Creative Night: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques

Introduction

In 1888, the great artist Vincentvan Gogh wrote in a letter to his brother Theo, "It often seems to me that the night is much more alive and richly colored than the day." Van Gogh was right; the night is alive with vibrant colors, shapes and forms.)

Night covers the world in darkness roughly half the time. It's a mistake to assume that because our sight is limited at night that there's nothing to see. Hours after sunset, when the world appears dull and gray, saturation lingers. In almost complete darkness, flowers exude electric colors. In the deep watches of the night, starlight produces subtle and glorious color variations.

The advent of digital photography has revolutionized the practice of night photography, because a digital sensor can record the spectacular colors of the night. These colors are created by light waves in spectrums that are invisible to the human eye. For the first time, we can truly "see" the world of the night around us. With digital equipment, there's as much to photograph at night as there is during the day.

Yet, to be fair, night photography does present some challenges that don't exist for photography during the day. To state the obvious, it is often hard to see what you are photographing, and it can be difficult to see what you are doing with your camera. Auto-focus doesn't work; forget about light meters; and exposures are all manual.

Creative Night: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques explains what you need to know about photographic technique ...