Street Smart

Gotta Show Some Flair For A Flare

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Someone asked me a fascinating question recently – whether I look through my viewfinder when I shoot, or whether I look at the LCD screen instead. I actually had to stop and think about that one, because I was about to answer that I look through the viewfinder every time.

Then I realised that there is a subtle distinction. Yes, when I use my Pentax digital SLR, I always look through the viewfinder, but when I use a compact camera (which is not that often) I view the composition on the LCD screen instead.

Which in turn begs the question: when I use my Pentax DSLR, how often do I shoot a frame and immediately check the result on my LCD screen? In all fairness, I’d have to say maybe one in about ten frames, which to the mathematically minded among you, equates to only 10 per cent of the time.

I shot this frame on New Year’s Eve, when we were in the city to watch the fireworks display that has become a Melbourne tradition. This was purely a random shot, simply taken because I had Federation Square to the left of the frame and traffic coming down Russell Street in front of me.

Like I said, just a throwaway shot, probably occasioned by the fact that I was capturing the last of the dusk sky, a deep blue against the skyscrapers. Because the first fireworks display began at 9pm, this would have been taken a few minutes before.

But had I taken the time to look at my LCD screen, I would have noticed the light halo and the rainbow effect just left of centre. Had I seen that, I would have immediately shot the same scene, using a vertical perspective to emphasise the halo.

The image below is simply a cropped version of the original shot, but I reckon it works better because it emphasizes the light flare. Sometimes self-analysis can even teach an old dog new tricks.


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