Shooting with moonlight

pixeldawg · Nov 29, 2008

I was a photojournalist for over 20 years and worked at small weeklies and international news organizations. In many ways, I enjoyed the more intimate journalism I was able to practice at the smaller papers. I knew all of the cops in town and they knew me. I forged a trust with many of them and was able to get into situations that many would not have been allowed. Much of this is a building of rapport and understanding. They realized that I wasn't after dead body shots and had a respect for the conditions I had to shoot in on various occasions. Case in point, This image was shot in the middle of the night, on Kodak P3200 film pushed to 12,800 ISO. Since the police officers were taking down robbery suspects, you can't really use a flash to get the images- people tend to start shooting at flashes in the dark, so common sense has to prevail. This shot is technically pretty bad- grainy, a little soft (I shot at 1/8th of a second at F2.5 with a 180mm Tamron lens, hand-held). I'm proud of this shot simply for HAVING a usable image. You'll note that the officer is pinning down one of the suspects. I've put the image farther down because I wanted you to get an idea about the shooting situation before seeing the image. Hope you enjoy!

bikefreax · Nov 29, 2008

Great capture and my hats off to you for getting it. I would not want to be around for that.

Downing · Nov 30, 2008

wow thats an amazing capture

LaFoto · Nov 30, 2008

The photo as such is totally dramatic, more so since this is not a staged situation but one that was for real. And it is even more dramatic since you had simply no light at all but still got a photo out of it (and back in film days, not today, when you can buy digital cameras that "do" 12800 ISO). Wow. Admirable!

jv08 · Nov 30, 2008

Nice! You captured it well.

gsgary · Dec 1, 2008

Great shot, love it , a shot with grain is better than no shot :thumbup:

keybq · Dec 1, 2008

awesome

pixeldawg · Dec 2, 2008

Thanks one and all! It was a pretty scary scene and the guy who they were pointing guns at ended up getting wounded in the leg. He went into a house and came out with a gun. Not a good idea with a lot of police officers pointing their guns at you. This negative scans, but it's difficult to get the image to look correct. LOTS of PP work and it shows darker here than it would in a print.

I'd had this shot in my portfolio for a few years just because of the technical challanges that it takes to even get this kind of image. I had one editor (A REAL Ninny in my book) from the Tampa Tribune complain about the grain and went on to tell me that I should have "Lit the scene", meaning use a flash to make the image. Some people just don't get it, I suppose. :lol: