Lunar Cycle

This print may be available in a much larger limited edition A2 along with ‘Mourning Afternoon’ in Christmas 2023. This will depend on if I find the right printshop that can provide the highest quality.

This image holds a special place in my heart. It is the first time I took a photo that I felt genuinely excited my friends with one shouting over the table to another “but have you seen Evan’s recent photo!?” I love the colour contrast between the warm decorative lights, and the cool twilight sky. The crystal clear reflection delivers such a wow factor that made it extra worth it accidentally dipping my camera’s side into the puddle.

*EDIT A huge thanks to everyone for helping make the limited edition A3 Lunar Cycle sell out within 24 hours!

Lunar Cycle

They say it rains a lot in London, but I'm gonna let you in on a little secret: it doesn't. Well, when they say it rains, they mean oftentimes the sky can't even bring itself to give you a proper rain; you're left with this incessant mist delicately pissing about on your face where it's strong enough to annoy you, but not particularly strong enough to go back home and grab your umbrella. This particular day wasn't one of those days though. This day's rain? Torrential.

It started off a typical summer day in London. A warm 22 degrees (that actually constitutes summer here) meant everyone was dressed in shorts and short sleeves. But I'd been caught in my fair share of freak rainstorms to know to always pack an umbrella in my backpack. I thought it would be a nice day to walk around taking photos of the Buckingham Palace grounds and green park when it hit. Even with my trusty, red umbrella, I was finding it increasingly difficult to avoid the sideways assault from the skies.

But there was something special about this day. I didn't care. So what if I get wet. It's a lovely day. Why not make the most of it? In fact, I resolved then and there to walk a majority of the distance home just to take in this newly soaked city and see if I could find any interesting compositions during my journey.

Throughout my walk as the skies cleared once more I felt like a kid in a candy shop. Everywhere I looked provided more candy for the eyes! The light would play off of the surface reflections from the rain and create such delectable compositions. With sundown quickly approaching, I continued on my trek pausing here and there when a certain subject caught my eye.

But it was when the light left the sky and entered into the streetlights that the city really came alive. The shots I thought were beautiful just an hour ago had increased in interest 10 fold! Headlights, streetlights, taillights, shop lights. Reflections and refractions. The perfect shot was here; I just had to find it. After taking a few shots of a neon-lit corner shop, I passed under a bridge and was immediately greeted with one of the most stunning displays of light decoration I had yet seen.

I quickened my pace and gripped my camera tighter. I was on the hunt. A divot in the road maybe? Any sort of inflection of a hill and I'd have it. As luck would have it, the recent downpour had deposited a large mass of water into a puddle on the side of the road. Now this was quite a heavily trafficked street so I really had to get low to the rain-soaked sidewalk, nearly dipping my camera in its murky contents to find my composition while constantly looking behind me and running away to avoid the inevitable splash from a passing double decker bus. Each time I’d sprint back into position and perch my lens barrel just above the recently hit puddle.

Even though I was shooting this on my 16-35 lens, I felt 16mm was just too wide and chaotic of a shot with no story to tell and even 35mm felt too wide for the framing I wanted. So I enabled Super 35 mode which treated my full frame sensor like an APS-C crop sensor making my 16-35 feel more like a 24-52. As it was well past sundown now and the moon was in position, I needed to crank my ISO a bit to get the right exposure while also slowing down my shutter speed to let in more light but also to capture a bit of motion blur from any passing vehicles.

After what felt like ages, the perfect subject came out of the tunnel and I was eagerly ready to hold down my shutter as he zoomed towards the moon. That little rainstorm may have initially tried to put a damper on my day, but ended up helping me to create one of my favourite pieces in my portfolio.

Sony A7III | 34mm (51mm equivalent) | f2.8 | 1/200 sec | ISO 640