Saturday night we visited a street festival in Neumarkt, a town of 40.000 with a historic city center between Nuremberg and Regensburg. The event was called the “Night of the Senses”, and combined late night shopping (everything was open until 11pm) with many performances of bands and artists and ample opportunity for food and drinks. While my significant other thought shopping I brought along my Olympus OM-D E-M1 with the mZuiko 12-40mm F/2.8 Pro Zoom. For more photos of this event plus some explanations around my late night street photography continue after the jump….
People entering the street festival grounds in Neumarkt’s Old Town through the city gate.
Everywhere food stalls were offering all kinds of hot and cold dishes and sweets. Many of the shops offered free drinks and snacks as well.
My significant other enjoying the shop displays. We got her some nice outfits as well 😉
Seeing the trampoline jumping kid in blue cloths I wanted to capture a ghostlike shadow in front of the yellow house front. I decided on a shutter speed of 1/8 sec (always my starting point for motion blur shots), because I wanted the rest of the scenery sharp, and I know I can hand held this shutter speed with my Olympus E-M1 and the F/2.8 pro zoom.
With this high contrast scene of the jumping kid’s silhouette and the shadow of the legs on the reflective surface of the trampoline, I thought monochrome from the beginning on when planning this shot. Metering from the edges of the body under the bright light I could increase the shutter speed up to 1/80 sec, enough to freeze the slow moving silhouette.
To capture the relaxed late night atmosphere of the festival I consciously reduced the shutter speed down to less than half a second to capture a slightly blurred image. It was pretty dark in this area of the streets, and with rays of light falling onto the scene I had a monochrome version in my head when I took this photo.
In this photo I increased the shutter speed back to 1/100 sec, metering from the faces of the performers. The boys and girls building a human pyramid were brightly lit, this helped to get the silhouettes of the onlookers blackened out and the moving bodies of the performers sharp.
Check out my Learning Center, accessible from this link or from the main menu of this blog, for all my free tips and inspirations around street- and travel-photography.
Have a great week!
Marcus
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Stunning visuals! You’ve captured the pulse of the night.
Thanks for your great comment, so much appreciated! Marcus
Great shots!!
Thanks 🙂 ! Marcus
good series.
Thanks for commenting, so much appreciated!