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Disclaimer
All the
photographs on this site were shot at night with only a few
exceptions (as noted below the images) shot at dusk.
The work shot up until 2005 was done on film. These images
have no digital or darkroom manipulation except a little spotting
and selective levels compensation done in Photoshop. These
images looked just like this when they came out of the camera.
The images
shot from 2005 onward were done with a Canon 20D DSLR. Some
of these images have multi-exposure compositing, contrast
and perspective adjustments and minor cloning of lens-flare,
but as with the older film work, the lighting FX and color
are all done in-camera. These
are not Photoshop creations. What you see
is what I shot that night. For more info, see "Post Production"
below.
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Film Cameras
Many
of the film images on this site were shot with a $40 swap
meet '60s vintage Canon FX
body. In 1999 I moved on to 80s vintage Canon
T90 bodies. A much nicer camera, but still,
hopelessly outdated in the digital age. I used 3 off-brand
swap-meet wide angle prime lenses- 20mm,
24mm and 28mm.
If you're going to shoot film, beware
of cameras that use lithium batteries. These
cameras will drain the battery while the lens is locked open
giving you only one or 2 shots before battery failure. You
need to use a camera like the FX that has no battery or one
like the T90 that does not draw on the battery to lock the
lens open.
Film
I used
2 types of film to shoot all of the work on this site shot
before 2005. Check the notes under each image for which film
stock was used.
The first
is Kodak 160 ASA Tungsten balanced
chrome film. This film is designed to neutralize
the color cast of man-made lights to white and what ends up
happening under pure moonlight is that the image takes on
a monochromatic blue cast that closely mirrors what your eye
actually sees at night under full moon conditions. The drawbacks
of this film is that it's an old design that suffers from
bad reciprocity failure (basically, at more than a second
exposure films do not accept light in the normally predictable,
easilly measured way.
Confused? For more go here) which causes abnormally long
exposure times, creating lots of grain. The images are not
very smooth and clean.
The other
film I used was Kodak 100VS
chrome film. A standard daylight film. Its
modern design means the film has much less reciprocity failure.
Exposures run 25% (+/-) shorter than the 160T film even though
100ASA film should theoretically have longer exposures. The
developed film is virtually free of grain making for butter
smooth images that can be enlarged beautifully. The VS produces
amazingly saturated colors, perfect for showing off my lurid
light painting. The drawbacks of this film are that you lose
a sense of "night" under full moon conditions. The
images look just like daylight shots . . . with star trails.
The other problem is with shooting in urban conditions where
man-made light sources will shift colors turning your images
a murky green or brown. Sodium Vapor is the worst and it's,
unfortunately, the most common. Remember, T film is designed
specifically to neutralize this type of lighting.
I shot
only slide (chrome) film because what you shoot is exactly
what you get back from the lab. With negative film, you are
at the mercy of the lab to determine what prints from your
abnormally colored negs should look like.
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Digital
Cameras
It was
late 2005. All my local labs had closed. The few that were
left were doing lazy, indifferent work. About that same time
the Canon 20D hit the market. It was the first consumer grade
DSLR with a sensor designed (accidentally?) for noise-free
low-light time-exposures. I saw that it was finally time to
make the jump to digital.
I am currently
shooting with a Canon 20D
DSLR. My main lens of choice is a Tokina
12-24mm zoom.
Because
the digital sensor does not experience reciprocity failure,
exposure lengths are considerably shorter than with film;
always under 4 minutes at f5.6. Just as well, because the
digital camera sensor overheats and suffers from unacceptable
noise at about 6 minutes.
The digital
revolution has completely changed night photography. In the
film era, the list of variables conspiring to ruin your shot
in low-light / night conditions was endless, so getting the
shot was always a crapshoot at best. The first 5
years I shot at night, I bracketed like crazy and took detailed
lighting and exposure notes on each image so I could learn
what worked and what didn't for those conditions. Eventually
I got pretty good at looking at a scene and knowing what exposure
was required, but even then, a car would drive through, I'd
make a mistake with the lighting, I'd have focus problems,
I'd bump the tripod leg in the dark . . . well you get the
idea.
Then you
wouldn't know there was a problem until you got the film back
from the lab the following week only to find a roll full of
incorrect exposures and lighting miscues! Even at my best,
it wasn't unusual to come home from a roadtrip with only a
few usable images from 100 exposures. By it's very nature,
productivity is low when night shooting with film. Consequently
very few people even tried it, and fewer still stuck with
it.
Move forward
to the digital age and now you can just chimp after each shot.
Oh, that shot was too dark? Double your exposure time. Too
light? Cut it in half and do it again until you get it right.
Same with light painting, just keep doing it 'till you get
it right. With a little patience you will eventually get the
shot. There are piles of people all over the planet doing
night work now with their DSLRs and the web is filling up
with tons of excellent light-painted night images shot in
abandoned places.
Contrary
to what you might think, I love it. I already know
how much fun it is to do this. It's cool to see so many other
people having fun with it too. Plus, the digital revolution
has also improved my own work. My hit rate is at
almost 100% now. If I do 15 set ups in one night, I will come
away with 15 images. The ability to preview each image before
I pick up the tripod to move on to the next shot allows me
the chance to fine tune my lighting effects until I get exactly
what I intended. Plus I can build on happy mistakes, incorporating
things into the next frame that I didn't count on.
Digital
has raised everyone's game . . . including mine.
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Exposure
This site
contains images with exposures running from a
few seconds to 10 minutes. Most are in the
5-8 minute range for film and 1-4 minute range for digital.
Remember that the digital sensor does not have reciprocity
failure like film does. Consequently the exposure times are
much shorter. Exposures that would take 8 minutes with 160T
and 6 minutes on 100VS (as outlined above) take only 3-4 minutes
with the 20D.
I
shoot at f5.6 almost all of the time. This
affords me a benchmark for my light painting falloff and intensity.
I compensate for exposure with time.
I
shoot at ISO 100
with the digital. Yes, the exposures are longer, but the lack
of noise at the lower speed is what's important. Besides,
with a tripod who cares if it's 2 minutes instead of 30 seconds?
Because
the exposures are so long, I can literally walk thought the
shot and not appear because it's for such a short duration
in the overall length of the exposure. I would have to stand
still for about a minute to have ghostly image of myself appear
in the shot. This affords me the flexibility to walk though
the shot to do my light painting.
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Lighting
The
moon is the main light source in most of these images.
My night photography is all done within 4 nights of the full
moon, preferably before, because the moon is already in the
sky at dusk. The
full moon occurs every 28 days. The moon rises right at sunset
on the day of the full moon. The day after, the moonrise is
approximately one hour later, 2 days = 2 hours etc. The preceding
days it rises 1 hour earlier per day.
There's
an 6-8 day range around the full moon that the moon is full
enough to call it a "full moon" for night photography
purposes. If I am shooting outdoors at night, I only
do it during that 6-8 day period.
Light
Painting
It took
me years to develop my light painting technique. There was
lots of experimentation and taking of notes. Using a DSLR
today means you can preview the images as you go, fine-tuning
your lighting until you get exactly what you want. The best
advice I can give you is to just get out there and get your
hands dirty.
There's
2 basic types of lighting I use:
Strobe flash-
I use an ancient Vivtar 285
flash unit powered by a rechargeable Quantum
battery for most of my lighting (without the
Quantum, you can smoke through $20 worth of AA batteries in
a weekend, easy). The strobe gives you a large field of evenly
distributed light with sharply defined shadows. Great for
lighting whole rooms and buldings.
Flashlight
Painting- ranging from a tiny blue LED keychain
light to a 1,000,000 candle power rechargeable light. This
light gives a much smaller area of light with soft shadow
edges. Perfect for details and subtle key lighting.
I have
precut swatches of theatrical
lighting gel material
(think: rock concert lighting) that I hold over the light
source which adds the color cast.
All my
lighting is hand held. I don't use complex lighting rigs or
even light stands. It's very simple and low impact, giving
me the ability to travel light and fast. Because the exposures
are minutes long I can casually walk through the scene and
do each lighting element at my leisure.
Because
there's so many variables involved, there really is no specific
formula explaining how lighting works, but here's a basic
checklist of things to consider:
1. f-stop.
The smaller the lens aperture, the closer you have to be to
the object you are flashing for it to show up. More than 25
feet away? Probably too far, especially if you're using gels.
2. Distance
from the object you're flashing. Too close and you blow the
subject out, too far and you get no effect.
3. Reflectivity/specularity
of the object. Dark glossy objects like trees require
a lot of light. With 20 pops, it may STILL never show. White
painted metal that's weathered to a matte finish? A little
goes a long way here. It's easy to overcook it.
4. The flash.
A weak $5 garage sale flash is not as powerful as a good $200
flash. Still, I shot for years with a $5 flash. Is it set
on full power? Are the batteries fresh?
5. Flashlights
vary wildly in intensity so make sure you're using the right
one for the job. I usually carry 4 or 5 different sizes. Flashlights
have changed a lot in the last few years. The superbright
xenon HID lights give a tight, excellent, clean white light.
Be careful with LED flashlights as they can add a very strong
blue cast to the light.
6. Gels. Some
are too opaque and can cut the intensity and falloff of light
in half or more. Some aren't opaque enough and all
the color washes out. Make sure you use the gels by a company
called "Roscoe" (those guys owe me a buck for all
the extra sales.).
7. Moonlight.
If the object you're flashing is bathed in direct moonlight,
don't bother flashing it. It will NOT show up, not even a
little. Just like in daytime, flashes are meant only for filling
in shadows.
Your eyes
can deceive you. I get this a lot: "But I can SEE the
flash hitting the subject, why isn't it showing up when I
get the film back?" Your eyes are much more sensitive
than a camera is. YOU may see the flash, but the accumulated
moonlight is much brighter than you think it is. It will more
than overpower your light painting.
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Post Production
The digital
darkroom was never a part of my film era night work, but it's
important to consider with digital photography because of
the medium's incredible dynamic range and information storage.
White
Balance: All my night work is shot in RAW
format so that I can adjust my white balance to suit the needs
of the image later. The film era comparison would be like
shooting each shot with multiple cameras using an unlimited
variety of film stock. Some night shots look better tungsten
balanced (2850K), some, daylight balanced (5500K). Rather
than taking the time to figure that out on the fly during
the shoot, I leave it on auto and take care of it when converting
down from the RAW file. The real beauty of this is the ability
to use hybridized WB settings. I find that sometimes a setting
of 3500K keeps the richness in the color of my light painting
while shifting the sky to a richer, more lifelike blue. Sometimes
you want pull out the screaming orange sky from heavy sodium
vapor lights at a high temp like 8000K.
Contrast
Adjustment and
Dodge and Burn: With the built in lattitude
of your digital files (6 to 9 stops vs. scanned film's 2),
you're not getting everything out of your image you can if
you're not pulling out some shadow details in Photoshop. Just
remember that you're not supposed to notice it. I do this
on virtually ever one of my digital images.
Cloning:
I sometimes use this tool to clean up lens flare orbs and
that's about it. I leave the rust, power lines, dirt and obscene
graffiti because, well, that's why I shot it.
Compositing:
Because I am shooting with a tripod I can do multiple exposures
with the exact same framing. I typically try several different
lighting schemes. Sometimes I find I have a shot with great
left side and a weak right and another frame that's the opposite,
so I blend the 2 images using layers and erase the offending
section of the upper layer ending up with a good left and
right side. Sometimes I take the sky from one frame and the
subject from another because a plane happend to fly though
at just the right angle on the shot with the muffed lighting,
but they are always the same tripod set up. I'm not creating
images with skies or objects from other locations.
Perspective
Correction: Utilizing the "transform:
distort" tool, I can adjust an image's perspective so
that it's symmetry is perfect and the vertical lines are parallel
to the sides of the image giving the "perfect perspective"
effect of a tilt-shift view camera.
TRUTH!
How far is going too far with manipulation?
At what point does the image lose it's sense of truth?
These images are real. They are accurate depictions of what
happened while the lens was open for those minutes. This is
especially important for documentary work like mine.
Go too
far in post and at some point what we're doing stops being
photography and turns into painting or illustration. I think
it's important to keep them separate or we'll lose the whole
idea of how and why photography is different from those other
mediums.
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Locations
Many of
the locations I shoot are remote and dangerous. Yeah, it makes
for fun pictures and stories, but if you do end up shooting
in places like this, use common sense and good judgment. Falling
through a rotten floor in an abandoned house 50 miles from
the nearest person in the middle of the night is NOT fun,
ok?
If you
are wandering the backroads and hinterlands, have a reliable
vehicle. Keep your cellphone handy, but if you are deep in
the outback, it probably won't work anyway. Be prepared because
it's likely you will have to figure your own way out of your
predicaments.
Odds are
you are trespassing. Generally, I get
permission from the owners to shoot these
locations. Without it, I would have been arrested many times.
I used to be a lot more fast and loose about trespassing,
but Post-9/11 America is a tough time for night photographers.
The police swoop down on us really fast and often these days.
Try not to give them any MORE reason to be annoyed with you
than they already should/will be. Sitting in jail is no way
for a night shooter to spend the full moon. Get that permission
in writing if you can. Even if you have verbal, property owners
generally don't like to get phone calls in the middle of the
night. I always carry samples
of night work with me to show skeptical property
owners and sheriffs that I really AM taking pictures . . .
at night . . . in the dark.
Just be
smart.
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Other Night Photography Resources
Here's
a few other places for you to explore night photography techniques.
It's interesting to note the different, yet similar styles
of night shooting of other photographers.
Night
Photography- from About.com
Bruce
Clendenning's Landscape
Imaging by the Light of the Full Moon.
The Nocturnes
Resources
page.
Check
out the night photography groups at flickr. There are bazillion
other night photographers out there.
Night
Photography Classes
Want to
take a class in night photography? There are organizations
offering workshops. I've worked closely with these 2 over
the years and they come highly recommended.
The
Nocturnes- Workshops held all over the west coast
The
Night Skye- Mono Lake, Ireland, Scotland, Boston
Know of
other night shooting workshops? Tell me and I'll post the
link here.
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