Night Photography: Not Just a Shot in the Dark
When it comes to night photography, many photographers have been guilty of the shot in the dark technique. As author, Lance Keimig, explains, they used “…whatever film they might have with them when the inspiration hit, but historically, few actually pursued it with inspiration and dedication.” Maybe you’re one of those photographers. Fear not. Lance Keimig, a commercial photographer and teacher of night photography at the New England School of Photography, with over twenty years of experience in this field, is changing the attitude toward night photography. His book, Night Photography: Finding Your Way in the Dark (copyright 2010), provides you with all you need to go from the uninformed, haphazard shot in the dark to an informed and systematic approach.
No one individual, even one with more than twenty years of experience in the field, can be the ultimate expert in all aspects of night photography. Accordingly, Lance has guest contributors (noted below) provide content in a number of the chapters. Experts in their own right, they guide and inform on topics crucial to providing an in-depth understanding of the night photography process, from capture through post-processing.
Let’s look at the book’s individual chapters.
Chapter 1 – The History of Night Photography: From Daguerreotype to Digital (28 pages)
In twenty-eight pages, chapter one concisely presents the history of night photography. Some may find the historical background to night photography tedious, but there’s something to be said for knowing how this artistic medium evolved. This chapter is meant to be more informational than instructional in nature. Though you may not learn much about the “how” of night photography, it’s still of value to understand the approach of those who came before.
If you’re interested, you can read this first chapter free online by clicking here. This sample chapter will give you an idea of the author’s attention to detail and writing style, which he carries throughout the rest of the book.
Chapter 2 – Night Photography Equipment (20 pages)
Having set the stage for night photography in chapter one, the author uses this chapter two to walk you through the equipment needed for a successful shoot. Topics covered include the usual suspects, camera choice, lenses, tripods, and lens shades. Towards the end of the chapter, he delves into items you may not have considered, such as warm clothing, preferred flashlights, and colored filters. The chapter wraps up with a guest contributor’s interesting explanation to the question: “How on earth did you get in there to shoot?” He also provides a “Trespasser’s Checklist” at the end.
Guest Contributor:
- Troy Paiva (troypaiva.com): Access and Permission
Chapter 3 – The Basics of Night Photography (24 pages)
Chapters 3, 4, and 5 are more of “how” to capture an image at night given the uniqueness of the lighting, or lack thereof.
Chapter 3 lays the foundation with preparation to shoot night photography. Darkness brings with it some novel limitations and problems rarely considered during the day. How do you compose when it’s nearly impossible to see the subject? Or how do you focus in the dark? The author does a superb job of addressing these issues head-on, which might also give you some ideas that carry over to daytime photography.
I particularly enjoyed the coverage of different focusing techniques available during low light situations, the advantages of using a constant aperture, and how best to use hyperfocal focusing.
Other topics covered include, contrast and dynamic range issues (which are different than during the day), handling multiple light sources with differing color temperatures, and flare.
Chapter 4 – Film-Based Night Photography (28 pages)
Film-based night photography may be of no interest to you if you’re strictly a digital photographer, but this chapter just may change your mind. Film does still have some advantages over digital in the twilight world; in particular, you can leave the shutter open literally all night with film. This is not really feasible with digital sensors at the time of this writing.
Lance Keimig’s discussion of film is just interesting, in and of itself. In fact, I immediately purchased a couple of rolls of Fuji Neopan Acros 100 for my Mamiya NC1000s based solely on this chapter. You may be tempted to pick up an old film camera yourself after you see some of the example photos. This chapter is a must-read if you use film; it’s still interesting and informative if you’re strictly digital, but less so.
Guest Contributor:
- Troy Paiva (troypaiva.com): Large Format Color Film at Night
Chapter 5 – Digital Camera (26 pages)
After reading the previous chapter, you may find yourself thinking that you’ll need a film camera for night photography, but this chapter can give the opposite impression. Lance covers digital with the same thoroughness he did with film. By the end of this chapter, you’ll be wondering why you would use film since digital has such advantages as live view, histograms, highlight indicators and working in RAW. The chapter covers all aspects of digital cameras that relate to night photography, and it finishes by listing the camera settings to use. This chapter also provides some just good all-around photography advice, even for daytime photos.
Guest Contributor:
- Christian Waeber (cwaeber.com): What if it Moves?
Chapter 6 – Night Photography Imaging Workflow (26 pages)
Chapters 6 covers the “how” of post-processing an image captured at night and pretty much covers the whole gamut of how to extract the best image out of your digital capture.
Discussions of imaging workflow are limited to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop, but this shouldn’t be a problem as the concepts translate fairly easily to packages such as Gimp.
Chapter 7 – High Dynamic Range Imaging (36 pages)
Chapters 7, 8, and 9 cover specialized topics not already covered such as, use of high dynamic range (HDR) software (ch. 7), shooting by moonlight and capturing star light trails (ch. 8), and light painting (ch. 9). High dynamic range imaging is covered almost entirely by the two guest contributors. The chapter ends with a discussion of the HDR Enfuse software package and a brief summary.
Guest Contributors:
- Christian Waeber (cwaeber.com): Basic HDR with Manual Layer Blending
- Dan Burkholder (danburkholder.com): Making Darkness an Asset Instead of a Liability
Chapter 8 – Moonlight and Star Trails (28 pages)
Topics covered here include photographing the full moon, determining exposure to photograph by moonlight, using high-ISO exposure testing, capturing star trails, and stacking images for longer star trails. Though I’m not into moonlight or star trail photography, I found this chapter quite interesting and informative, nonetheless.
Chapter 9 – Light Painting (23 pages)
The last chapter, Light Painting, was actually my least favorite probably because, like HDR, I’ve seen it overdone too often. I did enjoy Scott Martin’s guest contribution, and his discussion gave me a few ideas I jotted down to try some day (or night).
Guest Contributors:
- Cenci Goepel and Jens Warnecke (lightmark.de): All That Shines
- Scott Martin (on-sight.com): In the Absence of Light
BOOK PROS
- one-of-a-kind source book for night photography
- well written and easy to read
- both film and digital shooting covered
- many example photos
- advice from multiple expert night photographers including their color and black and white examples
BOOK CONS
The only complaint I have pertains to some of the example photos. I would have loved to see the camera settings on all photos, both film and digital. It’s almost inexcusable not to provide this information for digital photos when it’s in the image’s EXIF. Camera settings are quite helpful to those learning new techniques, and every effort should be made to provide them. Even for photos which are blendings of multiple photos, the range of camera settings should have been given. (See update at end of article.)
CONCLUSION
The author states in the book’s front matter:
“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.”
That is a fairly accurate summary of the intended target audience. If you don’t fit in that group, then it’s best for you to spend time mastering the fundamentals first. If you do find yourself in that group, which includes students and hobbyists as wells as professionals, then I would highly recommend this book for your library. Be forewarned however that this book is not for the “just tell me what button to push” type of person who doesn’t really care about obtaining a deeper fundamental understanding of the process. There are button-pushing books out there, but those are in the beginners’ section of your bookstore. If you’re serious about learning all aspects of photography though, then this book really does belong in your library. (An exception might be a wedding photographer, who wouldn’t get much use out of it other than the enjoyment of expanding their fundamental understanding of photography.)
Though this book was easy to read, I spent more time reading it than I normally would for a book this size. That’s because I found myself re-reading sections to get everything from them, mulling over the concepts, and slowly digesting the information. It generated a few ideas for me to test out, and that’s the kind of photography book I love.
I believe this book will be to night photography what Light: Science and Magic is to lighting and Digital Exposure Handbook is to exposure, the go-to source for information.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Web sites pertaining to night photography:
- The Nocturnes – night photography workshops, exhibits and resources
- The Night Skye – Lance Keimig’s website
- DarknessDarkness – An Exhibit of Contemporary American Night Photography
Web pages with some night photography examples:
- Chapter 1 – The History of Night Photography: From Daguerreotype to Digital – read the first chapter of this book online
- Silient & Peacefull World Against Noisy Places [sic] – some night photography examples
- 60 Beautiful Examples of Night Photography – more night photography examples
- The Nocturnes’ Resource page – links to many other useful and informative sites
- Astrophotography guide to photographing the moon
- Shot in the Dark: Night Photography
Daniel Fealko
Lance Keimig informed me that exposure data was added to all captions in the second printing of this book, which went to press just last week.
Daniel Fealko
This film documents a Full Moon Night Photography Workshop in the Big Bend region of West Texas led by photographers Scott Martin and Lance Keimig.
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