Tom Paiva's Night Photography Blog

Here we are a year and a half after the Bay Bridge East Span has opened and my new book has begun to ship.  People who pre-ordered it should have it by now.  It is available on Nazraeli Press’s website for shipping immediately.  Sales have been good and it appears to be a successful seller.  Feedback from those first purchasers have told me it was more than they expected and were delighted.

I still have a soft spot for this project, as it took so much work over the past 7 years and this book is a culmination of all that work.  I’m very proud of it.

I made hundreds of 4×5 film views of the project and many of the images have not been seen.  What I’d like to share below are images from the book that have never been in my blog or in the press.

Here is an early image which shows the temporary bypass (the dreaded “S-Curve”) under construction shot in October 2008.  The original Bay Bridge is still very much in operation (on the left).

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Here we are looking beneath the Temporary Bypass and at the Coast Guard Station on Yerba Buena Island with the Port of Oakland beyond.  This exposure is 30 minutes, as I wanted to see the abutment on the right of the original bridge.  It was much darker to the eye than appears here.  The streaks of lights are aircraft taking off from Oakland Airport, in the distance at center.  I was on a steeply sloping dirt hill to get this vantage point, making it very difficult to maneuver.  The blue glow is from the car headlights lighting up the bypass ironwork.

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I was surprised that I’ve never shown this image (although I did make it into a promotional postcard).  I feel it’s one of the strongest in the series.  There are so many colors in this image, were there appeared to be so few at the time.  It is shot from a very rickety catwalk high above the island.  I had to ask my escorts to move off the catwalk because of potential movement and I had to stand perfectly still for the the 12 minute exposure.  This time I was lucky and the image is very sharp.  The  yellow streak is a tug boat coming through, which at the time made me smile as I knew it would add interest–which it does!

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A typical heavy overcast San Francisco Bay evening is evident in this shot.  We were minutes away from the temperature dropping to the dew point where everything becomes wet.  The lights from the Port of Oakland coming through the original bridge are making for some interesting shadows on the water.  Of course, they weren’t visible to the eye at the time because of the movement of the water.

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This image was made from the catwalk at the end of the concrete span.  Some have said the image look like it was lit, or processed using HDR, but of course it’s not, as it’s film.  The reason for this phenomena is because of the extremely low overcast evening that is bouncing the light from all directions, which fills in the shadows.  The stretch we are looking at is now the suspension part of the bridge.  Shot in February 2010, there was still a long way to go.

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This view, shot near the end of the skyway shows the end of the skyway with the original span beyond.  I liked this shot, but I had to shoot it three different times over a period of months because of technical problems.  Shooting with a view camera in locations like this was always a challenge.  This is that final shot.  The lights on the base of the old bridge coming through the temporary structure really shows depth in the image.

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This was shot from a temporary crossover between the two skyway roadbeds.  This twilight shot shows the Berkeley Hills beyond and it appears that there is a game on that evening at UC Berkeley (the bright stadium lights).  Many of the light poles have not been installed yet, as the bridge opening is still 7 months away.  Note the red glow from the lamp on the center column base.  This might look like a snapshot, but it still is a 45 second exposure.  This image was used on the back cover of the book.

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There have been some issues with this bridge, but much of it is political.  A project of this scale is always going to have some problems.  There were hundreds of engineers working on these problems and now that it’s been open and operating for over a year and a half, it’s doing what it was intended–move traffic across the bay efficiently and safely and be beautiful, too.

Representatives from the Joint Venture, the cooperation of the two bridge engineering firms of T.Y. Lin International and Moffatt & Nichol wrote a section in the book explaining the design, complete with illustrations.  This gives that much more dimension to the project in the book.

After photographing the Bay Bridge since 2008, with the new bridge open and operating since September 2013, a year and a half ago, the book has been printed.  I’ve received a preliminary copy from Nazraeli Press a couple of weeks ago.  The publisher and the few people I’ve shown it to are very pleased, including myself.  The quality of the printing is top notch, thanks to the foresight of the publisher.  There’s a mention on their home page of the book launch with a link to pre-order.

It’s been a long haul through the editing and proofing stages and the book should be ready for distribution in early May, based on shipping and customs clearing.  That is now just a matter of weeks away.  The large high quality printed plates made shooting the project in 4×5 film worth the time and effort, with its high resolution quality and smooth tonality.  The horizontal images are nearly 16×20 inches over the two page spread.

I’ve had a website created just to showcase the book itself:

www.baybridgebook.com

Have a look, as I’d love to hear your comments.

The book is about two-thirds twilight and night images, as most of you know is my favorite time to shoot.  I’ve shared many images in past blogs, but realized many images that made the edit for the book have not been widely seen.  Here are a few of these images.

This image was made on the first evening I shot with the project, back in 2008, not knowing where it all would lead.  As you can see, the skyway is pretty much complete, but the false-work for the self-anchored span was just beginning.  This image was used as the promotional image for the first show of the project of the early stages in Oakland.  That yellow streak is an illuminated boat sailing by.

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This image looking east was shot from the edge of the old bridge roadway.  The footing on the lower left is part of the 1930s structure, with its hot rivet construction, typical of the day.  The concrete columns are now holding up the new bridge.  The bridge on the right is the temporary dreaded S-Curve.

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This view is basically the reverse angle of the previous image, made a few months later in 2009.  You can see where I was on the edge of the old bridge.  In the foreground is the section of the bridge that was removed and lowered to the ground for demolishing and recycling.

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This view, looking east from the edge of the old roadway was made during the 2009 Labor Day Weekend closure to tap in the temporary bypass.  This really is a moment in time, where the old section has been cut and moved to the left and the temporary segment on the right has not been moved into place yet.

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Here is a view made from Yerba Buena Island looking east in 2010.  Finding the right vantage point to produce the tangent between the edge of the roadbed and the crossover section took some maneuvering, but I love the tension of this image, with that huge steel section supported from just one side and the lights of the old bridge reflecting off the water beneath it.

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This image, made in 2010, was one of the more difficult to make, as it was much darker than appears here and I couldn’t really see an image on the ground-glass of the view camera.  I used some of the last of my Polaroid film to help compose this.  It shows the majesty of the monolithic, multi-faceted columns.  A 30 minute exposure was needed (note the star trails) and you can see how the background of Oakland is over exposed to get the details of the dark columns.

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I made over 500 individual 4×5 views in those 5 years of the project of all sorts of times of day and night (not to mention the thousands of digital images), both in the Bay Area and Shanghai, China.  The editing process took many hours of work to come up with the final 78 4×5 images for the book, with the help and input from several people.  Again, I’d like to thank T.Y. Lin International/Moffatt & Nichol, Joint Venture, for their generous financial support of this book.

Here in LA, just east of LAX (airport) there’s an old aviation themed restaurant called the Proud Bird.  It’s been a staple for meetings and cocktails for aviators and the aviation industry for over 50 years.  Past regulars and guests ranged from Charles Lindbergh (first to solo across the Atlantic in 1927) to Jimmy Doolittle (famed leader of the first Tokyo air raid in WWII) to Neil Armstrong (the first man on the moon).

One of the unique features of the restaurant is its collection of about 20 aircraft around the grounds and in the parking lot.  Most are real aircraft and some are reproductions or mock-ups, used in movies.  The original owner was a former WWII bomber pilot and collected them over many years.

It’s located on Aviation Blvd., situated between the runways, which gives a view of the endless number of aircraft on approach at LAX, the second busiest airport in the US.  The restaurant has been having hard times, loosing their lease last year with the LA World Airport association, who own the land.  It’s almost closed a couple of times and is currently open for dinner and brunch on weekends and for events.  After having dinner there recently, I decided I’d better bring a camera and tripod before it suddenly disappears, like many things do in this city.

As you can see, the view from the big picture windows is great for watching incoming air traffic along with some great aircraft, like this P-38 from WWII.  I’ve actually had dinner here after seeing the restaurant sign when on approach landing at LAX.  It’s a cheap taxi ride from the terminal and a nice way to come back home from a trip.   There’s outside seating, too, if the weather is nice and you don’t mind the noise and smell of jet fuel.

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This aircraft, the Bell X-1 was the first aircraft to break the sound barrier back in 1947.  This is not the original aircraft, as that’s hanging in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.  This mock-up was made for the 1983 movie The Right Stuff.  It looks quite authentic.

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Here is a P-80, one of the first American jet fighters from the 40s.  A lamp is spilling light onto the nose, making for some interesting graphics.  The control tower at LAX is in the background.  I also shot this with everything sharp, but like this version better.

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There are even some WWI aircraft, an American Spad and German Fokker.  These are mock-ups for films.  Note the traffic on Aviation Blvd. with the red tail lights.  LA World Airports wants to develop this land into aviation warehouses, like the Swissport facility in the background.  Those command much larger lease payments than what the restaurant pays.

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Here is a nice view of that P-38, with a WWII Hellcat in the background.  The light streak is from an aircraft on approach, only a couple hundred yards away.

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There are several aircraft in the parking lot, including the P-51 Mustang right out front.  I did several views at this angle, but when a car made a u-turn around the center island, I knew I had the interesting shot.

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All the aircraft in the parking lot are on pedestals, I presume to keep people from climbing on them or worse.  Here is a genuine British Spitfire looking like it’s banking to avoid the restaurant.

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Here is the distinctive shaped wingtip of the Spitfire.  As you can see, you can walk right under the aircraft.

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Here is a US Navy SBD Dauntless dive bomber from WWII.  It looks like it’s coming in for a landing!  The dappled light of the spotlights through the bushes makes for some fascinating texture.

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The back lighting from a parking light pole illuminates the canopy on the Dauntless.  Again, this is a real aircraft, not a mock-up.

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The Dauntless seems to climbing out with the full moon behind.

The lease on the Proud Bird Restaurant expired today, January 31st.  Who knows what’s in store for the place.  There are a lot of historical aircraft and some wonderful memorabilia and photos in the restaurant displays, too.  I wouldn’t doubt that some of these aircraft will be restored at some time in the future.  I hope the place survives.  If you’re at LAX on a weekend, stop by.  They make an excellent martini, too.

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On another note, for those of you interested, I will again be teaching a class this spring at Long Beach City College called “Location Photography”, listed as Photo 39.  We will spend a couple weeks on the technical side of night photography, among other things, including interesting field trips.  The first class is February 13th, so there is still time to sign up.  For more info go to http://www.lbcc.edu/

This post, I’m showing something very different.  Last week while in downtown Los Angeles we decided to go to an old book store known as The Last Bookstore.  I had my Sony NEX camera with me, but a glitch happened earlier and the camera didn’t shut down when left on, so after an hour or so the battery was dead.  No, I didn’t have a back up battery with me either.

This was annoying, especially since I still had to carry the Sony camera over my shoulder the rest of the evening.  Such is life in the battery-dependent digital age.  Being in the mood to shoot this interesting space I decided to use my cell phone, my only other option.  The modern smartphone does a pretty good job at snaps and video for documentation, which I, like many people, use often.  Using it at night in low-light situations was a bit of a challenge, but figured that I’d give it a try.  Keeping the “camera” steady was the difficult part.

When I first walked in, this creative use for old, unwanted books really made me smile.  I knew this place was going to have character.  Barnes & Noble or Borders, it’s not!

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With chairs like these, it makes you want to snuggle up with a good book and “move in”.  This place is open until 11pm on the weekends and people DO sit and read for quite a bit.  I was there over 2 hours and several people that were there when I arrived were there still there when I left.

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When I’m in places like this bookstore, I leave myself open to what’s around me.  This is a key to most any kind of creative photography.  I never moved anything for any of these shots.  None of these images have been cropped.  It was seeing and observing what was there and capturing a moment in time.  Above we have a novel about a kinky bisexual man in NYC; a Christmas book; and children’s book illustrated by Ralph Steadman(!); and a book on farm tractors.  It would be difficult to find a more eclectic selection of books on the same display shelf–even if I arranged them myself–which I didn’t!

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I’ve always enjoyed old globes.  You can usually date it by looking at Africa, since the country names change so regularly.  This one appears to be from the late 60s to early 70s.  Being illuminated, it added a nice glow to the area.

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The bizarre cover of this art book made me take a second look.  The unusual lipstick application seemed to echo the two back to back red sofas.  Notice the character peaking in on the right, as though she is looking at the viewer.

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Here is another unnerving book cover that up close makes it even more so.  The cover of a book is its most fundamental marketing piece.  And this one is quite ‘outspoken’.

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This image has an interesting three dimensional quality to it.  Humphrey Bogart appears to be looking up at the viewer and lit by an on-camera flash from the lower right (it wasn’t).  It’s the cover of a biography on him, but I really enjoyed the juxtaposition of the “Nostradamus for Dummies” book in the background.  Nostradamus, the 16th century visionary, adds more mystery to the image.  Yes, this is is also “as found” on a counter.  I shot this in various ways before choosing this view as my favorite.

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The mounted mastodon head on the wall is weird enough by itself, but combined with the cover of a book on the monuments of ancient Egypt made it more surreal.  (Of course, there are no real mounted mastodons since they went extinct some 10,000 years ago.)  As you can see, this store is a strange, but photographic environment–at least to me.

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Here is one more of the strange combination of books.  I don’t know many who would buy this pair of books.  Notice how the brown galaxy appears to be a disconnected part of the dog’s face…

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There was a huge section of sex and sexuality books in this bookstore.  Much more than is typical.  The history of Casanova is probably a fun read.  I’m curios as to what the spine of volume “9 & 10” would have added to the overall image…

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The store is in what was an old bank.  This room was the vault and housed the older book section.  I liked all the mounted classic book covers above the door.

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Here is a typical bookshelf in the “Vault”.  There wasn’t really any order to the books in there, as here are books “Quo Vadis”, “The Prisoner of Zenda”, Chaucer, etc.  Because of the bright light on the books on the right, I had to adjust the camera exposure on the phone.  That was more complicated that it should be, having to go through several menus to lower the exposure a couple of stops.  Sometimes these “Smartphones” aren’t all that smart–or convenient when  you want to do something different.  The main advantage being that I was able to take photos when my other camera died.  It took some 4 exposures to get one that was sharp enough (being hand-held).

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The Photography section was an eclectic mixture of books, both used and new.  Here I see a friend’s book used on Austin Val Verde.  I would have bought it if I didn’t already have a copy.  I did put aside a couple of books to purchase before I started my photo essay.

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This charming character greeted you at the front door.  There was nothing in her basket, but she is intriguing, just the same.  A fire truck had just stopped out front and they went into the building across the street.  There is always action in downtown LA and similarly sized cities!  If you enjoy old bookstores as I do, with an avant-garde decor and an excellent selection of books, check out The Last Bookstore on Spring Street at 5th Street in LA.  They’re open late on weekends, and have a great jazz vinyl record section, too.

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These images were all shot at night with my Samsung smartphone, not that I want to advertise any particular brand, model or type.  Other recent smartphones also do very well, if you are willing to push them a bit.  The ISO was adjusted to the maximum by setting the mode to “night”.  I used the “anti-shake” feature; flash off; sound off (so not to call attention to myself); and I save the highest resolution possible (4128×3096 px) to the SD card.  I have an app that downloads the images via wifi to the “cloud” automatically so they are saved off the phone and can be accessed from my laptop or desktop.

To keep the ‘camera’ as steady as possible, I tried to lean up against bookcases, chairs or other stationary items.  Many of these shots still had to be shot several times to get a sharp enough image.  A few people wondered what I was doing, but I wasn’t hassled in any way.  Cellphone photography has become so ubiquitous and accepted lately, that few people seemed to care, including the bookstore workers (at least at this point in time).  Still, it was a fun exercise in working with what you have, sort of like working with the pinhole camera mentioned a few months back.  It’s good to occasionally get out of your comfort zone!

A few weeks ago we had some unusually high surf here in Southern California caused by a hurricane off the Baja coast.  It brought very warm weather, too.

Having not shot enough personal work lately, I ventured out to my local beach, Playa del Rey, just north of LAX airport and about 5 miles from my home.  This being part of Santa Monica Bay, we usually have 2-4 foot waves.  During this time, we had 8-10 foot rollers.  This was a rare time that all of the lifeguard stations were manned as the undertow was also very severe.  There was a surprising number of people, considering it was a weekday evening.

I decided to take my 4×5 film camera to the beach and on the jetty.  This was a chancy thing to do, as major waves were crashing onto the jetty.  Yes, I got wet, as did the tripod, but I kept the camera case closed to protect the gear.

In this shot, the sun was just above the horizon, and gives that nice warm glow.  The lifeguard shack is actually blue.

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This is my favorite time of day, when you can see the blue shadow of the earth just above the horizon.  Because of the water movement, I shot a few extra sheets of film.  I like the unusual pattern of the water just beyond the rocks of the jetty in this one second exposure.

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You can see the surge of the surf in this image, shot just after the image above from the same place.

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This image is shot on color negative film and gives a totally different look and color palette.  I caught the wave crashing against the jetty.  Yes, I got wet during this shot!  The lifeguards wanted people to stay off the jetties, but that’s were the best views were!  There were about 20 of us out there.

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On this shot looking west towards the sunset, you can see a few of the hearty souls out fishing.  The standing water on the jetty is reflecting the sunset, but also shows that the water crashes on top of the jetty.

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Most people photograph the sunset directly, like the previous shot, but I think the better view is the reverse angle, above.  The warm glow contrasts with the coolness of the light in the sky and water.  This is a 45 second exposure, rendering the surf on the right and the mouth of Ballona Creek on the left smooth.  Marina del Rey is on the left.

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I moved further down the jetty for this night shot because I wanted to get some reflection from the standing water.  The water is quite velvety in this 7 minute exposure.  Note the streaks above the buildings on the right, as they are airliners on approach to LAX.

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For all of these shots I used a hand-held Sekonic spot reading light meter, a modern high tech digital light measuring device.  It is very accurate and helps me understand what the light is doing, including helping with the exposure, too.  I can see the light change in the shadows and highlights as the day goes to twilight to night.  Modern digital cameras also analyze the light to get the proper exposure.

It wasn’t always this easy.  Recently, a friend purchased a “Posographe” on ebay, which is a 1921 calculating device.  It doesn’t read light, but interprets what the light does in relation to time of day and year, type of sky, etc.  It even allows for interior exposures, based on colors of the walls, size of the windows and where they are placed.  I played with it a bit and it seems quite accurate, at least in relation to different situations.  Here are a couple of photos of the unit, both front (outdoor subjects) and back (indoor subjects).  It is actually a 6-varible calculator–remarkably complex, especially for its time.  It was a French invention, so most of the calculators are in French.  This is a rare English language one.

It’s about the size of a cell phone and made of polished nickel and hand painted onto porcelain coated steel (like your bathtub).  It was invented by a Mr. Kaufman and is really a 1920s computer.  Here is an image of the internals:

Making photographs has become so easy in the last dozen years, that’s it’s fun to play with such a tool from over 90 years ago to appreciate where it’s all come from…