ebrunner Loc: New Jersey Shore

After Dark

Our topic for this month will be night time photography. Let’s define it as anything shot while the sun is not above the horizon. This would include the blue hour in the evening after the sun drops below the horizon and also the blue hour before the sun emerges from below the horizon in the morning.

Long exposures that show light streaks from passing cars are a good example for this challenge. You might also think about landscapes, especially in the morning when there is a glow on the horizon; but the sun is not yet above the horizon. Clouds will also feature in any landscape photos because they show color before the sun rises and they hold color after the sun sets.

You can chose photos from your archives; but it is hoped that this challenge might also inspire you to go out and shoot during September with the topic in mind. Let us know if this is something you do regularly and what challenges the topic might have presented. Remember that this is not a photo competition; but instead an opportunity to discuss the topic. I’ll offer an example to get us started; but this is only a starting point. This will probably be a long thread. Don’t let that discourage you. It is, after all, a big topic. Have fun.
Erich


The posted photos. I'm going to post three photos to get the topic started. I took my own advice and shot all of these this evening. There was no color because the sky was completely overcast. I checked sunset time and all were shot after sunset. The liquor store was shot without a tripod. I used high ISO and relatively fast shutter with wide open aperture. For the long exposure shot of the boat, I totally forgot to take into account that the waves would move the boat. (Parked cars remain sharp, parked boats not so much). I'll post others throughout the month; but these might serve as an example of the type of photos you can get without any sun.
Have fun shooting

Low ISO, small aperture, long exposure (30 seconds). If you get the right road or a bridge that crosses a highway with city in background, these can be stunning. (This one isn't)

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The brownish light is from the streetlights behind me.

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No all night shots require a tripod. I love to shoot storefronts or gas stations. The night will isolate your subject.

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DaveO Loc: Northeast CT

Very nice set! Thanks!

ebrunner Loc: New Jersey Shore

Thanks, DaveO Hope you have fun with this topic. It is a bit out of most people's "ordinary" , but it should be fun.
Erich

DaveO Loc: Northeast CT

It is most certainly of interest to me and I'll work on it one of these fine days! Whoops, nights! Good share!

Fred Harwood Loc: Sheffield, Mass.

Handheld Minolta 101, converted slide. Kitzingen, Germany, April 1965.
Ghostly walkers, perhaps a bus.

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CassidyMariya Loc: New Jersey

hello! i took this image with my iphone!
it’s a image i took on a ferry!
what do you think?

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pmorin Loc: Huntington Beach, Palm Springs

From the Desert to the Sea

My contribution is a themed set taken at different locations at different times of year, Fall and Winter. The first was taken just a few minutes before sunrise in Palm Springs on the way to the golf course. The second was taken at Ola' Mexican Grill in Huntington Beach just a few minutes after sunset.

Coachella Valley Sunrise

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Twilight At The Pier

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ebrunner Loc: New Jersey Shore

Have fun. That is what this is all about.
Erich

ebrunner Loc: New Jersey Shore

That is a nice example of how you can maintain relative sharpness in objects that are not moving even when hand holding long exposures. The effect really works well. We know that the figures on the sidewalk are people; but they do have a "ghostly" appearance. The light and the building are easily recognizable. Well done.
Erich

ebrunner Loc: New Jersey Shore

I think you are ranging into the realm of "minimalism" here. I like it very much. You have enough "drama" in the sky to keep my attention. This is a good photo, Cassidy.

ebrunner Loc: New Jersey Shore

Very nice study. When you think that they were both taken during the "blue hour" you can see how different that light can be. In the first shot it is much darker, presumably because night has not yet turned to day. In the second shot, everything is much brighter since the transition is toward night and not away from night as in the first shot. With our modern cameras, we can alter that darkness by bumping up the ISO; but you resisted that here, and I think the shot is more interesting because you left it quite dark.
Erich

fergmark Loc: norwalk connecticut

A little contribution to the After Dark topic this month. The first is the only recent photo in this batch. The rest go back fifteen to twenty years. Starting with the first, I had gone down to the beach early, and only because of the fog. The second two were taken after midnight while on Monhegan Island. The cloud cover made it very dark, and were both around twenty second exposures. I like the grainy quality that this very early sensor produced.
The next three are fire as you can see. A more complicated endeavor than I would have imagined. The bigger the fire, the more light, and lower the iso can go, but the hotter the fire, the faster it moves, requiring a faster shutter speed. If you didn't have a high enough shutter speed it's just a blur, and I wanted well defined flames. Hard to get a workable balance, and the only place where I could produce these large fires was a friends place in Vermont. The last two tripod mounted, seeing what I could come up with moving the camera around.

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minniev Loc: MIssissippi

Challenging topic! Good for you for taking new photos for the project. Nice set, especially the one of the store with its array of lights. One of the benefits of our current technology is that it is possible to shoot after dark without a tripod. For some of us, that benefit comes at the great expense of high, noise inducing ISOs. Cameras with larger sensors hold up to the task better than those with small sensors. I’m one of those who uses a small sensor camera for a variety of reasons. And I’ve never tried night photography because of the noise involved.

I was at the country house when this topic posted, and decided I’d try a “star” photo. I am sure I don’t understand this process because I’ve seen star type photos taken with cameras like mine that are quite nice. I cannot say the same for my own effort here, so I’ll have to study more about settings. I do think a tripod would have helped but didn’t have it with me so here’s the outcome. A tripod would not have made the setting (yard and forest and field) more interesting, but I might have got more interesting sky features and would have been able to use a longer exposure. Clearly I have a lot to learn about settings and processing this type of image.

Thanks for encouraging us to try something different. I may try some more before the month is out.

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minniev Loc: MIssissippi

I really like your ghosts!

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

Nice colors. It’s almost an abstract with its bands of color.