right on the famous boulevard. At the top of this beach you pass a headland before arriving at Ipanema. Along one side of Copacabana are bars, restaurants and hotels. One of the more famous is the Copacabana Hotel. A big beautiful looking, colonial style affair, the hotel is a throw back to another era and another time. In many ways, I felt this stunning building was a little incongruous to the rest of the Avenida Atlantica which seemed a little run down and rough around the edges. After dark , the working girls of Rio can be found in bars within 50 yards of this palatial setting. I must admit to feeling a little awkward trekking around this city with expensive photography gear. Around Copacabana, the high number of visible police is a double edged sword. Reasurring and panicking visitors at the same time. The police are here for a reason though as Rio is a city of extremes.

Uber rich live and rub shoulders with the super poor. As your taxi stops for a moment at a red light, two boys walk out

into the road and go through their juggling act for umpteenth time that day. 20 seconds to impress the tourists enough to get some form of tip. Across the road from the Copacabana Palace, I saw two more boys rummaging for food and scraps in the bins. Yet Rio is also an idiosyncratic city. In a landscape of such stunning beauty, it is the poor who live and breathe the breathtaking views of the city from the hilltops, albeit from the squalour of

the slums. The rich, in contrast, remain in the low lying areas of Ipanema and

Barra di Tijuca hemmed in by the Atlantic Ocean and the sprawling Favelas.

Christ the Redeemer, ( Cristo Redentor in Portuguese), is perhaps one of the most impressive monuments in the world. Not because of the statue itself, although it is still mightily impressive viewed from just about anywhere in the city of Rio De Janeiro, but because of it’s location atop Rio De Janeiro’s Corcovado peak in the Tijuca Forest National Park.

The statue stands 39.6 metres (130 feet) tall, weighs 700 tons. I climbed to its base via the funicular railway. This in itself was quite a journey. The trainline winds itself around Corcovado at an impossible angle climbing through the forest. The canopy finally breaks and then suddenly spectacular views of the sprawling great city, favelas climbing skywards clinging to the rugged terrain and then with a twist, the Atlantic Ocean and the famous beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana.

Once off the train, you walk. Climbing stone steps up and up, around the base of the statue and upwards once more. I think in total it took about 35 minutes but in the end it was worth it.

In 1957, Richard Mason, a UK writer came to Wan Chai in need of inspiration. He checked into the Luk Kwok Hotel in Gloucester Road, Wan Chai. This hotel became the Nam Kok hotel in his famous novel The World of Suzy Wong.

One of my best selling prints is this one of Connaught Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong. Its about a 5 seconds exposure taken at around 10 p.m. looking towards Causeway Bay. To the right of this image are the bars and clubs of Wan Chai such as Joe Bananas, Dusk till dawn, Coyotes, Carnegies and Mes Amis. Whilst not as seedy as Mason’s description, Wan Chai, particularly after dark, still still retains a whiff of insalubriousness.

The picture captures the dynamicism of Wan Chai well, I think. Of course half a century ago, this shot would not have been possible on account of the fact that I standing here on land reclaimed from Victoria Harbour.

I have always been a fan of Ansel Adams. His landscape photography is truly awe inspiring. Whilst I know I’m certainly no Ansel Adams, this photograph is inspired by him. The photograph was taken close to where I live. I loved the shadows in the rock formation and with an red filter, the contrast gives the image a beautiful tonal quality that looks fantastic in print. Of course, Adams used his famous zone system when shooting pictures. This system was a highly technical way of working that Adams perfected and championed through the 1930s. I don’t think I have the patience to follow this technique in its entiriety.

‘I hope that my work will encourage self expression in others and stimulate the search for beauty and creative excitement in the great world around us’ - Ansel Adams

2005. I took a trip down to Snowdon in North Wales. At an altitude of 1,085 m (3,560 ft) above sea level, the peak is the highest peak in Wales. I think I remember reading somewhere that Snowdon has the wettest altitude of anywhere in the UK but during my visit, the skies were blue and the sun shone.  I could be wrong here but I think Snowdon is the peak to the right of this picture.

The Moulin Rouge, Paris. The area around here is called Pigalle and unsurprisingly was full of slightly lascivious bars and clubs. On the street, con men masquerading as street performers worked the crowds some of whom were in on the act.

Got up this morning early and had sold a number of prints to Canada. This part of the world seems to like me at the moment although I can’t think why! Some of the images sold are shown below.