Lighting the Sails

Lighting the Sails was a spectacular light projection onto Sydney Opera House orchestrated by Brian Eno. Every night for three weeks during Vivid Sydney 2009 festival city icon was a canvas glowing with colorful light patterns.

Sometimes it is hard to anticipate what effect the long exposure would create on a photograph. And this was one of those times for me. I was so focused on capturing Sydney Opera that I did not notice a cruise ship coming into Circular Quay Ferry Wharf. I pressed the button on my remote shutter release and only then saw it slowly entering the shot. ‘Alright, this one is wasted’ I thought. But then, looking on the preview I saw what an amazing effect ship`s lights created on the water and held off deleting it. This is a 20sec long exposure shot from Overseas Passenger Terminal with camera on a tripod. I later made a bit post-processing mainly adjusting the contrast and enhancing light details with selective dodge and burn.

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