A long week in Rome offers many opportunities for photography. However, it was on our last night that I took this image for part of the Photo Exploration series.
This was with a Canon 5Dmk2, 24–70mm f/2.8L lens. Taken at 24mm and cropped to cut out some of the people meandering in front of me. 30 seconds at f/9.0, ISO 200.
I wanted to mix the dynamic of the architecture and sculpture without the distraction of daytime lighting and shadows. At night the ambient light will be often be enough that any particular light source will, unless it is directly in the frame, have negligible impact on the scene. Thus, in a long exposure such as this, one can get even lighting across larger swaths of space than would normally be available in daylight.
The contrast of the organic flow of the Bernini sculpture with the straight and precise lines from the Sant’ Agnese in Agone church embodied Rome for me. A city built upon (and upon, and upon) itself with occasional attempts to impose order on the natural chaos. A microcosm of the world, you could say.
The temperature of the scene was determined by the piazza lights and I kept them as shot. Shooting RAW does allow for greater latitude with adjusting that later, but in the spirit of “as I remember it” the color temp was kept as is. It could have been cooled down to give more of a daylight feel, but losing the night long exposure effect did not add to the photography. I did not have a way to do a longer than 30 second exposure, but if I had then I think I would have shot longer. The cloud movement is substantial but not as creamy as I would have hoped.
Overall, I am pleased with this photo and I greatly enjoying long exposures more and more often!