This week we’re going to be looking at techniques to help you get to grips with capturing the compelling topographies of the night. Night photography must make up about 50% of my work, and with the evenings drawing in in the UK, this only increases as winter attempts to dominate. For a number of reasons, I think it’s an important avenue to explore, even if you don’t feel like it fits with any of your current output:
It offers a completely different playground, so an area that is sometimes forgettable in the daytime could be a bona fide bonanza of shapes and shadows as natural light falls and the artificial lamps fire up
It pushes the technical boundaries of your gear, so you’ll get a better understanding of light and how to record it
The night naturally imbues an offset atmosphere to your work that can be difficult to recreate in daylight.
Even if it’s not your thing aesthetic-wise, it could open the door for your creative kernels to start popping
Its just so damned peaceful, calming and therapeutic to wander the streets after dark and have the environment largely to yourself
Gear you need:
A tripod. A torch. A camera. If you’ve got all of those, what are you waiting for?
Ash Hill Road 7
Getting started:
First and foremost, pick an area where you’ll feel safe. You want to focus on creating compelling work, not letting the fear take over. The more gritty areas can come later if you want them to. Are there any spaces you know that have particularly strong light? LED street lamps are popping up everywhere in the UK, and it makes for a beautiful, clean white illumination of everything underneath. Perhaps go for a drive at night to do a recce… just make sure you bring your camera in case inspiration decides to show its beautiful face. Todd Hido often drives for hours at night until he see’s something, but I’d strongly recommend once you’ve found an area you’ll feel safe in to leave the car and wander. You’ll miss stuff in the car. Promise. Early Sunday morning or Sunday at dusk is a great time to start. Fewer people and cars to disturb your rhythm and the exposure.
Camera Settings:
I spent at least two or three years fighting the urge to get a tripod, in order to keep my set-up as portable as possible. When shooting at night, or in some derelict building, this meant I was taking shots with my aperture wide open at ISO 3200-6400. Let's just say every single image from those early days are unusable now. I look back and chuckle at my stubbornness. Learn from my mistakes and get yourself a sturdy tripod - I use a 3LT Winston, its a (lightweight) beast and has been a constant and reliable companion for 3 or 4 years now. Forget a new lens or a larger sensor, I genuinely believe that a tripod is the best bang for your buck in photography ;)
Stentiford Hill Road
Now you’re shooting atop a tripod, you can reduce your cameras ISO to its base setting. The difference is, errr, night and day. The shadow detail, the latitude, the dynamic range; prepare to be amazed. 30 seconds was the longest exposure I could record with my Pentax K1 or Nikon Df, apart from if I stepped into the random world of BULB. As my camera and handheld light meters wouldn’t work in such low light, BULB was essentially guesswork. The workaround is to bump up ISO and close the aperture down @ 30seconds until it meters, get your abacus out and calculate how long the exposure will be at the settings you want. I often feel the need to work more quickly than that, especially in residential areas, so max. 30 second exposures it was… and if needed I could up the ISO by a stop and / or open the aperture by a stop to increase the light hitting the sensor / film. Another hack if you’re more technically minded and in less of a rush than me, is the Ultimate Exposure Computer. Could work for you.
Despite the above, a maximum shutter speed of 30 seconds @ f5.6 was usually enough to expose correctly, especially when you consider that the light meter is looking to capture enough light for 18% grey, or effectively, daytime. Therefore the meter will usually attempt to overexpose a night scene. This can lead to some delightfully surreal effects, so depending on what your creative intent is you can use this to your advantage. However, if you want to record the scene as your eye sees it, you might have to dial in a stop or two of exposure compensation.
In terms of the overall camera settings, I’d recommend shooting in Manual or Aperture priority at night, and as I’ve mentioned, base ISO. Those of you shooting film, I’d look up advice specific for you due to reciprocity failure. Manual focus saves possible frustration of hunting AF here too, but either way this is where the torch comes in handy!
Confrontation:
I’ve had a few people challenge me and, other than security guards, only ever at night. Perhaps it's because I’m taking longer to focus and expose the shot, whilst in the day 1/125 second is often all I need before I’m gone? My advice is smile, and be polite… you’re not doing anything wrong. Show them your Instagram feed. A business card goes a long way to legitimising what you are doing. I explain that I’m a fine art photographer and that whatever I’m pointing my camera at is beautiful, or bathed in gorgeous light. If that hasn’t scared them off already, the moment I thank them for keeping the place safe, they know they’re talking to a friend. Even security guards, no matter how gruffly they approach, if I’m on their territory, then I’m polite and move on… of course if they’re dishing out grief in a public space then thats a different matter altogether ;)
Abbey Park 5
I think that about wraps up another blog, but if there’s any specific questions you have or any further advice you could share with others, then let me know in the comments below. Please bear in mind, with this and any of my blogs, this is only a recommendation from my perspective… get out there, use whatever gear you are motivated to use… phones, film, pinhole. Thats the joy of developing our own practice - we incorporate advice and influences that resonate, whilst discarding data that doesn’t, to enable us to continually hone our unique visual voice.
It’s good, isn’t it?