Urban Night Photography

Most people take photographs during daylight, but those dedicated photographers who venture out during darkness show a different take of light that eminates from the streets, buildings and the darkening sky. Alistair How our guest speaker on Zoom this week hails from near Leeds and the title of his talk  was “Urban Night Photography”. With his comment “Good Stuff Happens in the Dark” he gave us a master class in the genre. He uses A Nikon Z8, and a compact Sony RX100, with cable release and a quality tripod for stability. He uses the camera on his I Phone for back up if time is limited. Taking his shots in the Blue Hour, the Evening, the Night and Dawn, using mostly long Exposure with lenghths from 1.5 seconds up 3 minutes. Involuntary Camera Movement is used to give a different vive on some shots. He often takes multiple shots of his chosen subjects which he then merges on his computer program to achive the effect that he wishes to present. His expertise was amply demonstrated by the shots of the “ Light Trails”  from cars, busses and passing trains at street level and also from above. Lights illuminating the outside of historic buildings as well as the light from windows of various buildings featured in his presentation. To demonstrate contrast he also uses black and white pictures to emphisise the shape and the shadows in architecture, of stone, brick work and glass with its reflective properties. Nightime offers different perspectives such as unusual reflections which are only manifested after dark, on various subjects, with rivers and their surrounds in particular. Industrail instalations have a particular facination, offering somewhat surreal shapes when lit during darkness. Alistair showed shots in the vicinity of his home town along with other cities of England, with Edinburgh also featured. Terrific pictures taken in Gadansk, Berlin, Barcelona, Prague, Porto and Lisbon plus various locations in Italy were part of his super porfolio. The evening ended all to soon with and the audience giving him a well deserved round of applause.