Earth Hour in Brisbane

Garbz · Mar 29, 2008

For those that don't know Earth Hour is a symbolic hour which many cities around the the world participate in, where all the major lighting which is not required for safety gets shut of. In Brisbane the RedBubble forum had a meetup to photograph this event from Southbank.

Now compare that to this image which I took in April last year which shows what the city normally looks like at 2am (not a fair comparison really)

Comparing these two images I actually realised for the first time that the Goodwill Bridge (on the left) turns its lights off after midnight anyway. Pity because it would have made the comparison more dramatic.

The photographers of RedBubble, sort of. Notice the Bridge on the right? Taken 20 min before earth hour:

kellylindseyphotography · Mar 29, 2008

Wow, those shots are incredible.. just awesome! Glad to see that Earth hour has a pretty noticable effect. I unfortunetly forgot all about it this evening oops.

Arch · Mar 30, 2008

very cool, thanks for sharing :thumbup:

fadingaway1986 · Mar 30, 2008

Hey! Nice! I actually considered coming on my way back from wivenhoe - lucky I didn't - I thought it was at Mt Coot-tha! hahaha...

haduyenhoa · Mar 30, 2008

I think that you have shooted when the sky is so dark. Some one told me that for the night picture, we should take them 15' before and after the sun set (there is no more the sun), when the sky is still blue.
But, I like the reflexion of buildings.

Antarctican · Mar 30, 2008

Love it, Garbz!!! Looks like there was really good participation there. Toronto was heavily involved in Earth Hour this year - I'm hoping the newspaper got a good shot of our darkened skyline.

robitussin217 · Mar 30, 2008

I feel a little distracted by the reflections in the water in the first photo. In the 2nd photo, the reflections are cut off. In the first, a line is created where the reflections end that leads my eye away from the city and out of the photo.

However, I really like the 2nd photo. The city looks grand and vibrant.

Garbz · Mar 31, 2008

haduyenhoa said:
Some one told me that for the night picture, we should take them 15' before and after the sun set (there is no more the sun), when the sky is still blue.
But, I like the reflexion of buildings.

Depends what you're going for. The point of earth hour is that I had no choice in the matter. It was from 8pm to 9pm. Also 15min after sunset the sky is still way to bright to do shots like this. The building lights would still bearly be visible, and chances are not even be on yet. A good time is about 45 min after sunset when the sky is showing it's last few min of blue. Otherwise shoot on a heavily overcast day where the city lights will make the sky bright orange like the do in:

fadingaway I will say Mt Cootha was a bust from what I've heard. Spend 15min looking for parking 20min walking up. Too many people thought that would be good, and mostly it's those people who thought the streetlights would be turned off which they clearly weren't.

robitussin: Ahhh interesting now that you mention it like that. When I was preparing the earth hour panorama I was thinking that it's a pity I cropped the lights out in the other one, but I see your point too.