photographing at night, using whatever film they might have with
them when the inspiration hit, but historically, few actually pursued
it with inspiration and dedication. The history of night photography,
although punctuated by generational lapses, has brought to the fore
some distinguished efforts. But it was not until the mid-1970s that
night photography began to capture the imagination of so many,
and it has grown exponentially since, becoming truly universal with
the advent of the digital camera.
Nighttime has been associated with solitude, danger, mystery, and
the unknown throughout human history. The night transforms our
notion of the world from one of routine certainty to one of mysterious
unknowing. The night holds secrets—secrets that may engage
our curiosity, shelter us, or frighten us. There are those who seek
comfort in the night and those who recoil from it. Brave was the
ancestor who stepped outside of the light of the fire circle, for he
might never return.
The motif of night was established in Western art long before the
advent of photography. Artists as far back as the Flemish painter
Hieronymus
Bosch played off the instinctive fear of darkness and
the night in his masterpiece from 1503, The Garden of Earthly
Delights. The 16th-century German printmaker Albrecht Dürer and
Dutch painter and printer Lucas van Leyden repeatedly invoked
night scenes in their work. Aert van der Neer was a 17th-century
Dutch painter whose main body of work consisted of moonlit
landscapes of his native Netherlands. Rembrandt famously relied
on dark tones and deep shadows to evoke powerful emotions in
his work, and several of van Gogh’s most famous paintings are
night scenes. Captivated by the night, van Gogh wrote in a letter
to his brother that, “I often think that the night is much more alive
and more richly coloured than the day.”1 James McNeill Whistler
painted a series of night and twilight scenes entitled Nocturnes,
and of course Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, which conveys a
sense of urban isolation and loneliness, is one of the most recognizable
paintings of the 20th century. It seems only fitting that
photographers should be drawn to the night as well for inspiration.
Although painters put down on canvas whatever they see in their
mind’s eye, the photographer’s camera records only what passes
before the lens. In the case of the night photographer, the time that
passes during the exposure is as important as the light.
Some of the very first photographs I ever took were made in a
darkened room with an old camera mounted on a tripod with a
flashlight as the only light source. With the shutter set to bulb and
locked open with a cable release, I moved around the room with
the flashlight. Sometimes behind the camera, and sometimes in
front of it, I painted the room, my girlfriend, and myself with light.
I had no idea what I was doing, but it was fun, and the results
were interesting enough to inspire me to experiment further. I was
fascinated with the idea of moving subjects and a moving light
source, and how they would be represented in a photograph. From
the very beginning, a big part of my interest in photography had to do
with the expression of time. That was back in 1986, and to this day,
most of my photography is done at night. When I decided to pursue
photography as a career, I chose the school I did in large part because
it offered the only course in night photography I could find. Moving
to San Francisco to study with Steve Harper was a fateful decision,
and one that has led me to where I am today, teaching classes and
workshops on night photography, and now writing this book.
A normal, or daytime, photograph requires an exposure time that is
just a small fraction of a second. A scene is captured with moving
objects frozen in time. Over the course of more than a century
and a half of looking at photographs, and centuries more looking at
paintings and drawings, this is the way we’ve come to understand
the world in pictures. A night photograph requires an exposure that
is at least several seconds, and it may be as long as the night itself.
The world is in a constant state of flux, and during a long exposure,
anything at all might pass before the open shutter. A person walking
through the scene pauses for a moment and is recorded as a
transparent ghost. Cars speed by, leaving streaks of light from the
headlights and taillights, or a traffic light changes from green to
yellow to red, and all three colors are recorded in the photograph.
Waves crash and recede on a beach, and the surface of moving
water looks as though it were a sheet of ice. Clouds pass overhead,
and the stars drag across the sky, leaving trails of light as the Earth
turns on its axis. Over the course of a long exposure at night, all of
these things are recorded by the camera in ways that we cannot
see with our own eyes. The night photograph is an expression of
time as a single still image, but our senses can only perceive time
as a continuum. Night transforms our experience of the world from one of routine certainty to one
of mysterious unknowing. This is the essence of what makes night photography special.
There are numerous books available on the subject of night and low-light photography, and most
of them perpetuate the stereotypical nighttime subjects of floodlit monuments, fireworks displays,
neon signs, and Christmas lights. I saw a need for a book that truly embraced the potential
of night photography to transform the world beyond literal interpretation. Night photography
requires a different approach and a different way of thinking about making images than daytime
photography. The use of high ISO settings and short exposures sometimes leads to images that
lack many of the mysterious qualities of really good night photography. Long exposure night work
is more art than science, and although technical knowledge and skills are important to successful
results, it is having an open mind and creative spirit that is crucial to unlocking the secrets of night
photography. I’ve written this book to present a concise technical guide to photographing at night,
but more importantly as a starting point to explore the limitless creative possibilities of combining
time and light together with the aid of a camera.
I’ve always felt that it is important to look at the work of other artists and that there is nothing
wrong with learning from what others have done before us. It is in this spirit that I have included
a chapter on the history of night photography to show the development of styles and techniques
that have paralleled the evolution of photographic technology, from the early toxic and laborious
chemical processes to the incredibly sophisticated digital cameras that most of us use today.
Lance Keimig, “Steve and His Rock,” Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park, 2006
Much of the information presented in this book applies to both film and digital night photography.
Although most of the other books on this topic have primarily focused on shooting film at night,
I still feel the need to include a chapter on film-based night photography in my book. I’ve done this,
in part, because I find that there are still valid reasons for shooting film at night, partly because
many of the best night photographers working today still shoot film, partly because I wanted this
book to be a complete reference on the subject, and partly because I’ve worked with film over
the past 25 years and have developed my own specialized exposure and development techniques
that I would like to share with you. That said, the book is written with the assumption that most
readers will be working with digital cameras, and the bulk of the technical information relates to
digital capture and RAW image processing.
Rapidly evolving technology makes writing about digital photography especially challenging
because books can become quickly outdated. New camera models that have been released
during the writing of this book have led me to reevaluate my approach to digital night
photography. New features and the astounding image quality found in today’s top-of-the-line
professional DSLR cameras will probably be incorporated into future consumer-level cameras
and will no doubt have a dramatic effect on night photography. With these newest professional
cameras, released in late 2008 and onward, it is possible for the first time to record stars in the
night sky as points of light rather than star trails without using tracking mechanisms normally
reserved for telescopes. With this in mind, I have avoided recommending specific camera
models and instead suggested features to look for. The Web site www.dxomark.com provides
a useful and extensive database comparing and ranking the quality of RAW image data from
digital cameras based on a number of variables. I highly recommend consulting and studying
this database before making a new camera purchase. There are other important considerations
besides RAW image quality to take into account, like ease of use, ergonomics, the availability of
lenses, and of course, cost.
The sections dealing with image processing necessarily discuss current versions of available
software. At the time of this writing, digital cameras and postprocessing software have evolved
to the point where many of the major obstacles of night photography have been overcome by
continuous advances in technology. Future camera models may incorporate features like in-camera
exposure blending of RAW files to deal with extreme dynamic range or limited depth of field.
Although it is doubtful that camera manufacturers had night photography in mind when developing
new models, the improvements in each successive generation of digital camera have greatly
benefited night photographers. Lower noise levels, the availability of increasingly higher useful ISO
settings, and features like live view all make for better night photography.
Night photography is a broad field of endeavor, and there are limitless possibilities for the
photographer with a basic understanding of the principles of photography, a willingness to
look at the world from a different perspective, and the application of some creative thought.
xxvi night photography
Introduction xxvii
Although there is tremendous diversity in subject matter, technique, and equipment, I have found
remarkable similarities in what attracts people to photographing at night and a commonality of
shared experiences, both in my research into the history of night photography and in conversations
with colleagues and students.
Aside from often being night owls seeking relief from boring or stressful day jobs, night
photographers are typically romantics, lured by the mystery and intrigue associated with night
and darkness. First and foremost, night photography provides an outlet for the artist to reconnect
to the physical world in ways that are often lost in the hectic pace of daily routines. We speak of
how our senses open up to the physical world when we are out at night on a shoot. When the
shutter clicks open and we find ourselves with 15 or 20 minutes and no obligation, nowhere to be,
and nothing to do, the night rewards us with a sense of peace and freedom that we don’t often
experience in our busy lives. This heightened sense of awareness and connection to the physical
world can open the doors to creativity, free us from constraints of the ordinary, and enable us to
take advantage of the unique qualities night photography has to offer. Night photography is a ritual,
one that involves the engagement of light and time, creative vision, and circumstance. The most
successful night photographs are the ones that leave the viewer with unanswered questions. The
enigma and ambiguity of what is portrayed in a night photograph draws in the viewer and leaves
him or her longing for certainty where it doesn’t exist. The interplay of light, shadow, and extremes
of contrast heighten this uncertainty—and when combined with the element of time, the night
photograph can transport the viewer into this mysterious realm so that they too may experience
part of what the photographer felt when the image was created.
This book is written from the perspective of a photographer who has worked mainly at night as
a means of self-expression for the past 23 years. Although the book is full of practical details,
it is not intended to simply provide technical information on photographing in various low-light
situations. There is no section on photographing fireworks, theater performances, or nighttime
sporting events. There are no sunrise or sunset pictures. These have all been covered in other
volumes. Thanks largely to the proliferation of information on the Web and the rapid development
of digital technology, more and more people are discovering the wonder of night photography. My
hope is that the reader will be drawn to photograph at night for its mysterious qualities and for the
magical things that can happen during a long exposure.
This book is oriented toward aspiring amateur photographers and artists interested in exploring the
creative possibilities of night photography. An understanding of the basic principles of exposure,
depth of field, your camera’s controls and functions, and at least rudimentary familiarity with RAW
file image development will be invaluable in understanding the contents of the text. It is suited
for advanced beginners through professional photographers, but the casual snapshooter with a
point-and-shoot camera may find the book frustrating and of little practical use, other than perhaps
as an inspiration for further exploration of the subject at hand. The book is written to be read in
sequence, and some information builds upon material that was presented in earlier chapters.
Still, more advanced photographers should be able to pick and choose what is most interesting or
relevant to them.
In addition to using my own photographs to illustrate this text, I’m honored to be able to include
images by friends, mentors, colleagues, and even a few of my students to demonstrate particular
techniques and to provide inspiration to you, the reader. I am an Apple computer user, and the
screenshots in the image processing chapter were created on a Mac, primarily using Adobe
Lightroom 2.6 and Photoshop CS3. As the book goes to press, Lightroom 3.0 is in public beta
testing and promises to offer significant improvements over Lightroom 2.6 in noise reduction and
many other features. I came across an outstanding application called Enfuse just as I was finishing
the text and would not be surprised if its image blending features are incorporated into future
versions of Lightroom and Photoshop. It is an exciting time to be involved in photography, and a
great time to be a night photographer.
In 1896, Martin received the Royal Photographic Society’s Gold Medal for his series of pioneering night photographs entitled
“London by Gaslight,” which caught the attention of Alfred Stieglitz in New York. Martin recounts in his autobiography,
Victorian Snapshots, how he was routinely followed by a policeman during his nocturnal photographic exploits.
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