Xavier Portela

Long Exposure based Photographer - use of ambient lighting and colours.

L I N K S -

Xavier Portela

Kyoto Glow — Xavier Portela

Bangkok Photography Glow Collection — Xavier Portela

Glow Photography Collection Featuring Tokyo, Hong Kong ... — Xavier Portela

Xavier Portela is a photographer and filmmaker based in Brussels. He began his photographer career in 2012 and was originally a web developer for Bose Europe. Has love and passion for photography is heavily highlighted in his works; he is well known for his visual pieces of neon signs and lights - glow series. Travelling to different countries/cities such as Kyoto Japan, Seoul Korea, Chicago Usa etc. He takes his glow photographs at night where the atmosphere is at its peak - and further creates this cyberpunk type feel.

He takes both still photographs and long exposure to capture car light trails. His work focuses on capturing different moods/atmosphere with lighting and colour. Each series has its own colour palette which is reflected in the neon lights/ambient lighting. The dark night setting contrasting against the vivid lighting.

Portela's work focuses on capturing a vivid atmosphere and ambient lighting. It isn't just a normal photograph taken at night but is heavily influenced by this cyberpunk type aesthetic with the neon signs, lights and colours.

This photograph was taken from his glow series 'Taipei Glow'. It captures a corner store heavily lit with lights and signs surround it. The ambient lighting of pinks and blues makes his piece feel more unique. This piece only contains 2 colours which contrast well with each other. Shifting the other colours to create this surreal photograph.

This second piece is taken from 'Kyoto Glow' series. Focusing on the colours of blues and oranges.

The Kyoto series is one of my favourites as it uses complementary colours of blue and orange - they are directly opposite each other on the colour wheel. The warmth of the orange highlighted by the coldness of the blue.

This piece captures a woman eating from a food stall which is highlighted by the neon lights around. The lighting and colour further enhance and highlights the woman as the orange is present all around with the blue highlighting the woman/stall.

His photographs are captured using a tripod to then be able to use slight long exposure to capture more of the glowing lights. Further editing the piece to have a specific colour palette and clear view.

SETUP :

Night setting
Placing the tripod across the road/ at a far enough distance to capture a wide view of the road and buildings.

The tripod will allow me take long exposure photographs as Portela's work incorporates trails of light emitted from cars mainly. Additionally the lights will appear more brighter in the photograph due to the light being exposed for longer.

I won't have to worry about the photograph having any blurriness or movements as without a tripod it will be difficult to steadily hold the camera in the same position for a couple of seconds.

Going into places which have already coloured neon signs or lights which will help for the bases of the colour scheme in the editing stages.

BRIDGE EDITING PROCESS :

Canon 600D, 18-55mm ISO 200 f/14 2.5

The original photo is quite bright/soft and isn't contrasted enough. Increasing the contrast of this piece.

Changing the brightness/contrast
increase saturation
lower highlights and whites
Change temperature and tint

I first cropped the image as the light coming from the lampost didn't look as nice and was too much of a distraction to the main focus. I also aligned the piece to make it more straight.

I focused on increasing changing the colours and tint of the image. I shifted it more towards magenta to match the pink neon sign. and with the temperature I shifted it more towards the cooler tones to also match the car trails and light emitted to the left.

With the highlights, because it mainly focuses on trail lights and neon signs I decreased the highlights as more of the colours will be shown - It wouldn't be as harsh.

With the saturation, I didn't increase it too much as the neon sign was quite bright in colour already.

I further enhanced the colour by utilising 'Color Mixer' and 'Color Grading'.

I make certain colours more vibrant than others, and shifting the saturation/vibrancy on certain colours so that there wouldn't be too much conflicting colours.

I tried to make my final image as close to Portela's in terms of the luminosity and colours.

I aimed to have 2 ambient colours in the piece.

I then went back to the basics and further changed the contrast and brightness to make the colour stand out more.