When Darkness Falls: Photography At Night.

The sky outside darkens to a deep blue-black or the hazy dark orange of a warm, cloudy night. Drowsy children are tucked into their warm, cozy beds and the adults and teenagers add that last accessory to their outfit, ready for a wild night out. Half the world sleep, and the other half bustle about their daily lives.

Night time is a magical time in the general day-to-day flow of our lives. For many, including myself, it is during the night that our best ideas come to us and the creative juices really get flowing.

With the setting sun and rising moon come a barrage of different emotions; fatigue, excitement, happiness, relief, worry, fear. It can become a whole different world for many, including photographers.

I am absolutely loving “The moon.” by deejaywolf, the blue hues of the clouds and sky are so sinister and cold, and make the photograph very spooky. It is often said that photographs look better when the main subject is not positioned in the middle, but I think here it works very well, especially with the surrounding clouds.

Unfortunately, there was no information revealed about this photograph whatsoever, but “The moon.” by shapovalov is an amazing photograph. The vast space hidden by the fog, and the difference betweem the dark sky and the bright ground makes the atmosphere very surreal and dream-like (or nightmare-like) and the lone figure fighting her way through the snow and cold makes it a very lonely image.

Photography at night is not a difficult endeavour to pursue, but there are the obvious set-backs such as low-light situations to no light at all. Patience (and a tripod or stable surface) is greatly needed if you want to attempt this genre of photography, especially if the subject is the night time sky.

I find “Energy.” by onesadlittleboy an incredible photograph, not only because of the photograph itself, but by the fact that it was taken on film. The result of a twenty two minute exposure, this photography has definitely been added to my favourite photographs ever. All the different colours blended together create such a wonderful look, setting this photograph apart from the numerous other long exposure night sky photographs.

What I find so special about night time photography is that many clichéd and common photographs, such as a beautifully calming water scape with a mountain in the background, or the typical photograph of the Eiffel Tower are more exciting and unusual in the night time, especially with the opportunity to play around with the exposure.

I challenged myself to attempt some night time photography as it is a genre I have not explored deeply or tried out at all really, but have had an interest in it for a while as the photography can be so exciting and unusual. I visited Cornwall in the south west of England this past week, and it was the perfect opportunity to experiment with night time photography as I was staying in a farmhouse, literally in the middle of nowhere  surrounded by fields, trees and scary howling animals. Even better was that the full moon was out to play.

From my bedroom window, I had a perfectly clear view of the night sky. I played around a lot with exposure, using a thirty second exposure most often. As I had managed to leave my tripod and remote at home, I had to have a lot of patience to create a good, stable surface and get the camera placed in the right position ad aimed in the right direction. I also had to try to not move the camera as I pressed the button, or move around the room too much (it was a very old house). I managed to get a few unusal photos during my experimentation, two of which I will feature.

This is one of the better photographs I got where the moon was not too blurry, and neither were there more than one moon. Unfortunately, the red you see in the right corner are reflections from the light in the corridor coming through the open bedroom door behind me. Although technically, this is a bad thing, I decided that I actually liked it as the effect it gives is ghostly and sinister because of the reddish colours. I edited this a little in Photoshop CS3, only using the curves tool however, as I felt that I did not need to edit it much.

This is another photograph that I took that I quite like although it is technically a bad photo; what happened to make it so over-exposed was that before I pressed the shutter, the sky was black as black and the moon was nowhere in sight. As soon as I pressed the shutter button and turned my back, the moon came out from its hiding place and ruined my shot. As well as that, in the left and bottom areas of the photograph, the edges of the wooden window had crept into the photograph. Looking back through all the photographs after, however, I decided that actually, the effect was quite surreal and dramatic, and the grainy appearance of the photograph (caused by a high ISO) made it look as if it were a film photograph, which is an effect I really like.

All in all, trying my hand at night time photography was a really fun experience, especially due to my surroundings which were quite scary at night (especially when, as taking some photos while outside in the dark, dark garden, several dogs started howling loudly, making me run inside and to the safety of my bedroom).

Night time photography can result in very special and unusual photographs, as proved by the ones I have featured in this article. As the night is not a rare occurence and can be found absolutely everywhere, there is no excuse whatsoever to at least have a go at it; you can only gain from experimenting.

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.

- Vincent Van Gogh.

Good night, and thank you for reading!