Visit to Vionovich Park in Cleveland

Summer time usually means a lot of sports (cricket, tennis etc) for most of us Indians over here in Cleveland. Me and my few friends were playing Tennis one day. The weather was not particularly great for tennis. It was very windy and the ball kept swinging in the air. But still, we managed to play a couple sets and finally decided that we should stop for the day and go home. While returning home, one of my friend suggested that we go out and shoot.

We started hunting for various locations. He mainly wanted to capture those fancy "Car Trail" pictures during night time and wanted to get something with the downtown skyline. Interesting concept, but we could not find any location from where we could take such a picture (at least not in the time that we had that day).  So we ultimately decided to take picture of downtown, mainly the skyline. Some evening/night shots. 

So again, the question was "Where should we go?". We had a few options in mind 

1. Edgewater Park 
2. Vionovich Park
3. Heritage Park

All these places offered some great views of Cleveland skyline. I have been to Edgewater Park multiple times and had some of my favorite shots from that location. Heritage Park was new for me and him too. But ultimately we decided that we will go to Vionovich Park. 

We started about 8:30 pm and reached in about 30 mins or so. It was almost sunset and we started setting up our tripods and what not ! We started taking different shots and just as it always is, the first dozen shots were really crappy. So what did we do? We did what most amateur photographer (like us) does. We started by blaming the nature - bad light, lots of cloud cover, too windy etc etc. 

Then we settled down and did what a good photographer would do ! We 'worked' the scene (as Scott Kelby says) i.e we tweaked our settings and composition and overall perspective and the result is what you see below. 

The first picture here is not a 'bad' picture in my mind. It's just that I felt something is missing in this picture. 

Exposure: 1.3 sec @ F/16, ISO-100

So I stepped back a little bit, zoomed out further more and changed the perspective slightly and this is what I got. To my mind, the next picture is a better picture because it gives much wider view and it shows the waving flag, indicating that it was a windy day. 

Exposure: 1.3 sec @ F/16, ISO-100

The next one here isn't really a 100% natural, out of camera picture. I always wanted to try a picture with 'perspective distortion', so I tried this. I bent low and took a shot of Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame Museum. The shot straight out of camera was hardly distorted. So I did a little bit of post processing and got the following shot.

Exposure: 1.3 sec @ F/16, ISO-100

The next shot, is a full view of the skyline and Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Museum. 

Exposure: 8 sec @ F/16, ISO-100

The next shot here is my favorite shot from the lot. I just like the overall balance of the shot and how the Key Tower stands out. Also the start burst in the steel lights below. 

Exposure: 30 sec @ F/16, ISO-100

Next one is also very beautiful shot in my mind. I like how every element in the scene is adding a sense of depth in the picture. That moon in the scene,by the way, was much more beautiful than what you could see in the picture. This was a day before the Friday 13th Honey Moon !

Exposure: 15 sec @ F/16, ISO-100

This is another shot without the chains. 

Exposure: 20 sec @ F/100, ISO-100 

And next one is the Star Burst shot. I often at least take one shot that has this star burst effect, if I am shooting during night hours. The results usually are very pleasing, especially if you have street lights like these.

Exposure: 13 sec @ F/13, ISO-100

At the end when we were returning home, we decided to take the "Car Trail" shot. After all, that was the original shot that my friend always wanted. I did a bit of post processing here and de-saturated all the colors except the red one. 

So - these are the pictures that I clicked at Vionovich Park. Hope you liked them. But before I end this article, I want to explain how I got the "Star Burst" shot. 

How to get Star Burst Shot

The secret is pretty simple and it's very basic. Here's what you will need

1. Any camera that allows Manual mode.
2. Tripod
3. Street lights (which usually are available free of cost)

Now do the following exercise

1. Mount your camera on the tripod and compose your shot the way you want. 
2. Start out with a bigger aperture like F/4 (most of the lens support F/4) and dial your shutter speed so that the picture is very slightly 'under exposed'. 
3. Now review your picture. Notice that you may have a very slight or no star burst. 
4. Now gradually increase the Aperture to F/5.6, F/7, F/11 and eventually F/16. If you are in Manual mode, you will have to adjust the shutter speed every time. If you are in Aperture Priority mode, your camera will take care of the shutter speed for you. 
5. Review your picture every time and notice how your star burst becomes clearer as you increase the F-stop and select longer shutter speeds. 

Was this tip helpful? Did you try and take a picture of star burst? I would love to see those. Please paste a link to your star burst picture in the comments below.