Rodney Campbell's Blog

The Vivid projections onto the MCA were probably some of the best I’ve ever seen – so clean, crisp and detailed – and some of them had an amazing 3D feel to them

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

Gerry and I spent ages in and around the MCA taking shots (over 2 hours all up) – first staring right in front of the main central projection tower looking front onto the MCA and then moving forward to just over the barrier just in front for a closer view which include a clearer view at the bottom (but you loose the sides of the buildings because even the ultra wide 16mm isn’t wide enough) and finally to the other side of Circular Quay to take some shots across the water

In this first set we’re right back up against the tower with a wide lens – this allows us to fit the whole width of the MCA in and allows us with some long exposures (especially if we overexpose a bit) with some projections to expose the light beams at the top in the shot (which are cool)

Wavy

3D Boombox

Alien Invasion

The Aliens are Coming

Those Eyes

Then moving up just onto the barrier we get a clean view at the bottom

The Devil Inside

3D

Left and Right

MCA Ice

Wanna know what it looks like when you look back towards the tower where seven of the massive light cannons in one of the three towers which project onto the facade of the MCA building are…

Vivid Rays

This one is a hastily taken pano comprised of three horizontal frames with the ultra wide (idea totally stolen from Gerry – sorry mate) and bashed into shape in Photoshop (man was this one curvy – it needed a whole lot of Adaptive Wide Angle love :))

Beaming

When we moved to the other side of Circular Quay to shoot across the water towards the lit up MCA I had this idea in my mind of long shutter speed shots with smoothed water and the reflections of the bright coloured lights on the water. Whilst it didn’t pan out exactly as I’d envisaged we got a few OK images. I think the main problems here were; the large ferry which moved in and stuck out on the left, the massively bright lobby on the right of the MCA, the shutter probably wasn’t anywhere near long enough to smooth the water and I probably should have used a light grad just to hold down the building lights a little more and let the darker reflections burn in a little more

A Maze ing

Waves

I also took a pano from this spot which isn’t fantastic but I’ll post later

We then moved down towards the Opera House because Gerry was keen to shoot the House from down there – however as this was still a test night before Vivid was really on the projections on the sails were mainly test patterns or other random stuff

Whilst here I grabbed some shots looking back towards the MCA again with the city backdrop

MCA Weeds

Vivid at the Quay

and again I took another wider more telephoto pano from here which took in the whole of Circular Quay right around past the bridge and North Sydney and around to the Opera House on my right – probably about 230º – I’ll post this soon