A while back I subscribed to the newsletter of the Vancouver Public Space Network, a non-profit dedicated to exploring issues relating to claiming space open for everyone. One of their ongoing issues is an open question: where is Vancouver's main square? Where is its piazza or central gathering point? The fact is there isn't really one big enough space currently in the downtown core where people can gather for rallies, parties or simply to hang about. There are several smaller places including the featured in the photo above, at Robson between Howe and Hornby before the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery.

One thing that is nice about that place is that it forces Vancouver's consumer/coffee culture to come face-to-face with Vancouver's activist culture. The VAG steps sits right between Granville St. formerly-grungy stores to the east and the glitzy Robson street crawl to the west. To get between the two the shoppers must then have to sidestep or squeeze past the issue of the day. Last week it was a demonstration against the Iranian fundamentalist regime, last night it was Human Rights Day and the Free Tibet movement.

Shooting at night in candlelight

With my 30D and that Tamron 28-75mm I have four choices to shoot with very little light -- in this case, having only candlelight and the street lamps.

1) I can open up the aperture all the way. The Tamron has a maximum aperture of f/2.8 which is pretty good.

2) I can slow down the shutter. However, the problem is that the subjects here will not stay still, and I did not bring a tripod.

3) I can use a flash. I did try a flash for a few shots but realized that I liked the look of the candlelight better. I had brought a warm gel for the flash to try and not wreck the color balance but I decided I liked being able to shoot more spontaneously.

4) I can raise the ISO.

One of the real attractions of that camera I cannot afford is that it looks real good even at very high ISO. So with every picture I took with my Canon 30D at 1250 ISO I kept wondering, how much better would this have been if I had been one of the early adopters of the 5D MKII? I'll just keep on wondering and staring balefully at my VISA balance. The shots throughout here are at 1250 ISO.

As you can see, pretty grainy. One option to deal with the grain is to use denoising software such as NeatImage or NoiseNinja. I don't have either of these so I just used the native denoiser in Adobe Lightroom. It doesn't work wonders. Besides, a bit of noise in a photojournalism project is part of a 'look' that I find acceptable.

You can see the rest of my Tibet vigil set here.

Links

• Vancouver Public Space Network
• NeatImage
• NoiseNinja