Tom Paiva's Night Photography Blog

Last week Andy Frazer and I lead an Urban Night Photography workshop here in the Los Angeles area over three nights.  It was a small, intimate group with varied levels of photographic skills, which worked out great.

Most of us live in urban locations, yet many people feel they have to go to a “scenic” location to photograph, whether it is day or night.  Cities give me lots of inspiration to shoot at night.

Attendees said they learned a lot and got a chance to shoot at some unusual places in the Southland.  Rather than ramble on about it, I think it best to see the participants take what they saw and how they shot it.

Culver City City Hall, by Jim Bowen

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Part of the group at City Hall contemplate the unusual up-light, by Norm Palley

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City Hall mixed lighting, by Andy Frazer

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Griffith Observatory, by Jim Bowen

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Griffith Observatory, by Earl Merritt

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Griffith Observatory, by Andy Frazer

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Tank Farm, by Katherine Westerman

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Tank Farm, by Jim Bowen

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Tank Farm, by Earl Merritt

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Tank Farm, by Andy Frazer

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Tank Farm Work Shed, by Katherine Westerman

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and a couple from me,

Griffith Observatory, by Tom Paiva

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Tank Farm, by Tom Paiva

Recently, I juried a show of night photography for the Vermont Photo Space Gallery, in Essex Junction, VT.  There were some 440 entries, many quite strong.

I have juried shows before, but not with this many images, and I was the only juror this time.  I was asked by several people what my criteria was to be selected for the final 49.

Starting with this many images, the first item at hand is to eliminate the technically imperfect.  A word of advice:  if you intend to submit your work for a juried show, no matter what the subject, this is the first parameter that jurors use.  In this case, about 100 images were eliminated in the first round.  Next, I eliminated the cliches and shots that did not belong in a night photography show.  The next round is to quickly look at images and find the ones that make me want to look at them for more than a second or so.  This is basically critiquing the composition–was the image “balanced” and did it make my eye move through the image.

The next step was the most difficult, as it was the subjective part.  Since this show was going to be an actual show in a gallery (not just an online show), I wanted to choose not just the good images but to have a variety and a balance to make it an interesting show for viewers.  There is a mix of color and black and white; people and portraiture; different format cameras and alternative processes; verticals and horizontals (and square); images showing movement; and unusual, mysterious images that you can’t really tell what is going on.  Many of the entries pressed the boundries (which I enjoy).

Here is the link to the show and the 49 winners.

http://vermontphotospace.com/index.php/exhibits/current

“Garage”, by Katherine Winter

My pick for best in show

I’d like to hear from some of you on what you think of this show.  It was a good showing with lots of strong work.  Congratulations to all the winners.  Sorry I can’t make the opening.

This week, we are in the middle of our Urban Night Photography workshop here in Los Angeles and I wanted to mention three relatively new books (in no particular order) on night photography that are definitely worth adding to your photographic library.

First is Lance Keimig’s book, “Night Photography–Finding Your Way in the Dark”, published by Focal Press http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0240812581?ie=UTF8&tag=thnisk-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=0240812581

Lance’s first book gives a thorough history of the subject, including the work of many contemporary artists.  The forward is by Steve Harper, the guru for many of the West Coast night photographers.  Lance embraces both film and digital methods and goes into great details of the digital capture and processing side of typically contrast night subjects.

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Second is Jill Waterman’s book, “Night and Low Light Photography”, published by Amphoto Books http://www.amazon.com/Night-Low-Light-Photography-Professional-Techniques/dp/0817432418/ref=cm_lmf_tit_9

Jill’s book also goes into the details of how to make great night photographs, using many contemporary photographers to illustrate the different styles and visions.  The forward is by Michael Kenna, one of the masters of black and white night photography.

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Finally, is Lynn Saville’s new book, “Night/Shift”, published by Monacelli Press http://www.amazon.com/Night-Shift-Lynn-Saville/dp/1580932193

Lynn’s book is a monograph of her color views of late night New York City.  She finds the desolate and sometimes foreboding details of this often mysterious city.  Knowing that Lynn does not have a car, and how she usually works alone wandering the lonely back streets and alleys, adds another personal dimension to the work.

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It should be mentioned that there are both images and comments from me in both Jill’s and Lance’s books.

A couple of weeks ago, Aline Smithson’s blog, Lenscratch profiled thirteen night images of mine.  Aline purposely chose more unusual images from the group I sent her.  I received emails about a few of them and thought I would discuss two here that were asked about.

Water Tanks

This image, shot in northern California, is a totally available light shot.  It was shot in 4×5 with a wide angle 90mm lens, with a lot of front rise to keep the water tanks from having the appearance of leaning back.  The subtlety of the differently colored street lamps reflecting off the bottom of the tanks gives life to this image.  It is a 30 minute exposure because it was shot on a very dark alley.  The line on the left is a star trail.

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Ship’s Prow

This is an image of a mega-yacht in dry dock in the San Francisco Bay Area.  There is a touch of sunset light at the horizon.  As in the other image, this 4×5 view also has a lot of front rise to keep the appearance of the monumentality of the size of of the vessel.  Otherwise, it would have appeared smaller.  The correct camera placement was critical in this image to keep everything lined up.  Also, the main artificial lights in the dry dock are mercury vapor, so I used a magenta filter to correct for the predominately green light.  This rendered the ship a ‘neutral’ color.  The orange light on the highly polished hull on the right are reflections of sodium vapor lamps in the yard   This reflected light is what caught my eye while I was walking the yard.  I knew it would give interest to otherwise very dark blue ship.  This image has been in several shows, and was shown at 30×40 inches.

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These two images show the subtlety of reflected light at night.  Without them, these images would been much weaker.

A couple of years ago I was lucky to get access to shoot in the Alameda Corridor here in Los Angeles.  It is basically a trench with three sets of railroad tracks set about 40 foot below street level that runs 20 miles from the Ports of LA and Long Beach to the downtown rail switching yards.  This enables the trains to get downtown in about a half an hour instead of four hours, eliminating dozens of street level rail crossings before it was built.

There are few entrances into the trench and they are protected by all sorts of gates, locks and security including many types of motion sensors.  It is really for the safety of the public, for obvious reasons, as these trains barrel along at about 40 mph not expecting anything on the tracks.

Yes, I was escorted the three times to shoot at twilight and at night.  Following are two of my favorites from that series.

Southbound

This was a fairly complex image to shoot because I had to envision what the image would look like and set the camera up and wait.  I composition was for the shadows of the overhead concrete bracing (about 40 feet above us).  After about 15 minutes a train came along and I opened the shutter.  Determining how long it stayed open was where I wanted the locomotive headlamps to end (I estimate about one minute).  I did this by counting the number of overhead braces as the train approached at about 40 mph.  At that predetermined point, I closed the shutter and as the train roared by (with the ground shaking and my heart pounding, as we were just a few feet away).  I then reached over and re-cocked the shutter and opened it a second time to complete the seven minute exposure as the train continued on.  What you see is the ghosting of the street lamps above reflecting off the rail containers as the 50+ car train went by.  I like the reflection of the headlamps on the steel rails, giving it a warm tone to contrast with the cool cyan lamps from the street above.  The image is a little soft because of the shaking ground, but could easily make an 8×10 print.  The mass of the 35 pound 4×5 camera and tripod helped keep the image as sharp as it is.

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Trench Pumps

This is an example of balancing ambient and artificial light.  The late afternoon light gives that warm tone on the concrete wall on the left while the yellow sodium lamp illuminates the pumps (to pump out rainwater, as needed).  There is a subtle green on the rail bed from mercury vapor lamps at street level.  What makes this shot is the sodium vapor light illuminating the “box” down the tracks.  After I shot this, I went over to see what caused this and it is simply two yellow sodium vapor street lamps right on the edge of the overpass.  Shooting this at the ‘magic hour’ (actually less than a five minute window) while set up on the center rail tracks in between trains was nerve racking, to say the least.  The trains come when they come, sometimes three in 10 minutes and none for 30 minutes.  I was lucky this evening, as there was too much train traffic the previous time.  The subtlety of this image is lost on a monitor, and I’ve had the image scanned twice.  The tonality is so much richer in the shadows and in the subtlety of colors on the original 4×5 transparency.

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Over the next week, I will be on a freighter on the Great Lakes, out of internet and cell phone range, so communications and return email will resume the following week.