I Like Pictures

"But if the world could remain within a frame,
like a painting on a wall,
then I think we'd see the beauty then,
and stand staring in awe."
-Bright Eyes, Bowl of Oranges

Well, after walking around some of the world's most picturesque cities at night, I often found myself wanting to capture that moment behind a lens, to somehow reproduce it if at all possible. What is normally a hot, sweaty, and overcrowded mess by day, transforms into an empty maze of shadows and reflections by night. Thus, I started playing around with my camera, a 7.1-megapixel Canon SD75o that my brother has graciously let me borrow for the trip. Despite its pocketable size, it takes surprisingly great shots, as do most of Canon's models. Specifically, I've been experimenting with night shots with long exposures, where during the shot, the lens remains open anywhere from one to twenty seconds. Luckily, I have a little tripod with me, which has come in handy countless times, as it's the only way to get a decent shot at night that isn't blurred beyond recognition. Below are a few of my favorite night shots, but I've been taking many of them in the cities I've visited, particularly in the last few weeks. The first is Rome's Coliseum; the second is the skyline of the river in Florence; and the last two are the coastline of Cinque Terre, Italy. Those last two, although appearing rather bright, were taken at nearly midnight, with an exposure of almost twenty seconds. If you'd like to see other pictures like these, you can check out my various albums at my Flickr page.