Our cities are, by nature, ever-changing entities in their own right. From skylines that morph into different silhouetted shapes each year, to businesses and people that come and go as their needs and successes change – these moments in time that I capture in my cityscape images are never the same from one day to the next, and the ones I’ve taken of San Francisco are no exception. From high above the rooftops, blue hour […]
So here we are again, stood on top of an historic building, looking out over the city of Boston just after sunset. What a view, and what a night. It wasn’t the night I’d been planning, to be fair – this was supposed to be a really quick trip to capture the snow that had fallen over Cape Cod – checking out Race Point Lighthouse for the first time and seeing how some new equipment […]
Of course, witnessing that sunset was a special moment in itself – but being up here on the rooftop of the Jin Mao Tower, the home of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Shanghai, was especially significant for me. Soon, I would be leaving Shanghai – a place I’ve called home for 3 years now – and this was a return to the very first building I’d ever visited in Asia. Stood up on the roof with my […]
It doesn’t matter how many rooftops I’ve photographed from, whenever I’m in a new city I always get that “wow” moment when I look across the skyline for the first time – and this was no exception. From the top of a building (which was, in fairness, extremely tall in its own right!), I set up on the ledge and started clicking. Sadly, jpeg compression doesn’t do this image enough justice on-screen, but the tones of the sky and detail in […]
It’s the one thing I promised myself I would never do after I upgraded my equipment from my Canon gear to a Phase One Medium Format system : re-shooting a cityscape I had already captured. But the lure of Shanghai’s rooftops on a clear night was just too strong, and here I found myself shooting “Shanghai Calling 2” with my 645DF+ and iQ280 digital back. Now, before I go any further, let my just clarify […]
This is Auckland, but not as we know it 🙂 This is the “Tiny Planet” version of my cityscape from New Zealand in June this year – and while only a bit of fun, I think it looks rather cool! Spending a week or so resting at Huvafen Fushi, I finally had time to start playing with some Apps I downloaded a long while ago. While there are much better (and higher resolution) ways of […]
Shanghai really is a city that needs to be seen from above to be appreciated. The problem is that getting up there in the more traditional way (in a helicopter) simply isn’t possible – so there is a growing movement of photographers who (ahem) “access” rooftops with key vantage points across the city. It’s not a risk-free process by any means, but when you get up there and can look down at the pace of things […]
I was asked last week, as part of a written interview, if I’d ever had to get out of my “comfort zone” in order to get the shot I wanted – the answer, of course, was “yes”, and many times over. The next question was, funnily enough, about how I approach a brand new city in terms of locations and what to shoot. So, what better than a live demonstration as answers to both questions […]
