iN PHOTOS: Kelowna photographer turns lens to city lights
Neil Thacker is best known as a landscape and nature photographer but decided a couple of months ago to take his art in a new direction.
“With the dark nights happening really early, I switched to shooting around town after dark which turned out to work really well,” he told iNFOnews.ca. “I’ve been taking it in the direction of an art piece rather than just a straightforward photo and that’s where the reaction has been really positive. I was actually surprised with how well they’ve gone over.”
He's mounting and selling the photos at Picture Perfect, the custom framing shop where he’s the master framer and manager.
He now has more than 100 images of small businesses, like corner stores, that stand out as a beacon of light in an otherwise very black night.
Others show streetscapes exposed through a shutter that stays open anywhere from three to 30 seconds.
It’s got to the point where he’s considering traveling to Penticton and Vernon to expand his portfolio and, ultimately, to produce a book.
His Canon 60D full frame camera has the technology to gauge the exposure time for him.
Some photographers will take multiple exposures of a scene and use Photoshop to blend the various exposures to create the perfect image.
“I don’t do that,” Thacker said. “I shoot it in one shot.”
He only took four pictures of the Shady Rest Fish and Chip store, for example, mostly to make sure he got one with the right exposure.
“Sometimes you pull up to a spot and the scene just tells you exactly what you should be doing,” Thacker said. “There is no other option. Sometimes, just looking at it, you know what’s going to work.”
His images are posted on his Facebook page, here.
READ MORE: iN PHOTOS: Majestic swans caught on camera in the Shuswap
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