Glowing wave

What is Night Photography?

Right now I would have to say that night photography is my favorite form of photography.

Just when does night photography happen? Personally I say it is from right before sunrise, maybe up to an hour before. That is when the above shot was taken. The sun is still below the horizon but you can see, with the camera and long exposures, the light and colors from the sun.

Night waves

Or you can do it right after sunset for an hour or so, like the shot above. The sun is just below the horizon and is still lighting the sky and clouds and injecting warm colors into the image. You can see the orange color in the water.

Night Sky

And of course you have the time in between these two periods for more night photography of the dark sky with the stars and moon. As above. The color in this image comes from the city of Gainesville which is about 25 miles away.

Let me point out that the camera is seeing what you cannot see with your eyes. The sky was not glowing yellow and orange when I was out at Watermelon Pond taking the shot above. It was as black as the inside of a sack with the faintest hint of a glow on the horizon. But multi-minute exposures show us sights that are denied to us otherwise.

Resources

Some of the resources available on the web for night shooting are.

• The Nocturnes. I would guess that this is the premier site for night photography. Be sure to look at their galleries and resources
• Gorillasite is a site by Andy Frazier. Andy is one of the Nocturnes, who are centered in Northern California.
• Harold Davis’ site and blog. Harold Davis is the author of several books including at least one on night work. He has a blog too and does more than night shots. He has some videos on the web about night shooting and does seminars. He is also in the Frisco area.

Many of the Nocturnes use a technique called light painting. That use a flash or other light to paint a building or other object while the rest of the shot remains dark. I have tinkered with it, but not to my satisfaction yet. I finally bought a very bright 150 lumen flash light that I’m going to use to play with this more. But right now I’m doing more of the straight type of night shots.

In the next post on this series I will go into just what hardware I use to do night photography and just how I go about setting up a shot.