Making of a Photograph: Part 13 – ArtScience Museum (Singapore)

This photo of Singapore skyline was shot within the compound of ArtScience Museum in October 2020. This museum always closes at 7pm, which makes it difficult to shoot at blue hour, as dusk never comes earlier than 7pm in Singapore.

The earliest dusk of the year in Singapore comes at 7:11pm (while the latest is at 7:42pm), so I waited for one of the shortest days in the year to shoot at this spot. 😅

Initially, I started 204 seconds of long exposure at 6:52pm (2 minutes after sunset) using a 10 stop ND filter, which came out fine, but still having nearly 20 minutes left until the end of dusk, the photo lacked a blue hour hue in the sky.

There wasn’t enough time left before 7pm for another long exposure, so I was thinking about packing and leaving, but since the view in front me looked so much nicer with more city lights turned on, I decided to try my luck and started another long exposure, extending 2.5 seconds of base shutter speed into 160 seconds (at f/10) by using a 6 stop ND filter.

While the long exposure was running, I was worried that the museum staff might come down and ask me to leave, as it was already a few minutes past 7 o’clock. Looking around many times to check if the staff was approaching or not, I must have looked very suspicious. 😂

At 7:06pm, the tense waiting time was finally over, and I was very happy to see this photo captured! The staff did come down soon after, asking the last few remaining visitors to head to the exit, which I happily complied.

By the way, the water in this surrounding lily pond was super calm, so I probably didn’t even have to use such long exposure to make the water look smooth, though. I just love using long exposure for anything and everything. 😅

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About the Author: LASTLIGHTS.NET is a passion project of Joey J, a Singapore-based Japanese photographer primarily shooting cityscape photography with long exposure at blue hour. Visit his Home Gallery (30 most favourite photos taken) or download his free eBook, Getting Started with Long Exposure Photography.