Apartments – Richard Schulz

Apartment photo & week ahead.

It is cold outside tonight.

57F according to Accuweather. A low of 39F tomorrow morning. It has been a busy week. Not much time for morning photography or writing. I did however manage to write the next edition for my newsletter which will be out next Sunday.

An apartment block with lights on in the windows. In the front a long exposure light trail. — Lights and trails.

I took a few more photos this evening for my Apartment series. I’m starting to think about this project more often. I ask more questions around the subject. What. Who. Why. I feel this is as important as the images I take.

Tomorrow is Sunday (yay). Another opportunity to unwind from a work week. Another opportunity for writing and photography. My writing has taken a bit of a back seat lately. Mostly due to long hours at work. Getting home I usually find myself drained and I tend to eat, burn an hour on YouTube and then head to bed.

For the coming week I’m going to substitute my YouTube fix with writing. A pen, some paper and just scribble down ideas and thoughts. On the upside this is post no. 38 on my website which I’m impressed with. These small daily (kind-off) posts helps to keep building momentum and often spins into ideas for newsletter and more posts.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a splendid weekend : )

If you enjoy reading my work please consider supporting me via my Paystack page. I also offer some of my photos for sale.

Night time photography.

58F. Chilly.

Another autumn evening mimicking winter.

I decided to capture a few photos for my Apartment series. With colder nights being clearer it stands to reason for me to get crisper photos.

It was an interesting thirty minutes. Cold evenings also tend to be much quieter. Fewer people on the street. Less cars, although I got one or two good light trail images which I plan to edit and add for sale in the next few days.

An apartment block at night. — What are the neighbors doing?

The image on top has been run through Photoshop Express. I didn’t see them at first but the good thing about this image is the shadows of the tree against the walls. There is a house just opposite with a massive light in the drive way which is causing these shadows.

And when I thought it wouldn’t get better there was a fog rolling in about an 3o minutes after I took my last photo. This (obviously) prompted me to head out again and take a few more photos.

An apartment block at night in the mist. — Foggy.

I shot with the same settings, F/2.0 and a 2 second exposure. I’m using an XE2 and if you put it in T mode on the dial it is supposed to give you the option to change the time the shutter remains open. I’ve tried it by rotating the command dial but it isn’t working as I expected it to.

The lens I am using is a XF35mm and it’s probably the sharpest lens I have.

What are you thoughts on shooting at night? Any interesting projects in the works? I’m looking for inspiration and interesting reads.

Thanks for reading : )

Start work on a project.

I’ve been reading about photo projects for a while.

The urge to start something more concrete with my photography is a big one. I’ve mostly stopped posting on Instagram because we know it’s going to sh!t.

To an extent I did a lot of my photography with Instagram in mind. I used it as a portfolio although most of the people I photographed at one point or another rarely, if at all, found me through IG.

An apartment building at night. A few lights on in the windows. — What are your neighbors doing?

A photography project isn’t only about going out and shooting a ton of photos. There has to be some type of thread which ties things together.

I live close to a large block of apartments. I haven’t been inside the area because it’s a gated community but I’d have to guess there is at least 100 apartments inside the community.

I can see these apartment blocks through the kitchen window. The lights in them have always intrigued me. I think about what people are doing or what is going on. Supper? Families spending time together? Dinner in front of a television or at a table?

I started doing some photography of these blocks over the past few years but nothing more came from it except the odd photo here and there which I liked. It wasn’t until the start of the year when I started to think about these photos and those apartments as having the makings of a photo project.

And a few weeks ago I started to take long exposure photos of them. The street passing in front of the apartment blocks yield nice long exposures of cars driving past.

This is what I want to focus on for a photo project. Take photos at various times of day of these apartment blocks. Do a bit of writing around them. And if the photos are good enough put them online for sale.

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts. Have you started any new photo projects recently? Any ideas on your next one? If you’re selling photos online I also be interested in what your results and the journey has been like.

Thanks for reading : )