A week or so ago I was in San Francisco for meetings.  On the way there I stopped over on Yerba Buena island to photograph the great city of San Francisco.  I staked out my spot and waited for the light to change.  During this time a whole bunch of other photographers came and left.  Two of them in particular were quite strange.  Supposedly they owned their own photography business.  They came decked out with clothing displaying their photography business.  A quick search on the web of their "business" revealed no cyber presence at all.  Their way of shooting also suggested that even if they had a photography business it was not going to be successful.  They shot in harsh light and left well before the light turned sweet.  They did not use tripods and seemed to be trigger happy without composing or taking longer than a second to view the scene or to think about what they are doing.

          Two other photographers stayed for a long time waiting for the light to turn.  They knew what they were talking about.  However, their patience wore out, so they left because "the fog was coming in and tonight was not going to yield anything."  Yet others came, looked at the scene and just left without engaging anyone in conversation or shooting a shot.  Now if you have been following my blog you will know:

• That photography is all about the light;
• That tripods are your friends;
• That waiting can often yield the best shots, so be patient;
• That we do not take pictures (like the two "business" photographers), we make pictures - meaning that we think thinks through, we visualize what we want and then we attempt to create the image we envisioned.

          Before I came to San Francisco for this shoot I visualized exactly what I wanted.  I wanted to get a shot of San Francisco at night with the Bay Bridge leading into the city and streaks of light from the traffic on the bridge.  Here is the shot I got:

          So how do we get streaks of light?  It is really simple, the movement of the cars just need to be a lot faster than that of your shutter speed.  Slow shutter speeds require the use of a tripod.  Why do we see lights but no cars?  That is the beauty of this technique, we wait until it is fairly dark and we use a smallish F.Stop.  Since the cars are much darker than their rear lights and since they are moving they do not appear in the shot (they do not stand still long enough in the darkness to reflect light to be seen).

          This technique can be used in many situations.  A person can actually walk right in the shot waving a light (flashlight, glowing stock, etc.) without himself / herself being seen.  Streaks of light are great because they are brighter than anything else in the shot so we know the viewer's eyes are going to go straight to the streaks of light.  In this shot above the viewer's eyes go straight to the streaks of light, follow the light into the city, move to the right as they explore the city and come right back to the streaks of light to start over again.

          Be creative, experiment and play around.  You may just be blessed with shots that are different and that will have people ask you how you shot that.

          Shoot some streaking lights!

Pierre