Assignment #15

Night Photography
     

In this assignment you will produce 10 night time pictures. There is only one requirement, you can not use your flash. Use instead the natural light sources around you ie. street lamps, yard lights, car lights and the moon. If you are using a 35 mm SLR camera open your aperture as wide as it goes so that you can absorb as much light as possible, and slow your shudder speed down. It is very important when you are doing this to either have your camera on a stationary surface or use a Tri-Pod to avoid camera shake and blur. Be creative consider the elements of photography and different perspectives

10 photos 9 marks each /90

1. Tripod. While not always necessary (see further on for how to cheat on this), a tripod will give you the greatest flexibility to get the angles you need while keeping your camera steady for those long exposures.
2. Wide-angle lenses. This is a personal preference, but I love the way they work in night photography. Try it out with whatever you’ve got as the only thing that will limit you is your imagination.
3. A lens hood. To minimize lens flares from light entering at angles outside of your frame.
4. A flashlight. Sometimes you’ll want to draw attention to or simply lighten up an important part of the foreground which is too dark.
5. Our imagination. Tools lie all around us in everyday objects to help us make our work better in this; I’ve used bicycle lamps, lampposts and newspaper boxes to get it done.

The same composition rules that apply to day apply to night, except with night we have our long exposures to take advantage of. I’ve chosen a selection of my night work to illustrate some tricks of the trade:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=night+photography&FORM=IARRTH&ufn=night+photography&stid=dd236b48-e6be-b257-cdb6-6225355ea002&cbn=EntityAnswer&cbi=0&FORM=IARRTH

http://www.nikonusa.com/en/learn-and-explore/article/huayvpnk/night-photography.html

http://digital-photography-school.com/night-photography/