A L M E L O C I T Y
A T N I G H T
Travels / A l m e l o
by Ruben Cress
Ruben Cress | Almelo City
S u m m a r y
While most of the city is asleep, I used to wake up and work. I don't know about you, but I enjoy working during the night. I get easily distracted by noises or sounds. It doesn't disturb me enough that I can't work, but Churchbells, loud chatter, or idiots in cars that want to blow up their exhausts kind of do. When I was living in Almelo, I lived most of my time there very close to the city, and during my bartender years, I lived in the center. It was quite alive during the weekends.
At the time when I was living with a few friends, a friend of mine wanted to learn how to photograph. Because I had two (working) Canon 5D Mark IIs and enough lenses, I thought it would be cool to teach him. I've received requests to teach photography from other people before, which I all turned down because I thought I am a bad teacher. I did do a 1 on 1 before that, so I kind of knew how I could teach the basics of photography.
My friend was quite eager to learn, and since we were living in one apartment and he had nothing else to do, we planned some "excursions" to do some practical learning. This included waking up early as fuck, or getting out during the night.
So, this little trip downtown included night photography, where I taught him to photograph with and without a tripod during the night. This would come in handy as you would get used to changing the ISO, Shutterspeed, and Aperture real quick if you keep on swapping to shoot with and without a tripod.
Almelo was the "place to be" for me, I didn't know what it was like to live in other cities (besides the middle-of-nowhere towns where I grew up). If you live there, you probably have seen everything at least once, so you can navigate pretty well. I took him to a spot nearby the train station where a new parking garage was built, it looked kind of futuristic back in the day, and the lights were pretty cool as well. It is very close to the "Javatoren", a tall corporate building that you could see across all of Almelo.
Working with city lights at night is just super cool, especially with long exposures. You can get that little bit of extra in your shot and capture the mood of the environment nicely. While wandering around, we did see some cars driving in and out of the garage, so we decided to go to different places. We even saw some "artwork" we haven't seen before. I thought it would be a good exercise to photograph it as it isn't something that gets noticed, but it was a pretty big object as well.
Enjoy the photographs.
Ruben Cress | Almelo City
C A M E R A D E T A I L S
| Camera | Canon 5D MARK II |
| Lens | Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM |
| Shutterspeed | "20 |
| Aperture | f/22.0 |
| ISO | 100 |
Ruben Cress | Almelo City
The garage looked really cool at night. a perfect place to photograph! We tried to photograph the building from different angles, but these two are my favorite. The wide-angle ones turned out pretty cool as well, but compared to these, it just didn't tell a story.
C A M E R A D E T A I L S
| Camera | Canon 5D MARK II |
| Lens | Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM |
| Shutterspeed | "20 |
| Aperture | f/22.0 |
| ISO | 100 |
Ruben Cress | Almelo City
Looking at this overpacked bicycle parking station is just another day for most Dutch people. Cycling is pretty common to us, and I know that some of you might not see what you're looking at... Yep, there might be 9 million bicycles in Bejing, there are 23 million in the Netherlands!
C A M E R A D E T A I L S
| Camera | Canon 5D MARK II |
| Lens | Canon EF17-40mm f/4L USM |
| Shutterspeed | "30 |
| Aperture | f/10.0 |
| ISO | 100 |
Ruben Cress | Almelo City
This is the "Javatoren", this photograph may not perfectly illustrate how tall the building is, this shot was more to show how to check your histogram while shooting directly into a light source. The "Javatoren" in the back, does add to the shot in my opinion.
C A M E R A D E T A I L S
| Camera | Canon 5D MARK II |
| Lens | Canon EF17-40mm f/4L USM |
| Shutterspeed | "5 |
| Aperture | f/7.1 |
| ISO | 100 |
Ruben Cress | Almelo City
C A M E R A D E T A I L S
| Camera | Canon 5D MARK II |
| Lens | Canon EF17-40mm f/4L USM |
| Shutterspeed | "25 |
| Aperture | f/22.0 |
| ISO | 100 |
Ruben Cress | Almelo City
Damn, every time I see this shot, it just pains me. While the photograph may be good, the lens itself is pretty dirty. Just look at the smudges around the lights. Yikes... Another lesson; always check and clean your lenses before you go somewhere.
C A M E R A D E T A I L S
| Camera | Canon 5D MARK II |
| Lens | Canon EF17-40mm f/4L USM |
| Shutterspeed | "30 |
| Aperture | f/22.0 |
| ISO | 100 |
Ruben Cress | Almelo City
Yeah... this is art. Yeah, it is art! But the location kind of bumps me out. It is at a location barely anyone comes. You can tell by the garage that isn't even being used... I feel bad for the artist because she/he created something for others to see and connect with.
C A M E R A D E T A I L S
| Camera | Canon 5D MARK II |
| Lens | Sigma 105mm f/2.8 |
| Shutterspeed | "30 |
| Aperture | f/11.0 |
| ISO | 100 |
This is (a tiny portion of) Almelo at night
Living in Enschede is a big difference. We live in a pretty crowded street which makes me very aware of all the idiots that pass our street. Yeh... idiots... lots of them, I mean, I kind of have road-rage, but that's mostly meant for while I'm in a car, and not in bed, when I'm trying to sleep. Anyway! Once my feet are in better condition so I can walk again, I'd like to photograph Enschede at night sometime.
Cheers,
Ruben
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