Heidelberg (After the Fire)

Stephen Bybee
Columbia, MO
April, 2011

Unlike the earlier photograph that I posted of The Heidelberg on a snowy evening, this image was made after the fire and after the rebuilding. On a warm April night in 2011 I was traipsing the streets of downtown Columbia, photographing with a newly acquired but gently used digital camera. For me this was a fairly new acquisition and changed my approach to night photography. In some respects, my approach became less formal and less technical. This image was made with a very fast fixed lens, most likely my 50mm f1.4, and was taken handheld from the other side of Ninth Street. Before acquiring a digital camera, handheld was not my typical approach to night photography. I preferred to use a tripod, out of habit and out of necessity, as most of the film I used for nocturnal photography was rated 400 ISO. This meant a slow shutter speed was required, and a very contrasty, beautiful image on film was the result. A direct comparison between the image of The Heidelberg in the snow, taken with a tripod and on film in 2001, and this image of the Heidelberg on a warm spring night, taken on a handheld digital camera with a fast lens, displays a difference in quality and a difference in composition. Despite utilizing a more pedestrian approach to composition in this image, I am very happy with the results. Pulling out a tripod and setting up a film camera for an eight second exposure across the street from this scene would not have captured the moment and the magic that is preserved in this image. Unlike some of my earlier night photography, this photograph contains humans, completely unaware of my presence, and is a study of a single and meaningful moment shared by a group of people outside a storied and venerated Columbia establishment on a warm and aromatic evening in early Spring.