WWW Part Three - Fremantle Boardwalk
Last month, digiDirect organised a series of photographic events led by Fujifilm Head Trainer Warwick Williams over the course of two days - a chilly evening shooting cityscapes, a morning tour of Perth Zoo, and an afternoon stroll along the Fremantle Esplanade. As I was eager to participate in as many events as possible to gain more experience and inspiration, I decided to attend all three. You can read about the two previous events here and here.
After concluding our leisurely walk through Perth Zoo, I had time to go home and recharge my batteries before heading out again to meet up with the group in Fremantle. We gathered at Esplanade Park about half an hour before sunset an eventually wandered down towards the harbour.
This is the third and final part of a Weekend with Warwick Williams - WWW.
55 mm | f/4 | ISO 200 | 1/140 sec
The main feature of the park is the Tourist Wheel, a modestly sized and unimaginatively named Ferris wheel surrounded by equally tall pines. While most of the group stopped to get some portrait and action shots at a nearby skate park, I wanted to try to capture the wheel from an architectural point of view. This was quite difficult as the sun was directly behind it and my lens wasn’t wide enough to get a full composition. I did have the 14 mm in my bag, but I didn’t have time to keep swapping lenses so I stuck with the trusty 18-55.
As I wasn’t quite getting the perfectly-centered wide shots I wanted, I decided to instead get up close and zoom in on the detail in order to remove distractions and simplify the composition.
As we were losing light rapidly, I tried to herd the group towards the harbour so that we had the opportunity to shoot in a variety of locations with decent light. I tend to find myself shooting more vertical compositions, not because of mobile media content, but because I feel it more naturally captures the environment, especially in an urban setting.
As the sky started to transition from blue to purple, we wandered through to the Fishing Boat Harbour where we battled the direct light from the setting sun. As the light was fading, I attached my mini tripod so that I could lower my shutter speed and not worry about camera movement. Soon after, a small boat cast off and drifted into the harbour. I had to act fast to get the right composition before it moved too far away, so I didn’t have time to get my settings just right. However, I think after a bit of editing and a black and white conversion, it didn’t come out that terrible, even if the sky is completely blown out.
18 mm | f/2.8 | ISO 200 | 1/80 sec
Once the sun had completely set, the frigid wind started rolling in on cue. We moved further along towards Cicerello’s, next to which is the statue of Bon Scott and a jetty dedicated to the fisherman. At this point, I was practically forced to keep my camera fixed to the ground in order to get a long enough exposure. This typically constrains your compositional choices, but it seemed appropriate for these shots. I do wish there was more character in the sky, however.
I’ve never been that great at low-light handheld photography, especially because I don’t like boosting ISO, but it’s one of those styles where knowing the limits of your camera is important. For example, at 55 mm, the 18-55 mm kit lens provides enough optical image stabilisation to produce sharp images if your shutter speed is no longer than 1/60 seconds. I still needed to increase the ISO to about 1600, but the noise reduction tool in Lightroom can do enough to soften the image that it’s not too much of an issue.
It was cold and dark by now, so we retired from shooting for the night and just spent a bit of time chatting. Just over the road, two gentlemen had set up a telescope and were inviting people to come and view Jupiter and Saturn which were clearly visible in the cloud-free sky. It was an enlightening way to finish the evening.
So the weekend’s events had come to a close, and I capped off the night with a chai and a conversation with Warwick and a couple others where we discussed Fujifilm products, Warwick’s insights and photography in general. Although I didn’t rely on him much for actually taking photos, it was a great experience getting out and trying different techniques in various environments while being able to discuss and learn about Fujifilm gear.
Thanks for reading.
