Shooting Wat Arun, Bangkok

I had a chance to make a brief stop in Bangkok during my year-end trip.  I only had one night to shoot; so I scouted the internet for locations which I feel best represent beauty of Bangkok at dusk.  Most importantly, it must be easily accessible since again, I had a dinner deadline.  Turned out most of the images I found of Bangkok were citiscapes, buildings, night lights, etc.  Wat Arun stood out because it is a well-lit ancient temple, and it is right next to Bangkok’s famous river.  Thanks to the tips from Prachanart Viriyaraks and my buddy Panu; I was able to find the right location, plan the shoot with enough margin after sunset, and still make it on time to dinner despite Bangkok’s infamous traffic.

I thought I needed HDR to properly expose the image.  It turned out, single exposure from one of my bracketed frames was nearly perfect.  What a majestic site, don’t you think?

Sunset over Shinjuku – 2012

This is my 2nd attempt at capturing sunset over the city of Shinjuku.  The weather was virtually perfect, sky was clear and glowing orange, mount Fuji was clearly visible and gigantic as the result of compression from my teleconverter.  However, I ran out of time – I had a dinner appointment that night; I had to leave by 4:50PM.  15 more minutes the lights would have been perfectly balanced.  May be next year, may be.