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A few months ago I met Shawn Peterson, another Bay Area night photographer. We shot together, at a Nocturnes meet-up at Mare Island, and a month later at Sutro Baths in San Francisco.  (Photo by Shawn Peterson)
These cranes are, obviously, designed to load and unload cargo from ships. It's still possible to get relatively close to photography them. But that's liable to change as the former shipyard succumbs to development.
In a future post, I'll include more of Shawn's photographs from Sutro Baths.
Lane Hartwell's photographs of Burning Man were selected by Wired Magazine as one of their ten best photograph galleries of 2007.  (Hortense by Lane Hartwell)Says Wired... "Lane Hartwell snuck out some spectacular shots that really captured the essence of the art exhibits there. Her night photographs and aerial shots from the Playa are some of the best we've seen anywhere."I know that Lane worked really hard at "B.M." this year and almost burned herself out doing that. Thankfully, she survived and brought back some great photographs. Yeaaa for Lane!
Although I'm a bit late for Christmas, the Night Photography Blog is giving away a copy of Alex Larg's book Night Shots (Pro-Lighting Series). I bought this book about five or six years ago. Although I found it very useful when I was beginning night photography, I feel that I really need to make more room on my photography bookshelf ( shelves).  I'll give it away (including postage) to one lucky blog reader out in internet-land. If you're interested, please send an email (andyfrazer [at] gorillasites [dot] com) with the string "NIGHT SHOTS" in the title. On New Year's Day, I'll have one of the neighborhood kids (and we have plenty of them) randomly choose one name out of a hat. If you win, I'll then contact you asking for a mailing address. There's no need to send me your mailing address unless you win. And, once again, I'll even pick up the cost of the postage. There's no catch. It's just that I need to get rid of some books, and I can't be bothered putting it on e-Bay just to make a few dollars profit. I'd rather give it away to someone who would really want it. I'll probably be giving away a few more books in the future.
James Rotz is an Indiana-based photographer. There's lots of suburban night photographer in his Regions project.
 (Photo by James Rotz)
The image above not only includes the popular night photography motif of a smokestack with a flowing stream of steam (ouch, that sounds awkward...), but I love how the smokestack is placed right up against the residential houses. I assume the smokestack is from a nuclear plant, but who knows for sure?
Bay Area night photographer Mark Jaremko has two photographs on display at 111 Minna Gallery this month in San Francisco for the Artspan Selections2007 exhibit. Selections is a biennial juried competition where close to 400 artists applied and they picked 20 artists in total. Only three photographers made it into the exhibit. And, get this... they were all Nocturnes folks, Mark Jaremko, Lena Tsakmaki and Rebecca Chang.
 (Nightscapes, 2 of 17, by Mark Jaremko)
The show runs for the month of December and 111 Minna Gallery.
Phil Holland has posted a review of the Canon 1Ds MkIII. This is Canon's new high-end 21MP professional body. Although Phil's review isn't focused on night photographer (like most professional photographers, he's too busy earning a living, so he probably doesn't have time to stand around in the dark for hours like many of us), he has posted some night shots taken with the 1Ds MkIII, including this 100% crop of a star trail taken at ISO 100 for 30 minutes. Notice the amazing low level of noise for a 30-minute exposure.  (100% crop, 30 minutes, ISO 100.
Photo by Phil Holland)
Phil has also posted a 1-minute night time urban scene, along with some 100% crops, which show the amazing amount of detail recorded by the 1Ds MkIII. Don't hold your breath waiting for me to review this camera. At $8,000 a pop, this puppy is way out of my league. But I wouldn't be surprised to see one or two of my Bay Area cohorts get their hands on one in the near future. Note: I tried to contact Phil to find out if the above 30-minute shot was done with in-camera noise reduction, or not. Unfortunately, I haven't heard back from Phil, yet.
Night photographers Lance Keimig (Boston, MA), Lisa Tyson Ennis (West Chester, PA) and John Vias (Berkeley, CA) are going to be participating in numerous venues in December. Lance Keimig's show "Boston Views" will be at the Pepper Gallery (38 Newbury St, Boston, MA) from Nov 30th through the end of the year. The reception is this Friday, Nov 30th, from 6-8pm. Lance will also be participating in the Harvard Square Holiday Fair (3 Church St at Mass. Ave, Harvard Sq, MA) this weekend, December 1st (10am-7pm) and 2nd (12pm-6pm).  ("Reflecting Skye", by Lance Keimig)'s show "Night Light" will open Thursday, Nov 29th (reception 600-730pm) at the Three Columns Gallery at Harvard University's Mather House (10 Copperwaite St, near Harvard Square). The show runs through January 9th.  ("Moonlit Tent", by Lisa Tyson Ennis) will open his gallery as part of the Berkeley Artisans Open Studios each weekend through December 16th. John's studio is between the University Ave and Gilman I-80/580 exits at 916 Jones St, Berkeley, CA 94710 (one block north of Cedar, cross street: 8th).
 ("Silos", by John Vias)
During the full moon last month, over thirty night photographers descended upon the decommissioned photo wonderland of Mare Island, in Vallejo, CA. The event was organized by Tim Baskerville of the Bay Area-based Nocturnes.  (Photo by Andy Frazer)Mare Island is a fascinating place. In 1854 it became the first permanent US Naval installation on the west coast. Since being decommissioned in 1995, the land is slowly being migrated over to to residential housing and light industrial warehousing. But many of the Naval cranes, and all of the dry docks, still remain. For more information about visiting Mare Island, contact the Mare Island Historic Park Foundation.  (Photo by Shawn Peterson)
To see a sample of 44 photographs taken by other night photographers during the October full moon, check out the Nocturnes071027 tag set on Flickr!
Bay Area night photographers Troy Paiva and Joe Reifer have returned, once again, from another productive night photography trip through the Mojave area of California.  ("395" by Troy Paiva) ("Mojave #52" by Joe Reifer)
Keep watching this blog for a future interview with Joe where he discusses some of his techniques for shooting toward the moon (most night photographers begin by learning to shoot with the moon behind the camera), and strategies for improving productivity in the field.
If you live anywhere near the San Francisco Bay Area, you might be interested in the Pigeon Point Lighting Anniversary this Saturday night, Nov 17, from 6:00-8:00pm. This week is the 135th anniversary of the lighting of the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. For two hours, the Coast Guard will turn off the modern airport beacon light, and then turn on the original fresnel lens light.  (Photo by Andy Frazer)I attended this event last year, and I have to admit I was really blown away by the beauty of the light from the fresnel lens. I never realized that the old fresnel lenses could not rotate as quickly as the beacons rotate today (it's obvious, once you think about it), so the fresnel lens would emit multiple beams of light, and the entire set of beams would rotate every few minutes. This creates an amazing star-light effect. As an added bonus for photographers, for the first five minutes (6:00-6:05 PM) they hold the lens stationary to give you the opportunity to get your photographs without blurring the beams of light. More information: California State Parks, Pigeon Point Hostel, and the United States Coast Guard will commemorate the 135th Anniversary of the first lighting of Pigeon Point Lighthouse. This annual event features an open house in the historic fog signal building from 10am until 7pm. The highlight of the evening is from 6-8pm when the historic lighthouse?s Fresnel Lens lights up the sky. Exhibits in the 1899 Fog Signal Building will feature lighthouse history, videos, marine mammals, and the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Pigeon Point Light Station State Historic Park is located between San Francisco and Santa Cruz on Highway 1, about 50 miles south of San Francisco, or 25 miles north of Santa Cruz. For more information, please call (650) 879-2120 or click here.
Vitaly Shafirov posted this wonderful night shot of Melrose Ave, Los Angeles on his Flickr site:  (Photo by Vitaly Shafirov)
His main website is here (warning: it uses Flash)
I know many night photographers who seem to be obsessed with structures that may not be around much longer. They're always on the hunt for buildings that are scheduled to be removed. Sometimes a building may not be scheduled for removal, but all outward signs indicate that it won't be around much longer. Other times, we're totally surprised to learn that a building is now gone, and we wish we had photographed it when we had the chance. Sometimes, it may be last building that you ever would have expected to be gone.  (World Trade Center Roof, 1999, by David Allee)
David Allee is a night photographer based in New York City.
This shot of the Milford Mariner was shot for, but not used in, the National Geographic May/June 2002 issue. The Milford Mariner is a replica of a traditional New Zealand coastal trading scow.  (Photo by David McLain)
Tim Baskerville of The Nocturnes will be leading a night photography workshop at Death Valley, CA on November 23-25, 2007. You can read more information about this trip on the Nocturnes Blog.  (Dream Date #3, by Tim Baskerville)
Noah Kalina is a Brooklyn-based photographer. Most of Noah's photographs are portraits, but I found a few interesting night shots in the Portfolio section.  (Photo by Noah Kalina)
Noah can also be found on Flickr.
"Once you start down the dark path, forever it will dominate your destiny, consume you it will." - Yoda.  (Silos, by Andy Frazer)
Since I began night photography eight years ago, it has been the single most important focus of my photography. I have many theories why this happened. But aside from the dramatic colors and contrasts, and the sense of mystery; the whole sensory experience of being outside in a dark, desolate location is an incredible rush. I imagine that other photographers feel that same sense of "oneness" with their environment if their primary interest is landscape photography, or wildlife, or travel, or photojournalism. But I'll take the "dark side" any day... (I mean any night).
"Studio Nocturne" will occur next weekend (Oct 13-14) at Fort Mason in San Francisco, CA. Studio Nocturne is part of the city-wide San Francisco Open Studios. Ten Bay Area night photographers will be displaying their recent night photography in the Landmark Bldg A, which the first building you see when you enter Fort Mason.  ("Off Limits", by Tim Baskerville) Admission is free. If you're close to San Francisco, and you've never been to Fort Mason, it's worth a visit. Studio Nocturne will be open both Saturday and Sunday. But if you get there on Sunday, you might meet Yours Truly helping out with docent duties. For more information, check out the Studio Nocturne webpage.
Gabriel Biderman has posted some great night work from his trip to Tuscany, Italy.  (Photo by Gabriel Biderman)
Gabriel is one of those rare photographers who still shoots film, and does a very good job of it. Seen on Joe Reifer's Words Blog.
As a follow up to last week's post about long exposures with the Canon 40D, last night I shot a pair of 9-minute exposures (f/9.5 at ISO 200) to compare the effect of in-camera noise reduction.  (9 minutes, f/9.5 ISO 200. Read below to see the 100% crops)In a nutshell, in-camera noise reduction does a wonderful job of reducing sensor noise on long exposures. It works by immediately repeating your shot, but it turns the sensor on and keeps the shutter closed. This creates a "dark frame", which is electronically subtracted from the original image to produce a noise-free image. The disadvantage is that it locks up your camera for a period of time equal to the duration of the original image. Here is the full image. You can see 100% crops of the shot without in-camera noise reduction here and here. You can see 100% crops of an almost-identical shot taken with in-camera noise reduction here and here.
For the past five years, I've been using a Canon D60 for all of my night time work. When it was first introduced, I believe it was the only digital camera capable of shooting a whopping four minutes (under cool temperatures) without producing unacceptable levels of noise. Since then, sensor technology has improved. Clean exposures of up to ten minutes without noise reduction are not uncommon. And longer exposures of up to one hour, using in-camera noise reduction, are also possible.  (Click here to see the 100% crops taken at various long exposure intervals)
Last month Canon introduced the EOS 40D, the forth-generation replacement for the D60 (don't be confused by the naming conventions... this lineage went D30, D60, 10D, 20D, 30D, 40D). Last night I conducted some long exposure tests with the 40D. The subject isn't interesting, but I didn't have time to drive somewhere more interesting and start jumping fences. I've uploaded the various 100% crops to this Flickr set, which also includes some daytime ISO tests. The shooting parameters are in the title of each shot. Since my preferred ISO setting for night shooting has always been 200, I took most of these shots at ISO 200 over 3, 6, 9 and 12 minute exposures. I also had time for one 3-minute ISO 100 exposure to determine the difference between ISO 100 and 200 at long exposure. Keep in mind that you can't directly correlate daytime ISO comparisons to long exposure night shots because the noise increases as the duration of the exposure increases (it's also effected by the temperature of the sensor). I may add more examples of different ISO/exposure combinations (along with in-camera noise reduction and Noise Ninja post-processing) in the future.
I came across Peter Baker's After Hours collection of night photographs via the Conscientious blog's pointer to Peter's Blissfield collection (which I really like). I believe Baker currently lives in Ann Arbor, MI. Although his Empty series includes a pair of day photographs of the abandoned Alameda Naval Air Station.
 (Photo by Andy Frazer)
An abandoned AT&T microwave substation.
Oakland, CA's abandoned train station at 16th and Wood streets has been a favorite haunt for many Bay Area night photographers. At least, that's what I've been told because I've never made it there, myself. But that might change today.
A group called Urban Living Tour is offering a tour of the station, along with other hidden gems of Oakland. The tours run from 11am-5pm today (Sunday, September 16th). The cost is $20 for the entire tour (if purchased in advance), and the proceeds from the tickets benefit Rebuilding Together Oakland. Note: After digging through their website a bit more, I realize that tickets are $20 in advance, and $30 at the door...And you can't buy them at the train station. You have to buy and pick up tickets at the registration office....Please check the website for more information because I feel like I'm at the point of getting myself confused and giving out wrong information).More information about the tour is available at the Urban Living Tour link above. There's also a nice history of the station available at the San Jose Mercury News.
John Carucci has a new book available titled Nighttime Digital Photography with Photoshop CS3.
 (Unknown photographer. Cover of John Carucci's new book).
At first glance, I have to admit the title is a bit misleading. I know that CS3 has a lot of neat, new features, but I didn't realize that it could take photographs. I thought you still needed a camera for that part. OK, bad joke... I don't have a copy of the book. If anyone out there has seen it, please let me know what you think. If you want to write a short review, I'd be happy to post it here. If the publisher is reading this, I want to make it very clear that I have no problem accepting complementary copies of books and software (and even camera equipment, for that matter) for review. :-) If you can't wait for the book, and if you would like to read some on-line information about post-processing digital night photographers right now, take a look at this great post by Joe Reifer.
 (Bus Stop, by Dalton Rooney) Seen on the great photoblog Flak Photo.
This month I'll have four of my night photographs on display in a group show titled "Nocturnal Visions". The show will be at ARTworkSF, at 49 Geary St, Suite #234, in San Francisco, CA.  The show includes work by four night photographers, as well as some night painters. The other night photographers featured in the show are Tim Baskerville, Richard Sintchak and Ethel Jimenez. There will be a reception for the artists tomorrow night (Thursday, Sept 6th) from 5:30-730pm, but the show runs through September 22nd. If you can make it to the reception Thursday night, make sure you stop by my "spot" and say hello. Also, please note that ARTworkSF has moved from it's prior location in suite #215 (on the left) to #234 (on the right, as you exit the elevator).
When I began doing night photography eight years ago, Bill Schwab was one of the few photographers on the internet with a really strong website. Bill is a professional photographer who works in the Detroit, MI area. Many of his unique black-and-white night photographs were taken under snowy or foggy conditions.  (Snow Dog, by Bill Schwab)
 (Late February Thaw, by Bill Schwab)
Most of Bill's more recent night work (and long-exposure daytime work) has been done in Iceland. Bill also prints many of his special editions in the platinum process, which lends itself very well to his monochrome images. I own a copy of Bill's first book "Gathering Calm", which contains many beautiful b/w images. It is currently sold out, but a second edition may become available soon. A few years ago, Mike Quinn and I spent over an hour talking to Bill at the PhotoSF show. I can vouch for him that he is a wonderful person to talk to. Bill leads photography workshops in Iceland that include the gum-over-platinum/palladium process. If you decide to sign-up, please let Bill know that you heard about it here. Bill is represented by The Halsted Gallery, as well as Brian Kelly's wonderful The Photography Room. I'll have a seperate post about Brian Kelly's great night photography work in the near future.
Even though I'm sometimes a photography art snob, I have to admit that I get a real kick out of light drawing, also known as light doodling. Basically, you take small light source, such as a penlight, point it towards the camera, and quickly draw something while keeping the shutter open. There's even a Flickr pool dedicated to light drawing. I've only tried this a few times. Although it's a lot of fun, I admit that my results are better described as "doodles", as opposed to "art".  ("Light Doodle" by Andy Frazer)Last week I came across the work of Half Moon Bay photographers Lori Stotko and Stuart Nafey, who go by the Flickr name UnklStuart. Lori and Stuart have created a set of beautiful light drawings that incorporate multiple colors, as well as relatively complicated free-hand drawings.  (Southwest, by Lori Stotko and Stuart Nafey)
One of the elements that I love about the above photograph is that it incorporates the natural nighttime background into the light drawing. Lori explained her process to me: Lori, can you explain this photograph to me?
My husband and I are from Half Moon Bay California, and the howling dog is on our coastal links with the Ritz [Carlton] glittering in the background. He uses a Nikon D80 digital camera with various ISO settings, dark or mostly dark environment with long exposures.
Where did you get the colored lights?
We fabricated some special LED wands with Radio Shack supplies, designed with easy on-off push buttons and exposed bulbs. I have a variety of wands, multi-color and individual LED bulbs. Are the figures really done free-hand?
I do all the mid-air drawing free-hand and have just discovered that I seem to have a knack for spatial relations on air designs. I will sometimes use my free hand to keep myself oriented in mid-air. We are just getting started and have some other ideas we hope to pull off.
Nazraeli Press has re-issued Todd Hido's book House Hunting, which features Todd Hido's night photographs of suburban homes taken at night. Many of these homes are in the town of Pacifica, just south of San Francisco.
KQED also has a Spark episode where they follow Todd on one of his night shooting adventures. I've always seen an inherent creepiness in Todd's photos because I can imagine a homeowner coming out and yelling at me if I ever tried something like this. I recently got yelled at by a neighbor because I looked at his house while I was walking past it one night. Kudos to Todd for completing an entire project on this topic. Thanks to Robert Kerwin for posting this on the Nocturnes Message Board.
German photographer Jan Stradtmann's M.G. Allotments series has some interesting shots of shacks photographed at night with additional white illumination.  (Photo by Jan Stradtmann)I couldn't find any explanation of this project. So I guess it's one of those take-a-look-and-draw-your-own-conclusions things.
Have you ever found yourself struggling to describe to people what you're trying to accomplish when you do night photography? There's an interesting discussion going on at Joe Reifer's Words blog regarding the language (or lexicon) of photographing abandoned buildings at night. As Joe describes, [T]he point of this exercise is to help further establish a language about abandoned places night photography (APNP) that connects this work to earlier precedents in the photography and art worlds. My main purpose in this task is to help educate influencers in the art world and customers in order to better promote this type of work. The question is involves a combination of self discovery, art history, and marketing. Reducing the mystery of APNP down to more simple concepts that can be more easily understood by both the art world and the general public will benefit all photographers working in this genre.
Brain Lesteberg's photo below is from a documentary project titled " Raised to Hunt". Brian is a former student of Alec Soth. In fact, I came across this photograph from Alec's blog.  ("Casselton Cold Storage, Casselton, ND" . 2003, by Brian Lesteberg)
I love how so many elements in this shot all converge towards the door in the center of the image: the lighting, the bricks, the pathway in the snow and, especially, the "DEER" arrow.
A few weeks ago I posted about a "Spark" video on-line that included interviews with Bay Area photographer Henry Wessel. " Spark" is a KQED production about Bay Area artists and art productions. Their archives include shows about many well-known artists, including night photographer Todd Hido. Todd is best known about night photographers from his book "House Hunting", which includes numerous photographs of quiet, suburban homes at night. Many of those photographs were taken on foggy nights in Pacifica, CA.  ("Untitled #2690", by Todd Hido)
Click here for a direct link to the "Spark" segment on Todd Hido.
This night photograph is from National Geographic's Photo-of-the-Day. Along with all the great shapes of the dead trees in the foreground, I love the way the light sand is revealed under the moonlight.  (Bahama Islands, 1986, by James L. Stanfield for National Geographic)
From National Geographic's POD website: "Crabbers hunt for their quarry by torchlight on the Bahamas' Samana Cay. Many historians think that the island's Lucayan Indians using the same hunting technique may have been the lights "like a small wax candle" that Christopher Columbus wrote about in his diary before his fleet found land here in October of 1492."
"Chances are, if you believe the light, you’re going to believe that the things photographed existed in the world." -Henry Wessel
 (Los Angeles, No 43, by Henry Wessel) Mike Johnston at The Online Photographer posted a link to a KQED segment on Bay Area photographer Henry Wessel. This site includes a wonderful short interview film with Henry. And this website contains more samples of his work, including some night photography titled Night Walk.
The California Museum of Photography at UC Riverside will be presenting a show of night photography from the Joshua Tree National Park. The show, titled "New Light", will run from Aug 10 through Oct 20, 2007. The opening reception will be October 13, from 7:00-9:00pm. If you're in the Riverside, CA area, this should be worth checking out. At this point, the CMP/UCR website has no information about the photographers included in this show. They also don't have any photos on-line, other than a 251x166 thumbnail. If I get any more information about this show, I'll post it here.
Berkeley photogapher Christina Seely's LUX project "documents the artificial glow produced by major cities in the three brightest regions as seen on a NASA map of the world at night." Her website includes photographs of the urban glow from the US, Europe and Japan.  (Metropolis 42,22 N 71,2 W by Christina Seely)
I've just returned from a week's vacation in Montana. This time I chose not to have any internet contact with the outside world, so this blog has been quiet for a while. When I returned, I immediately checked two of my favorite sources for night photography news: Tim Baskerville's Nocturnes Night Photography Blog, and Joe Reifer's Words. It looks like there's been quite a lot going on since I left for Montana: First, Brian Chapman and Lance Keimig are teaching a night photography workshop at the Pacific Center Northwest in Seattle, WA, on August 24-27. I've known Lance since I took a Nocturne's night photography workshop from him in San Francisco five years ago. I shot with Brian last year at Mono Lake. I highly recommend both of them as instructors and all-around great people to shoot with. There's more information at the PCN website. Second, and speaking of Lance Keimig, Lance has an article in the July/August issue of Architecture Boston titled "The Tradition and Technology of Night Photography". You may recall that the Boston Public Library recently purchased some of Lance's incredible night photographs for their permanent collection. Third, the Victorville Daily Press ran an article about Troy Paiva's night photography throughout the desert. If the summer sky is hampering your night shooting, as it often does here in the San Francisco Bay Area, then you can at least catch up on your night photography reading.
The latest issue of MAGNAchrom is dedicated to night photography. MAGNAcrhom is an online magazine dedicated to medium and large-format photography. Registration is free, and the issue is available by download.  (Photo by Tom Paiva)
MAGNAchrom includes interviews and work from a number of photographers. The night photography issue includes a lengthy interview with Tom Paiva. Tom was featured in my short documentary film Night of the Living Photographers, which is once again available for viewing on-line. Tom is also the author of the book Industrial Night.
Thanks to Richard Sintchak for telling me about this one.
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(Photo by Shawn Peterson)
