Friday 14 September 2012

The six giants and the princess

Eastern facade of the Museum of the Modern Art, Bilbao, Spain.

A story behind:  This was our second visit to the Spanish city of Bilbao and its monumental Guggenheim Museum of the Contemporary Art.   


A photo creation:  I approached the museum skyline sunrise (above) feeling the impulse to eliminate the clutter and find the patterns and shapes that would add clarity. The idea was to place the window in the center of the image and make it look small and half-hidden. The surrounding six giant metal structures overwhelm and almost squish the window. Properly exposing the photo was another was another challenge. Every-second rising sun was changing the illumination of the building. The light was very different from my last visit to Bilbao ( on the 1st of January 2011 ).

The mystery of creating a three-dimensional image lies in playing with all the light-and-shadows. I choose f/11 as an aperture small enough to assure good overall depth of field and to maximize the sharpness. To achieve the right combination of 1/100 at f/11, I grudgingly selected an ISO setting of 700.  I was standing on the suspension bridge close to the eastern facade of the Museum. Although the traffic at the early Sunday hours was low, the bridge was oscillating, so I high ISO allowed to achieve the right shutter speed and eliminate the camera trembling.
Next was the selection of the polarizer filter to both increase little the color saturation and, more importantly, cut the glare.

Gear: Nikon D700. Nikkor 70-300 mm. Tripod. Polarizer.

Aperture: f/11

Shutter speed:
1/100 sec

Exposure bias:
-0,3 EV

Focal Length: 70 mm

ISO: 700



Place taken: Bilbao, Spain.

Date taken: Sunday, September 9th, 2012, 07:25

Maciek.

2 comments:

  1. What an amazing building. Did you go inside? I know how you loathe modern art.

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