396 - Griffith Park
WHEW! My first lighting shot ever. Fuck to the hell yah. And it all happened in the Hollywood Hills at Griffith Park.
Apparently this is the place where they film all the movie starts running through the hills. It's a massive park that reminds me of the Los Angeles version of Twin Peaks in San Francisco. You can see literally ALL of Los Angles from any direction, depending on where you're standing on the mountain (or should I say hill?)
We showed up about an hour before sunset, and realized the point we wanted to be at was only about a half mile walk from the van, so we waited until 45 minutes before to leave.
Major mistake.
What we DIDN'T account for is the fact that the hike is basically straight up, and the point we assumed the top wasn't anywhere close to the top. AKA this turned into a rush to the top of the mountain before the sunset, and it became clear real fast we weren't going to make it. Luckily, it wasn't a sunny day at all. In fact, it was thundering and lightening. A rarity for LA. Cool.
Considering my position on the hill, I decided to try my luck with lightning photography. I'd never done it before, the sunset wasn't going to happen, and we were in a perfect overlook of the storm, so fuck it. I'd listened to a few podcasts on how to do it, and decided to go with the time-lapse technique. Which meant I set my camera to shoot 1000 one second exposures, every one second. The hope is that at least one will line up with the timing.
It turned out to be WAY easier than I expected. I ended up taking about 400 shots total, and ended up with four shots that had one beam of lightning, one shot with two with beams of lighting, and one shot with three beams. That's this shot here:
Kind of looks like an 80s movie poster. I would say Miami Vice, but that's all the way across the country. Anyway, I love how it turned out. Still can't believe it was that easy. I'd always assumed lighting photography was hard, so I actively avoided it. In the words of a famous Hollywood movie, I'll be back!!
OK. Now that I had got that shot in the bag, the sunset was basically gone. But I REALLY wanted a shot of the Hollywood sign. It didn't feel like a trip to LA without it, so I lined up the camera, found some palm trees to shoot through, and clicked this banger:
“Hollywood Twilight”
Sony a7rIII + Sony 70-200mm 2.8 GM
ISO 1250 ~ 165mm ~ f/5 ~ 1/80s
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
The good thing is that four is my lucky number, so it came out perfectly. Obviously a blue hour shot, but the blue/white vibe felt like a nice contrast to the heat of the previous lighting shot.
If you look carefully, you might notice I cropped out a radio tower in the back. The sky was basically uniform, so it wasn't TOO much trouble, but it's definitely noticeable if you know what to look for. To the casual eye, probably not. I need to figure out how to blend that stuff better.
For my grand finale, I wanted some type of shot of the Griffith Observatory, which was right down the hill from where we were. I walked until it lined up perfectly straight, and got this shot:
“LAlladin”
Sony a7rIII + Sony 70-200mm 2.8 GM
ISO 1250 ~ 136mm ~ f/2.8 ~ 1/100s
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
I love the line of traffic comes right out of the top of it, and it almost looks like some lost mosque you'd find in the middle east. Except this was like a modern dystopian version of that, with the city lights stretching infinitely behind it.
Dope.
And that's about it for this shoot. One huge bummer was the fact that my camera bag BROKE on the way down. I was zipping it shut and the whole thing ripped of! So I had to walk about a mile and half down a mountain carrying my bag full of lenses in my hands so it didn't fall out.
It sucked major dick. But... it gave me an excuse to buy a new camera bag the next morning, at one of the sickest camera shops in LA- Samy's Camera! Holy shit- this place was four stories of camera gear. And no this isn't sponsored... Just nice to see people who speak my language.
Then I had a sudden realization that next morning that this is probably one of the best towns in the world to buy camera gear...
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
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