Introduction
I have been working on this assignment for some time, allowing it to develop organically. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s the streets that inspire my photography. However, it wasn’t until I undertook the artificial light exercise that I truly began to appreciate my love for this type of illumination.
For this assignment, I aimed to expand my style by including more cityscapes, moving beyond my usual focus on people and everyday life. Creativity has always been a challenge for me—like many students, I find myself more confident in my technical abilities than in my artistic vision.
Inspired by Brassaï’s quote, “The light I have at night is magnificent. I even prefer it to natural light. You should come one night to see it,” and Sato Shintaro’s beautiful neon imagery of Tokyo, I set out to capture what I see on an average evening as I make my way home from work through the early Hong Kong night.
The course notes emphasize the importance of white balance, and that’s where I chose to focus. By shooting in RAW format, I could adjust the white balance in post-production to reflect the dominant light source in each image.
Process
At Hong Kong’s latitude, daylight fades quickly. Sunset occurs around 5:00 p.m., and the sky is fully dark by 5:30 p.m., especially at this time of year. By the time I leave work, the world is already bathed in a mix of artificial light.
Using a mirrorless Canon M3 with a fixed 22mm f/2 lens (equivalent to 35mm) and occasionally a full-frame DSLR with a 50mm lens, I documented the early evening scenes during my regular commute home or on my way to dinner.
The shots were handheld, taken at high ISO and wide apertures to counteract the slower shutter speeds. I shot exclusively in RAW format with auto white balance to ensure flexibility in post-production.
Post-production was a vital step in creating this series. While the edits were not excessive, they were essential to achieving the look I envisioned. Each image underwent bespoke processing in Lightroom, utilizing sliders for exposure, contrast, and highlights. White balance adjustments were made using the Eyedropper tool to emphasize the light source that I felt was most dominant in each scene.
Image 1
Here a typical early evening scene, which would be so ordinary in the daytime (or my current preferred medium of Black & White); but the colours of the lights give a greater depth. The temperature is balanced for the light on the walkway, and this has allowed different temperatures to come through e.g. the tungsten orange on the buildings and the various tones in the apartment windows where different homes are using different lighting.
Image 2
Here the direction and angle of the light add depth to the picture. The colour temperature is balanced for the bridge allowing the different tones in the apartment windows to show through. The overspill of light gives depth to the shadows the under the bridge. The overall light brings a sense of loneliness to the image, even though you can see the commuters on the bridge.
Image 3
Here the direction and angle of the light add depth to the image, the colour temperature is balanced for the bridge allowing the different tones in the apartment windows to show through. The overspill of light gives depth to the shadows the under the bridge. The light overall imply loneliness to the image, even though you can see the commuters on the bridge.
Image 4
In this scene, it struck me that while you see an old man at a traditional street-side stall, he is watching an iPad (or equivalent). This is what drew me to the scene and I felt It was appropriate to highlight, from the mixtures of light, the cool electric blue tones. Perhaps illustrating bringing the old into the modern world?
Image 5
The mixture of lights here keep the image cool and the direction of the light and its overspill accentuate an extraterrestrial feel in the picture. The light wraps the central yellow construction as if it is rising from beneath the ground. I like how if reflects giving long diagonal shadows.
Image 6
Here I like the high contrast the light is giving, the red almost like a glow of warmth from the restaurant, as the people stand around facing down towards the cold blue light in the distance. It feels almost as if they’re avoiding stepping further into the cold night.
Conclusion
I thoroughly enjoyed working on this set and feel it comes together cohesively. I challenged myself to use the vibrant and colorful light as the central subject of the images, drawing inspiration from Brassaï’s belief that “the light at night is magnificent.”
The direction and angle of the light, as well as the degree of overspill, were critical in crafting each image. By focusing on the subtleties of color balance, I believe I have added a layer of creativity to the series.
The exercise required a series of shots illustrating different types of light, and while I worked with the same lighting types, I experimented with their dominance and interplay within the frame.
Is the overall assignment creative enough? I’m not entirely sure, but I do feel I’ve achieved my objective of illustrating the beauty and complexity of artificial light in the urban environment.
