2014 Photography Challenge- A Moment in Time (8:00 p.m.)

I'm thinking that 7:00 - 11:00 p.m. is only going to prove that I'm not a fan of night photography. So far 7:00 p.m. frustrated me and 8:00 p.m. wasn't any better. Given that this is a challenge, after all, I'm trying to remain focused on the learning opportunity that this is presenting and not continue to get frustrated by my very evident lack of nighttime photography skills. Finding that patience and understanding with myself is also proving to be challenging.

I was supposed to take this photo on Friday, but ended up taking a very late and long nap that had me up at 7:54 p.m. and there was no way I was gonna make it to my destination for this photo. And then birthday and weekend activities made it impossible for me to sneak away until tonight.

It was a quiet night in Santa Monica and I had just barely enough time to park and get to my photo location before 8:00 p.m. Once I was all set up, I started to take some photos and realized right off the bat that it was going to be more difficult than I anticipated for a few reasons:

• As already mentioned, I'm not a very good nighttime photographer. 
• I still don't have a tripod and even though I didn't think I needed it for this photo since I had a built in fence to lean on, I think it would have made a difference. 
• Because it was so dark out, I couldn't properly line up the photo because I didn't have the same visual points to focus on.

Once I got over all my annoyance and frustration, I just tried my best to take a halfway decent photo that lined up as closely as I could get it to its a.m. counterpart. And this is what I settled on:

Because my photos were such slim pickins, I couldn't even obsess over getting the a.m. and p.m. versions lined up just so. Not having daylight at all made it nearly impossible to do anyway!

Here is 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. (click to enlarge):

Five things I noticed between the two photos:

1. The Ferris wheel continues to be the focal point of each photo, day or night!
2. The lack of color at night makes that photo pretty uninteresting if you ask me. 
3. The lights that are so prominent in the p.m. photo are totally hidden and overshadowed by all the color in the a.m. photo. So much so that I didn't even notice there were so many lights on the Pier until just now.
4. Once again, you can't even tell there's a great big ocean in the p.m. photo. And not to mention all that sand too!
5. The lights that line the actual pier (where all the cars/vans/service vehicles are parked in the a.m. photo) is my favorite part of the p.m. photo. 

Check out Cyrena and Sarah's photos which are so unique and fun:

Cyrena- I especially love the texture of her photo, so click
on the link to  visit her blog and view a full-size version:

Sarah- A fantastic capture of a typical family moment. The kind that makes
you wish you were invited to the celebration and part of the family: