I'm still alive...

[Yuukon]

Hi all,It's been a little since I've posted, but I'm still alive. Health issues have been taking over my life, so sometimes online activities have to be kept to a minimum. I hope you're all doing well! A few weeks ago we went to visit the mills in the north of the Netherlands which are always lit up beautifully during the night.

I ultimately ended up forgetting my memory card, but thankfully I could borrow my friend's extra, who was there with me. I should start working with lists when going out for photos! Either way, this is a 30 second exposure at f/10. I hope you guys like this shot

[DanK]

A nice image. I like the way you have composed it, with the low line of lights taking up a good bit of space on the left.

I would do some perspective correctly. The buildings on the left appear to be about to collapse.

[Geoff F]

Difficult to know where the level line should be in this scene, but the bottom left corner verticals are obviously suffering from some lens distortion. So, yes, I would try a little bit of perspective correction in that area.

[FootLoose]

Nice image, Monique. I feel there is a little too much of the bright background though. I might crop in from the left to the first red light, and that would also eliminate the some of the skewed verticals that other folk have noticed and possibly make the remaining ones less noticeable.

[Manfred M]

A very nice shot but I wonder if it might not have worked better as a "blue hour" shot. Most of the image is pure black sky.

[John 2]

That is really very nice. I'm happy with the comp. Manfred is right, a little more in the sky would be good but it is a very nice image none the less.

[Jim A]

I quite like the negative space, Monique, however it would be a dull life if we all preferred the same things! Good comments and suggestions from others re the left side, etc.

[Yuukon]

Thanks, all, for the comments! Thanks for pointing out stuff is crooked... I somehow missed that! I'll definitely be having a look at that again.

Our initial plan was to go out during blue hour, but unfortunately, things changed and we couldn't make it there in time (it was almost two hours drive away...). I hope we can go back for blue hour at some point, but since it's so far away, you kind of have to make the best out of what you have, right?

[Manfred M]

I agree Monique - Blue Hour is so short that one has to be on site and set up well before that time. I generally try to combine my Golden Hour and Blue Hour shoots so that I get the best of both those lighting conditions, but things don't always work out that way.

I have had similar things happen to my shoot planning too. I had planned to shoot an architectural scene in a city that is 2 hours away and when I got there, there was a musical event going on that was supposed to finish well before sun down. My contact did not know about it otherwise I would have not bothered going down.

It finished right on time, but the large trucks that were there to pack everything up parked right in front of the building I was planning to shoot and golden hour and blue hour came and went without me getting a single shot.

[dnperfors]

Nice shot Monique, the only advice I have is to put your memory card in the camera as soon as you take it out of the card reader (but then you should remember to take it out of the card reader...)

[Yuukon]

I agree Monique - Blue Hour is so short that one has to be on site and set up well before that time. I generally try to combine my Golden Hour and Blue Hour shoots so that I get the best of both those lighting conditions, but things don't always work out that way.

I have had similar things happen to my shoot planning too. I had planned to shoot an architectural scene in a city that is 2 hours away and when I got there, there was a musical event going on that was supposed to finish well before sun down. My contact did not know about it otherwise I would have not bothered going down.

It finished right on time, but the large trucks that were there to pack everything up parked right in front of the building I was planning to shoot and golden hour and blue hour came and went without me getting a single shot.

Sometimes you just have to make the best out of a bad situation... yours sounds exceptionally bad though!

[Yuukon]

Nice shot Monique, the only advice I have is to put your memory card in the camera as soon as you take it out of the card reader (but then you should remember to take it out of the card reader...)

Hahah! Thanks David Normally I always carry an extra memory card in my bag, but I had a different bag too... Not my best moment!

[DanK]

I ultimately ended up forgetting my memory card

I forget to pack stuff often, but not that, because I have strict routine that I follow for reasons of backup before I do any editing:

1. Upload the photos.
2. Sync to my local backup. (My second backup, which is really a backup rather than a sync, is an automatic online backup that takes a while).
3. then reinsert the card in the camera and format it.

[dnperfors]

Well, I often had similar issues with the battery. I didn’t have an extra battery with my old camera and often forgot to charge it before I went for a day out. So I often only got a few shots and the rest of the day I couldn’t take any...
Now I do have a spare battery, but I have to remember to charge it as soon as I am back home...