Fifty Two Weeks

[davidc]

Lately it has felt like I've been spending more time talking about & writing about photos and not enough time out shooting. Though I am enjoying creating content & reviews I've decided it's time to try and devote extra time to my own photography! Starting this weekend I'm hoping to post one new photo a week, the favourite of all I've taken, with a short description about the scene and how I shot & processed it. My intent is to keep the quality as high as I can throughout.

Here we go, wish me luck...

[davidc]

Originally taken from my site - http://davidcandlish.photography/news/2 ... the-week-1

download.jpg (460.83 KiB) Viewed 2386 times

This first photo was shot from the balcony of a friend's condo near the centre of Singapore. It's a panorama of three separate issues and looks out over the river & the new national stadium. Normally, at this time of day, the sky would be a vivid blue with clouds rolling in and, on the horizon, a chain of bright, twinkling lights from the endless flotilla of ships anchored on the Singapore Straits.

Except recently Singapore has been experiencing the worst "haze" in nearly two decades. The source of the haze, caused by farmers in Indonesia clearing field space for palm oil by slashing & burning, normally lasts for a few weeks and is never more than annoyance. This year, the haze has persisted for nearly two months and is reaching levels hazardous to health.

Singapore has only caught glimpses of blue sky in the last two months and at night the entire city is choked in this fog. It made for an unusal set of colours & glow as the haze reflects light & obscures parts of the landscape which are otherwise much more prominent.

After merging the three photos together in Lightroom I teaked the shadows & highlights to increase the difference between the light & dark areas to more match how it looked from the balcony. I was tempted to use the new de-haze tool in Lightroom to increase the level of haze but once I'd seen the resulting merged image I decided I didn't need to. I then altered the tone curve to reduce contrast slightly and then selectively altered the saturation of blues & oranges to create a more cinematic colour-grading effect.

The final result is a pretty good outcome for what I was aiming for. I was hoping to have "islands" of bright lights with the blank spaces between devoid of detail, like parts of the city are missing. This is because with the haze getting worse, that's how it can sometimes feel living here.

[Mike Farley]

........ wish me luck...

Without this kind of incentive, it can be difficult to find time for photography especially with everything else which is going on in a busy life. I am looking forward to seeing what you will produce over the year.

[davidc]

Yeah I miss taking photos "for me", even though I wouldn't want to give up what I'm doing in other areas. Though I'm pegging it as a project 52, if I do achieve it I'm hoping it'll become more of a habit than a one-off!

Problem is in singapore right now the conditions are utterly awful. Everything smells of bonfire, can't go out without facemasks, no blue skies... it's like being back in the north east

[Mike Farley]

Problem is in singapore right now the conditions are utterly awful. Everything smells of bonfire, can't go out without facemasks, no blue skies... it's like being back in the north east

I have seen the pictures on the news and it does not look good. At least it cannot continue forever as there is only so much forest to burn, although likely only then will the Indonesians appreciate the other unintended consequences of their actions when it has a direct impact on them.

[davidb]

Easter Island was a forested island before man reached it. Then man arrived and started felling the trees. Now look at the place - not a tree in site - the island's forests have been decimated.

[Mike Farley]

Easter Island was a forested island before man reached it. Then man arrived and started felling the trees. Now look at the place - not a tree in site - the island's forests have been decimated.

The climate changed as they cut down the trees and they thought this meant the gods were angry. As an act of appeasement they erected the statues for which the island is now famous, which meant cutting down more trees for the rollers needed to move the statues to where they were to be erected. Without any timber, they could not make boats to leave for somewhere else.

[davidc]

In Indonesia's case they are burning trees down to plant more - palm oil being one of their biggest exports.

[Paul Heester]

Good luck in your new project David, Im sure you will come up with some amazing images. Re the slash and burn you could always look on the start of this project as a social documentation of the current situation. Lots of people wearing facemasks must create some unusual shots but thats from a western point of view. Maybe the locals - yourself included - have become used to it??

[Mike Farley]

In Indonesia's case they are burning trees down to plant more - palm oil being one of their biggest exports.

So if the price of palm oil drops, they'll burn those trees too?