If you’re a longtime iPhone user and love photography, you might remember Camera+. The app was one of the most popular iPhone tools for taking photos with manual controls. Now LateNiteSoft, the company that created Camera+, is back with a new app called Photon – which is also a tool for pro photography.
Photon is a new app for taking photos with manual controls on iPhone
As described by the developers, Photon provides “all the control you need to create powerful professional photos.” Just like existing alternatives such as Halide and even Camera+ (which remains available on the App Store), Photon has multiple options for manually adjusting and controlling the iPhone camera before taking photos.
Users can precisely adjust focus, exposure (with shutter speed and ISO settings), and white balance. To make your photos perfect, Photon offers advanced tools like Focus Peaking, which highlights exactly where the lens is focusing. The app also supports different photo formats such as HEIF, JPEG, ProRAW, and RAW.
For those with iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, the app lets users easily choose between 12-megapixel and 48-megapixel photos when using the main wide lens. Another interesting feature in the app is Session Preview. With this feature, users can review each photo they shot at that moment to quickly delete the ones that didn’t look good or share the best ones.
Noël Rosenthal, LateNiteSoft’s Product Manager, told TechCrunch that Photon combines over 10 years of experience in the photography business into a completely new experience. “We took the time to rethink every aspect of the shooting experience, considering all of the feedback we’ve received and the impacts of all of our choices in the past,” he said.
Try it now
Photon is now available on the App Store, and it requires an iPhone running iOS 16 or later. While you can download it for free, the manual controls are only available under a $3.99 monthly subscription or $19.99 annual subscription. If you prefer, you can purchase a lifetime license for $39.99.
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Brendan Larsen spends hours out in the dark photographing the night sky.
He has to time it exactly right to ensure the stars align over Taranaki Maunga for the perfect shot.
Though Larsen has only been doing astrophotography for about three years he is already making his mark.
He is part of the Taranaki Arts Trail, this year from October, 27 – 29 and November 3-5, where he displays his pictures.
And his was one of 25 photos out of more than 3000 entries to be selected in the Milky Way Photographer of the Year, an international competition.
Two other Kiwis, Tom Rae and Larryn Rae were also honoured for their work in the Milky Way contest.
It’s the number one photography competition in terms of recognition worldwide, Larsen says.
“It’s really prestigious to be included in that, and I was really blown away.”
VANESSA LAURIE/Stuff
Larsen’s photos will be part of the Taranaki Arts Trail later in the year.
Larsen, who teaches English with Literacy Aotearoa, helping adults who struggle with reading or writing, and also does security guard work, got into astrophotography after he joined the Taranaki Astronomical Society in New Plymouth.
“I’d never been to an observatory before so went along and really enjoyed it. They had a camera hooked up to the telescope.”
As he got into his new hobby his little “point and shoot” wasn’t cutting it, so he invested money in good equipment and invested time in watching hours of YouTube videos to learn the craft.
For a photo of the Milky Way arching over Maunga Taranaki he took shots of the stars for four hours, spent 30 minutes photographing the foreground and then seven hours editing them together.
VANESSA LAURIE/Stuff
Larsen has a tracker on his camera that moves at the same speed as the stars.
To get the best shots he uses a tracker on the camera that moves at the same speed as the stars, he says.
“But you end up with a blurry foreground. So you photograph the stars – a 2 minute shot here, then here, then here…until you get enough of the sky. And then you stitch them altogether with a programme I’ve got. Then you turn the tracker off and do a two or four minute shot of the foreground, or a panorama, about 10 shots, two minutes for each shot, then blend them in photoshop.”
There’s a lot of editing involved, he says.
“But by doing the longer exposure shots with the tracker you get a lot more colour and a lot more detail in the shots. You can’t see the colours in the Milky Way with your eyes, but the camera picks them up.”
Editing like this is allowed in the competitions. But joining things that don’t naturally belong together isn’t.
“I’ve seen a shot with the Pouakai tarns and the mountain. The Milky Way was perfectly lined up over the mountain. Straight away I knew it was fake, because the Milky Way doesn’t line up there. It rises in a totally different direction.”
Larsen went as far as taking a video to prove the moon really was rising over Taranaki Maunga as portrayed in one photo he took, he says.
“I’ve calculated exactly where to be to get the moon alignment like that. A big part of the challenge is being in the right place at the right time. I’d be out more often if the weather was good, but you’re lucky if you get one day a month. You don’t want even a little bit of cloud. If a cloud moves in front of a long exposure shot it ruins it.”
VANESSA LAURIE/Stuff
To get this photo he took shots of the stars for four hours, spent 30 minutes photographing the foreground and then seven hours editing them together.
He has a lot of fun working out where in Taranaki he’ll get the best views and what time he needs to be there to get the moon or Milky Way lined up where he wants.
And they’re not the only calculations Larsen needs to do to get the perfect shot. The tracker on the camera has a motor inside that rotates at the speed of the rotation of the earth.
“So if you left it going for 24 hours, it would go all the way into a full rotation. With this kind of tracker you have to point it to the south celestial pole, so it’s lined up with the axis or rotation of the earth. I’ve got a hiking sort of compass, and I’ll find where south is, and I’ll line it up.
Brendan Larsen
Larsen went as far as taking a video to prove the moon really was rising over Taranaki Maunga as portrayed in this photo.
“Once you learn it’s easy to get it to exactly the same speed as the earth is rotating and exactly same speed as the stars are moving. If you don’t do that, and you take more than a 20 or 30 second shot, you get star trails in the shot.”
Most people won’t notice, but the stars would be oblong shapes not circles, he says.
“If you do a one or two minute shot like I do with the tracker it’s all messy, it’s all like streaks. One thing that makes a good astro photo is having the stars pin point.”
A dad who was taking some wildlife snaps at a nature reserve was stunned after seeming to capture a ‘pterodactyl’ on camera.
It was taken by animal snapper, Paul Squires, at a nature reserve, and no, it wasn’t called ‘Jurassic Park’. It was Spade Oak Nature Reserve in Buckinghamshire.
He was out there to see if he could snap some of the many varieties of wildlife that live in the area, but ended up getting something that he hadn’t counted on.
Here’s the photo that Paul Squires took. Credit: Kennedy News and Media/Paul Squires
Sadly, it wasn’t an extinct flying lizard that he actually took a photo of, but once you see the picture, it takes a minute to realise what it actually is. It really does look like a dinosaur, right?
The shape of the wings, coupled with what appears to be the famous head of the pterodactyl, you can see where his confusion came from.
Whilst photographing the red kites in the area, the 52-year-old accidentally captured one from such an angle that it looked like a pterodactyl.
He’d thought very little of it, before spotting the picture lurking in the camera roll later on.
It’s actually an optical illusion, with the back of the red kite looking like the head of the ‘pterodactyl’.
After he shared the shot on Facebook, thousands of people liked, shared, and commented on his post.
Paul loves taking photographs of wildlife. Credit: Kennedy News and Media/Paul Squires
Paul explained: “I was out and about with my camera, there are loads of kites in this area, I love taking pictures of wildlife.
“When I was flicking through my pictures the other day I thought ‘what the hell is that? That looks like a dinosaur flying’.
“Why have I got a pterodactyl in my photos?’
“I took another look and then realised it was a red kite.
“I knew I hadn’t had a Jurassic encounter and that it was an optical illusion.
“Within seconds I realised what it was – that it was a red kite’s tail.
“But if you look at it quickly you do see the pterodactyl.”
Paul later shared the pic on Facebook. Credit: Kennedy News and Media/Paul Squires
Since sharing it on Facebook, he’s been enjoying the jokes and feedback on his work.
“Most people did enjoy it,” he said.
“It’s the most like[s] I’ve had on a photo I’ve shared.
“I’ve never captured an optical illusion like this before, I’m really pleased I caught it at the right time.
“I just love being out among the wildlife, in nature, it’s peaceful, quiet and it puts your mind at rest from busy everyday life and it’s great to capture those memories.”
One comment read: “Wonderful capture…. this must’ve been a warp in the space-time continuum!!”
Another – referencing Jurassic Park – said: “Wow!!!! So that’s where they flew to after leaving the island.”
A third wrote: “Had to look a few times before I could make out what it was.”
Dylan Flores taking numerous photographs at the Taylor Swift concert in Denver. Courtesy photo.
By: Rhett Breedlove
Updated: 18 minutes ago / Posted Jul 21, 2023
TORRINGTON – Dylan Flores is a 21-year-old certified nursing assistant (CNA) who has spent a vast majority of his life right here in Goshen County.
Flores graduated from Torrington High School in 2019, and after recently being accepted into nursing school plans on becoming a fully registered nurse sometime in the very near future.
As Flores sat down with the Telegram to discuss other creative ventures, one could certainly see a future in health care for the young man. Still wearing his scrubs and yawning after a long night shift, Flores spoke with a tired, but positive and humorous tone that one would expect from a young, future nurse.
One would also guess while wearing a vibrant shirt, along with unique and intricate arm tattoos, this young CNA would perhaps have a creative, artistic side.
They would certainly be correct.
Although Flores is passionate and ambitious about healthcare yes, he in fact happens to be an aspiring photographer who is skilled at portraits, and has a deep interest in concerts in particular.
Flores works as a freelance photographer for a publishing company in Denver by the name of Music Marauders, and has already been able to add several high-profile concert shows to his resume. The most recent of these shows happened to be Taylor Swift this last week.
“Concert photography is something I’ve wanted to get into, and it’s not that easy considering the area we are in,” Flores said. “I photograph concerts as much as I can because this isn’t the first [time]. I take as many opportunities to photograph as many concerts as I can. I love concerts as a whole, as well as photography. Putting those two aspects together just makes it very fun for me and just peaks my interest. I love being able to capture the best moments in a photo that are hard to explain in words. Photography is such a different form of art, and it is fun for me to be able to tell a part of a story for the artist by capturing that through a camera.”
Flores noted although getting to professionally photograph a Taylor Swift concert was quite the achievement, the process in doing so started off slow.
“We had reached out to her team in April and hadn’t heard anything back until the tenth,” Flores said. “When they had responded, they originally asked what our publication does, and if it just for reviewers or photographers. We told them that we do everything essentially, and it took them a few days to respond. But then they emailed me a whole itinerary of where to go to get my photo pass and all this jazz, so obviously I took that as a yes.”
It should be noted that the list of itineraries, credentials and other items sent to Flores from Swift’s management is not given to just anyone.
“It usually isn’t that easy getting a photo pass,” Flores stated. “It just sounds easy when that’s how it went, but a photo pass is where we were able to take pictures up close near the barricade, really close to the stage. It was only for the first three songs which was around 15 minutes. They also allowed me to photograph the opening acts. I got to photograph the show the first night, and then the second and final night I got to sit in row two behind the stage with some of my best friends.”
Flores obviously wasn’t the only photographer in attendance at the concert. Although he already has extensive knowledge and experience with concert photography, Flores took the opportunity to learn from other professional photographers in stride.
“One of the best things was being able to see the other photographers and their kind of style,” Flores said. “Just how they were photographing her and the opening acts, I think that was pretty cool. We only got a certain length from the stage that we could shoot from. Her stage was huge, and we could only shoot from the back from such a small space that 10 or 15 of us could work with. It was fun seeing how everyone’s photos were going to come out considering the length of space we had.”
Although one would argue Flores has endless potential as far as creating a successful career in concert photography, he is well aware that such a venture is challenging, and nothing is going to come easy.
“It’s not something that can just be handed to you. I have tried to work my butt off to shoot a show this big before, and it’s just something that you have to work hard for. I know it’s cliché, but if there’s one thing to get out of this is you can do anything you put your mind to. I was just looking at my Facebook from five years ago, and I saw a post where I was being talked down to about my photography. It’s just a cool thing to look back, and now photograph one of the biggest stars in the world.”
But just like with any endeavor, goal or dream, Flores made sure to point out that any success doesn’t come without help. Most of the time it involves a large amount of support and sacrifice from those closest to us.
“It helps to chase your dreams when you have such a loving and caring group of family and friends, who are always encouraging you to do what you love and to not stop doing it. Specifically, my mom, dad, grandma and best friends. Anyone who has always believed in me ever since I’ve started photography.”
A cool fact about Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, is that part of the Yangmingshan National Park, one of the nine national parks on the island nation, is in the city and even extends into New Taipei City.
For a Bangkokian who lives in a concert jungle, you wouldn’t expect a national park within the capital or even a city, would you?
Within the national park, there are various landscapes worthy of visiting from waterfalls to mountain peaks, including Min Yang Pu Leisure Farm where hydrangea and calla lilies are in full bloom from May to July.
Hydrangea and hot coffees at Min Yang Pu Leisure Farm
For TW$150 per person or about B160, you can enjoy all the flowers that the cosy farm has to offer, take plenty of photos and later redeem the entry fee for a cup of coffee or a bouquet of hydrangeas or lilies. A reasonable deal.
Next to the farm are vast green fields, which precede a lush mountain range partially hidden behind fog on the horizon. Quite an unreal scene and you don’t have to go that high up from the sea level to behold it. There are several obvious photo-taking spots within the farm such as a cute pink car with balloons (as you do when you’re surrounded by mountains), a big swing and a shallow pond with stepping stones in the shape of leaves.
After appreciating the different shades of hydrangeas, which range from white, blue, purple and pink and take plenty of photos, sip a hot coffee as you enjoy the chilly weather.
Lion’s Head Mountain Park Trail
If you want to ramp up the pedometer on your smartwatch while enjoying Mother Earth, head to Lion’s Head Mountain Park Trail, which is near the northernmost tip of Taiwan and a 13-minute drive from Yangmingshan National Park’s boundary on the New Taipei City side.
The trail features several scenic spots but concludes at a pavilion that overlooks the Twin Candlesticks rock formation, which stands in the ocean below. If you stick to the shortest route, it’ll be a little more than 1.3km, which is very doable for a sedentary person like me.
The main path I took doesn’t contain any sharp elevations, only gradual slopes along the way, as the park is about 70m above sea level. Verdant green and towering trees are aplenty along the path with a few stop spots to take in the view. The last scenic spot before you reach the pavilion at the end of the trail offers a very expansive and diverse view of the natural-and-manmade landscape below, which covers the sea, Huanggang Fishing Harbour, Jishan Beach, Huang River and Mount Qixing on the horizon.
There’s an obvious photo-taking spot at the end of the trail. It’s circular steel on a viewing rock platform, which frames the Twin Candlesticks in the centre so you can pose and take a photo with them. While I can’t behold the beauty of the candlesticks up close, there was something quite mesmerising to see the lonely rock formation sticking out in the middle of the sea while the sky was foggy.
Dip your legs into a golden pond at Huanggang Community Public Hot Springs Center
After an active day, you may want to relax your legs and feet in the warmth of natural spring water. The Huanggang Community Public Hot Springs Center in New Taipei City’s Jishan isn’t far from the trail, about a five-minute ride away.
Taiwan is known for its many natural springs despite its compact size, warranting a Wikipedia entry of its own on this hot topic (see what I did). Soaking in hot springs à la Japanese onsen became popular during Japan’s 50-year colonial rule. The more you know.
What makes this hot spring stand out is its high iron content, which turns the water brownish or gold (more like the colour of Thai tea) due to the oxidation of iron and salt in the water. You can soak your legs and feet for free in the three outdoor ponds with varying hotness. A few locals laid on towels next to these ponds, to absorb the supposed health benefits, which include joint improvement and rash relief. It’s quite refreshing to wash your legs with tap water after soaking them in warm water.
Visit taiwantourism.org or fb.com/itstimefortaiwanth.
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See Also: Level Up Your Summer with the realme Narzo 50
A shocked dad thought he captured a photo of a pterodactyl while birding in Buckinghamshire in the UK.
Paul Squires was on a three-hour walk at Spade Oak Nature Reserve in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire, UK, when he captured the illusion.
The amateur wildlife photographer snapped several pictures of red kites which live in the area but when he was flicking through the photos at home he was given a start by what appeared to be a pterodactyl.
When Squires shared the image on Facebook it received around 1,200 likes, shares and comments as others also saw the prehistoric animal in the photos.
He said of the strange pictures: “ I was out and about with my camera, there are loads of kites in this area, I love taking pictures of wildlife. When I was flicking through my pictures the other day I thought ‘What the hell is that? That looks like a dinosaur flying’. Why have I got a pterodactyl in my photos?’
“I took another look and then realized it was a red kite. I knew I hadn’t had a Jurassic encounter and that it was an optical illusion. Within seconds I realized what it was – that it was a red kite’s tail. But if you look at it quickly you do see the pterodactyl.”
The perfectly-timed shot gives the illusion of a pterodactyl’s head but it is really just the bird of prey’s tail.
The 52-year-old photographer often snaps pics of wildlife in his area but the pic of the pterodactyl is his most-liked photo on social media, he said.
Pterodactyl is a common name for a group of winged reptiles that lived among the dinosaurs.
The animals went extinct, along with other non-avian dinosaurs, around 66 million years ago leaving no living relatives, only fossils.
There were many species of the carnivorous animals and some were very large – one called the Quetzalcoatlus had a wing span of up to 39 feet (12 meters).
It is not often that ScandAsia publishes research into the historical past of Scandinavia in Asia. But we did on a few occasions. A few years ago, we published an article by Anne C. Tan about a photo album following EAC (East Asiatic Company) executives on an inspection of the Mekong river on a survey for alternative transportation routes to the market. The album ended up in a French library, which is a mystery by itself.
This article identifies the most likely Photographer and adds other details to her research.
By Anne C. Tan
My recent research centered around the Danish East Asiatic Company, a photograph album documenting their activities with teak in Siam and a familial connection with my late father in law who was employed by the company in Penang, Malaysia in the first half of the twentieth century.
For the interested reader, an account was published in ScandAsia in November, 2021, ‘Travels in Siam and Laos: a lost photo album’, in which I made the familial connection to the East Asiatic Company, and their teak forest concessions acquired from the Siamese government in Phrae province. (https://scandasia.com/travels-in-siam-and-laos-a-lost-photo-album/)
In that article I drew upon an interesting photo album held by the Universite Cote d’Azur Bibliotheques which provides a photographic record of the company’s operations in Thailand in the early twentieth century. The album chronicles a trip to Siam and Laos with personnel linked to both East Asiatic company (EAC) and L’Est Asiatic Francaise (EAF) an affiliated company founded in 1902.
Bridge building with elephants. The Photographer was probably Felix Agassiz. See details in the article.
The bound photo album, Siam and Laos consists of 54 numbered plates which contain 350 photographs/albumen prints. The albumen process was the main positive printing photographic process of the nineteenth century. The trip starts in Bangkok and travels via Uttaradit north to Phrae, the teak forests of northern Thailand and thence to Laos. Journeying then by boat, the travellers descend the Mekong using small wooden boats bearing the flag of EAF.
Questions answered
Many questions arise when examining this photo album not the least of which is its provenance, the photographer’s name, travel details and companions, dating the expedition and so on. Presently, I believe I have been able to discern the answers to many of these questions and pay tribute to the many respondents who have assisted me with relevant ideas and references.
The academic institution which holds this photo album and their archivist who has written an excellent summary of the journey, has shed some light on the album’s provenance.
According to the archivist, on the album’s first page is mentioned: “ACHAT CNRS” which means ‘Bought by CNRS’. CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research) was created in 1939 and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In the 1980’s, the archivist’s institution, ASEMI (South East Asia and Insulin World) was dependent upon CNRS. Like me, their archivist hotly pursues each likely lead.
In my earlier article I commented on the outstanding quality of the photos, that the composition and framing of the images suggested that a professional was engaged to record this expedition.
Details resurfacing
This quest has seen many twists and turns. A book Lao Roots: Fragments of a Nordic-Lao Family Sagaby Fleur Brofos Asmussen promised to unlock some unknowns. In this book, the author recounts the story of her Norwegian grandfather, Peter Hauff, born in 1873. Hauff landed a job in 1894 with a large commercial firm in Saigon, where he immersed himself in the culture and language, which gained the respect of locals.
In his records, Hauff states that two East Asiatic Company personnel, Guldberg and Fenger, visited him in 1903, interested in floating teak on the Mekong. He was so skilled at this, having traded up the river from Saigon…so EAC personnel went to the right person. Hauff had invaluable knowledge of the Mekong both up and downstream, and its challenges especially the rapids of Khemmarat.
The account of Peter Hauff’s shipment of teak logs down the Mekong is contained in Lao Roots.
Hauff also states that EAC personnel had with them a Sinhalese servant and a French photographer, Mr Agassiz with much photographic apparatus whom Hauff had met previously in Singapore. Might he be the elusive photographer?
The East Asiatic personnel wanted to see the Mekong’s large waterfalls. Hauff makes arrangements for the trip with 150 men and plenty of boats. Subsequent research has identified Felix Agassiz as an assistant to G.R.Lambert, the longest surviving firm of Singapore photographers. John Falconer ( A Vision of the Past: Photography in Singapore and Malaya) argues that Lambert and Co., could be seen as the nurturer of the talent of numerous other photographers, including Stafhell and Kleingrothe.
Felix Agassiz, after a period as assistant with Lambert and Co., in the 1890’s, then went on to found his own business in town as proprietor of The Photo Store, 56 Hill Street, Singapore, ca. 1898-ca.1905. Along with another researcher, Jean-Michel Strobino, I believe that Felix Agassiz is the elusive photographer.
Virtual traveling Anno 1903 – 1909
The colonial album as a story has been described by Dirk Janse (1999) as a story told in meaningful coherence. The meaningful visual narrative could bridge the thousands of kilometres between far flung places and motherland. Images showed the ‘Westerner’ in the East. He explored unknown and dangerous areas, traversed treacherous rapids, faced obstacles.
Nowhere is this narrative exemplified so accurately as with the photo album Siam and Laos. Investors were given the opportunity to take a paper inspection tour of far flung companies through the photos in the album, to travel vicariously.This album documents riverscapes, company offices/factory/residences, group portraits, village views, company personnel and local employees. Such albums were used as a kind of visual annual report.
Guldberg and the temple camp
In my earlier research I was intrigued by a photo bearing the caption “Camp in a temple” which show East Asiatic Company personnel in a Buddhist temple and sojourning overnight as referenced with camping arrangements. Further study has revealed that camping in temples was common practice for imperial European travellers in the late 19th and early 20th century. The temple compound provided safety and sanctuary.
Travelling in Northern Siam, Reginald Le May, Acting Adviser to the Siamese Government wrote of the practice during his journey from Bangkok to Chiang Mai (1913).” [Spending a night in a temple]…which is not so strange a proceeding as it may seem, for most temples in Siam, at any rate in the provinces, are open to travellers as rest-houses, and you may spread your camp bed on the cement floor with the certain knowledge that no one will disturb you or question your honesty of purpose. Only you must put your head beneath the Buddha’s care, and not turn your feet towards the altar’. (An Asian Arcady. The Land and Peoples of Northern Siam, 1926).
I have also been able to identify the figure on the right as Captain V. Guldberg, brother-in-law of H.N Andersen the founder of the East Asiatic Company. Guldberg was the managing director of EAC in Bangkok. The temple itself has also been located and is the Wat Saen Muang Ma in Chiang Mai here imaged in both the EAC album and contemporary images.
Floating of logs on Mekong
On a website: https://entreprises-coloniales.fr I found an EST-ASIATIQUE FRANÇAIS company report dated 11 February, 1911 which commented on ‘a second floating of logs down the Mekong following a 1909 campaign (which showed favorable prospects)’. 1909…small number.
Mention is also made in the report to the French company’s connections/associations with EAC and to a French manager’s name, Monsieur Lesterre.
[The report further mentions: “The general assembly appoints as directors of the Company under the terms of article 16 of the articles of association: MM. Baron Hely d’Oissel, K. A. Wallenberg, Henri Estier, H. N. Andersen, Ernest Carnot, Paul Lecat, Alphonse Mayer, Count de Moltke-Huitfeldt, Admiral du Plessis de Richelieu, André Rickmers, Jean Trystram.” The presence of the EAC is evident. Ed.]
It seems likely that the second part of the photo album records joint early floating operations down the Mekong taken with EAC personnel, perhaps with their oversight/advice/possible scoping of future trade opportunities. It also is possible to then date the activities recorded in the album as likely occurring between 1903 and 1909.
Comments
As with all research some roads flow smoothly and some which appear promising yield scant reward. This researcher feels confident of making some small inroads into answering some of the questions raised by this photograph album.
The Universite Cote d’Azur Bibliotheques in Nice is very close to the small village where Peter Hauff died and the university’s archivist wonders if someone who inherited the album sold it to their institution in the 1980’s.
The Shanghai Research Institute of Sports Science removed its fences to open up nearly 1,800 sq m of green space to the public. [Photo by Gao Erqiang/China Daily]
Number of parks and green spaces in the city continues to grow as authorities look to improve quality of life, Zhou Wenting reports.
In the spring of 2013, Yu Fangfei spent more than 90 minutes traveling by public transport from her home in southwest Shanghai”s Minhang district to Gucun Park in the city’s northern Baoshan district just to admire the cherry blossoms.
That spring, around 1.05 million visitors flocked to the park for the same reason.
This year, courtesy of a small new public park near her home, Yu spent just five minutes traveling on foot to admire the blooms.
According to Yu, the park was converted from a former construction site that was left idle for several years. Nowadays, the park is bustling both day and night, especially in the spring and summer.
It is just one of the many pocket parks that have sprouted up in the city since 2021 because of the campaign to create more green spaces for Shanghai residents to rest and relax and to spruce up communities.
The campaign to create such leisure spaces is part of Shanghai’s ongoing urban master plan.
Xu Mingqian, deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Planning and Natural Resources, said at a news conference on June 30 that the local government will step up the construction of community parks and pocket parks, and introduce more cultural, tourism, and sports resources to neighborhoods, providing residents with pleasant, highly accessible, and interconnected green spaces.
The plan also involves optimizing community circles so that every resident will have access to diversified services within a 15-minute walking radius from their home.
Pocket parks originated in the United States in the 1960s. Other cities around the world, including Venice and Barcelona, also have a mature network of pocket parks that brings nature into their cityscapes.
According to official statistics, there were 22,463 hectares of parks and green spaces in Shanghai as of the end of 2021, up from 16,848 hectares in 2012. This means that green spaces 27 times the size of the Shanghai Chenshan Botanical Garden, the largest botanical garden in the city, have been added to the city over the last decade.
Zhu Xinjun, chief engineer of the Shanghai Landscaping and City Appearance Administrative Bureau, said that the goal was to build many small parks instead of a few large ones as this would enable more residents to enjoy such spaces.
Shanghai had, by 2022, completed the construction or renewal of 390 pocket parks, and it will add another 80 to that number this year. The ultimate goal is to build at least 1,000 parks in Shanghai by 2025.
No matter what you’re taking photographs of, or what you’re taking photographs with, the foundations of your image are built on one crucial thing: exposure.
So what is exposure in photography? Exposure is the amount of light that reaches the sensor or film inside your camera, which affects how light or how dark your image will be. You can control your exposure by manipulating three variables: ISO, aperture and shutter speed, commonly known as the exposure triangle.
• See more terms in our A-Z Dictionary of photography jargon
Explaining and understanding the exposure triangle has confounded photographers for decades, but it’s much easier to think of it as an exposure seesaw. Strictly speaking ISO actually controls the brightness of an image, so it’s helpful to think of ISO as a master brightness dial – but the brighter you make it, the more the image degrades, so you want to keep it as low as possible.
Technically the “luminous exposure” of a photograph is dictated by the aperture and shutter, so balancing this seesaw is the key to mastering exposure.
These two variables control the amount of light entering your camera in two distinct ways. The aperture controls the quantity of light that enters; when your aperture is wide open, lots of light can enter at once, producing a lighter image. When your aperture is narrow, only a small amount of light can come in, thus producing a darker image.
What is exposure in photography?
Shutter speed controls how long the camera’s shutter stays open. The longer it’s open, the more light can enter and the lighter a picture will be; but if it’s only open for a short time, less light can enter and the picture will be darker.
These abstract concepts can be difficult to get your head around, so this video gives a more tangible explanation. First imagine that the cup is our photograph, and filling it up with water is like filling it up with light to expose the image. If we pour in the water very slowly, it’s going to take a long time to fill up – which would be like using a slow shutter speed. But if we throw the water in there super fast, we have to throw it all in at once – and this would be like using a fast shutter speed.
Now imagine that the kettle is the photograph. If we fill it up through the small spout opening, we’re going to have to pour water in for longer – so this would be like a narrow aperture. But if we open the lid and fill it through the larger opening, we can pour water in much quicker – so this would be like a wide aperture.
Taking the analogy further, you can overexpose an image by overfilling your cup, and you can underexpose it by not filling it up enough. So what is the “correct” exposure? Well, some people like their cup filled all the way to the top, others like it filled three-quarters. So it’s entirely up to you – your cup is your photo, so you decide how much light to fill it with!
(Image credit: Future)
If you were asking what is exposure in photography, you might also be wondering what is ISO in photography? Using the best light meters will help you take control of your exposure, and these photography tips will enable you to master it!
