Ian Cambourne
July 2026 - Vivid Sydney 2026
Original
About the Image(s)
Our annual Vivid Sydney Light and Sound Festival is held in the last week of May and the first two weeks of June. While many of the buildings and other attractions around the city are lit up as part of the festival, the opera house is always the star of the show. Over recent years the displays on the sails have been constantly moving and flowing, which is definitely not photographer friendly. No longer can we use shutter speeds of 2 or 3 seconds to flatten the water surface, if that is tried, the displays on the sails just blur themselves into a mess. So up goes the shutter speed and ISO goes through the clouds, if you want to get reasonable results, but that's just one of the challenges we face in photography.
Some people ask "Aren't we photographing someone else's art?" Of course we are, but that's what the whole festival is about.
Details are: Nikon D810; 62mm lens; ISO 12,800; F5 1/100 and tripod mounted. Sharpened and denoised in Topaz Photo, then processed in LR & PS.
4 comments posted
Well-done night photography always creates high impact & visually engaging images, and the "wow" factor is that it establishes a wonderful sense of place-there is no mistaking the location.
Compositionally, well balanced and the deep blacks of the sky and water provide excellent negative space, allowing the projections to command attention. The photograph succeeds both as an architectural image and as a record of a special event.
I was curious whether a second, longer exposure to smooth out the the water could have been blended with your 1/100-second exposure to enhance the reflections while preserving the crisp detail of the projections. In any event, your image grabbed my attention and held it. Beautiful work, Ian-night photography can indeed be magical
Posted: 07/01/2026 22:29:10
Beautiful image, nicely balanced and just stunning colors to highlight the beauty of the Opera House. I like the way you divided the image, leaving dark spaces above and below certainly provides a balancing background to the bright and beautiful colors of the Opera House!
Congratulations! Posted: 07/07/2026 18:25:25