FXA Meetup - Rooftop Rendezvous

When I purchased my Fujifilm camera about fifteen months ago, I mostly kept to myself, watching countless YouTube videos and going out occasionally to practice. It wasn’t long before I started carrying my camera gear around daily just in case I found an opportunity to shoot. About three months ago, I discovered a community for Australian Fujifilm photographers: FUJI X AUS - or FXA.

Belonging to a group of like-minded individuals upon whom you can rely for inspiration and support is perhaps one of the most underappreciated aspects of being a photographer. Over the past few months, I have come to know many local photographers whose work and feedback continue to inspire and help develop my skills. This week we decided to catch up for an evening of night photography to unwind before the weekend.

Our meeting spot at Yagan Square.

Rather than wandering around like a typical photowalk, we headed directly for a nearby carpark and crammed into a very small elevator to the roof. We arrived shortly before sunset, so my first priority was to survey the surrounding architecture and try to exploit the remaining light. From five floors up, we had a particularly advantageous view of Wellington Street, including Yagan Square and the Horseshoe Bridge to our right, and the cluster of modern office buildings at Kings Square to our left.

I didn’t have my regular tripod with me for this outing, but I always carry my Leofoto MT-03 mini tripod - an incredibly durable and versatile piece of equipment that has become invaluable to me. Being a mini tripod, I usually have to rely on fences, posts, furniture, and other inanimate objects to provide elevated perspectives, although being close to the ground does also offer an interesting point of view. So with my neck strap wrapped around my wrist for security, I placed my camera on the brick parapet that was barely wide enough to keep the tripod’s legs fully expanded.

Northbridge has seen some interesting developments in the last few years.

I have had for a long time a keen interest in architecture, the origins of which I cannot definitively explain, and I aspire to be a professional architectural photographer. Even when travelling, some of the most interesting things for me to photograph are buildings - both new and old.

One of my favourite new installations is the trio of modern office buildings at the Kings Square precinct. In order to compose the shot such that the buildings were the obvious subject and that there were no distracting objects entering the frame or a large amount of empty space, I had to shoot in portrait orientation. This meant tilting my camera towards the edge of the parapet, shifting the centre of gravity precariously close to the edge and forcing me to keep a small amount of force on the opposite tripod leg.

These two shots are 25 minutes apart on two different lenses - the 18-55 mm kit lens and the 14 mm prime lens. The first is a lot more dramatic and draws you immediately to the buildings, but there is also a lot going on in the sky and the street below. The second is much more calming and provides a bit of breathing room, perhaps making it a bit more commercially viable as there is room for copy in the clean sky.

18 mm

f/6.4
ISO 200
1/3 seconds

6:30 PM

14 mm

f/8
ISO 200
3 7/10 seconds

6:55 PM

As the night went on, the sky fell dark and the full moon rose above the horizon. Its trajectory would inevitably align with the unique Digital Tower, which literally sticks out from its surroundings. I shot this in landscape, primarily because it was more convenient than trying to tilt the camera in an already awkward position, but also because I wanted to capture as much of the street as possible. This did mean, however, that a large portion of the right side was a dull rooftop and wall. Once in Lightroom, I decided that I could simply change the crop orientation and create a better composition with only a small sacrifice to the resolution.

While everyone was busy experimenting with a flash, I turned my attention to the opposite end of the carpark, looking back towards the city. The immediate vicinity was somewhat uninspiring, but peering over the parapet revealed some very interesting lighting on the street below. Pushing my tripod and my nerves to their limit, I practically dangled the camera over the edge, pointing it about sixty degrees down onto the Flour Factory below, glistening in the bright lights from the carpark entrance.

An interesting mix of straight, angled, and curved lines.

My first instinct when facing skyscrapers is usually to forfeit any geometry correction and tilt all the way up so as to not crop them out of the frame. However, in this instance, I felt the hero of the shot was not any one building, but the collage of patterns of various size and shape.

Looking south towards the city centre.

The closer I can get to the middle plane of a building, the better chance I have of capturing a sharper, less distorted image, as well as offering a point of view that can’t be replicated from the street. This meetup has inspired me to explore more of the city to see if I can find more interesting vantage points that offer unique perspectives.

Thanks for reading.