The Online Association of Photographers: Weekly Photography Challenge

Friday 26 August 2016

Weekly Photography Challenge – Neon

Sign Sign Everywhere a Sign – check out these images of neon signs.

By wbeem

Weekly Photography Challenge – Neon

If you live in an urban center or city, chances are you can find some neon nearby somewhere. Look for old diners, city center squares, movie theatres (especially old marquees like this one).

By Mike Boening Photography

There are a number of ways you can approach this subject, but if you choose to shoot it after dark you will most likely need a tripod and a long exposure, you may also want to incorporate some bracketing and do some HDR or exposure blending to help combat the contrast problem (the dynamic range between night sky and neon is very high, hard to keep detail in all areas).

You can also add in some extra things like car trails (as seen above) or do a zoom during your exposure. Perhaps shoot just a portion of the sign even. Those are just a few ideas to get you started.

Tip: if you want some color in the sky and background try shooting just after sunset at dusk, during the blue hour. The sky will be a dark rich blue and not totally black yet, and the lights should start to come on and show up better. It’s about finding the right balance for your exposure.

By oz dean

By Hernan Seoane

By Charlie Essers

By Jeremy Brooks

Share your images below:

Simply upload your shot into the comment field (look for the little camera icon in the Disqus comments section) and they’ll get embedded for us all to see or if you’d prefer upload them to your favourite photo sharing site and leave the link to them. Show me your best images in this week’s challenge. Sometimes it takes a while for an image to appear so be patient and try not to post the same image twice.