Muses from the Past: Alfonso Garcia Sanchez and Post-War Madrid at Night

Analyzing classic photographs can be an effective way to progress in one’s own work. The key is not to simply mimic someone else’s great ideas, but to use the knowledge that comes with reproducing the work of masters and move on to create something new. With this in mind, National Parks at Night's Lance Keimig offers this ongoing Muses from the Past series highlighting some of the early masters of night photography. We'd love to see any photographs you create after learning more about the pioneers of this niche—please share in the comments section!

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I’ve been truly fortunate to be able to be both self-employed and to do work that I love for the last 30 years. Still, the goal that I set for myself to make a living exclusively as a night photographer eluded me until about ten years ago. With the exception of teaching night photography workshops, there have been relatively few times when I have been hired specifically for my night photography skill set.

I chose the specialty of architectural photography early in my career as I saw that as one of the best opportunities to shoot at night professionally. A few such assignments did come my way, but for the most part I was hired to shoot commercial interiors and institutional spaces. My fine art night work was carried by one of the better Boston art galleries until they closed, and as a result my work has been added to both corporate and institutional collections. For a number of years while living in Massachusetts, I worked with an art consultant who appreciated my vision, and she worked hard to convince clients that they needed night photographs hanging on their walls.

Very early in my career, way back in 1990, I almost sold a self-assigned project of images of the Port of Stockton in California. I had worked for a couple of months just to gain access to the property to photograph after hours, and eventually had a body of work that I was happy with. When I sent a selection of prints to my contact at the port, she was very enthusiastic and wanted to use them in their upcoming annual report.

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Port of Stockton, California. This is about a 15-minute exposure on medium format Fuji color negative film, made by moonlight and mixed artificial lights in 1991. The combination of strange architecture and mixed lighting made for a surreal scene. The camera, lens and exposure are long forgotten, as there was no EXIF data in the nights of yore.

Had it come to pass, it would have been the brightest feather in my cap to date, but the CEO put the kibosh on the project. He rightly understood that the dark and mysterious images I made of his property did not reflect a vibrant and busy facility that moved tons of freight and cargo every day. My photographs did not convey the message that needed to be communicated by the report. I was disappointed, but he made the right decision––even if I didn’t appreciate it at the time.

But this post is not about me or my work. It’s about one of the more interesting night photography projects ever undertaken. Unlike my unpublished Port of Stockton photos, Rincones Del Viejo Madrid: Nocturnos was published as a book of night photographs. The images were made by Alfonso Garcia Sanchez and his two sons in 1950 and 1951.

A little background history is required to place this work in context, and to show why it was so ill-conceived.

Madrid in a Good Light, at Night

Spain was essentially a fascist dictatorship after Francisco Franco took power during the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Although the country officially claimed neutrality during World War II, it really supported the axis powers, and as a result it was politically and economically isolated at the end of the war.

The autarkic Falangist movement that dominated Spanish politics in the 1940s eventually yielded to a less isolationist faction within Franco’s inner circle as Spain looked to join the young United Nations and to be welcomed back to the world stage.

One effort toward that goal was a multipronged publicity campaign to polish Spain’s tarnished image, and the extravagantly printed book of photographs titled Rincones Del Viejo Madrid: Nocturnos was one of many such projects offered to dispel the notion that Spain was a dangerous place (a perception that came about largely as a result of the historical memory of Spain’s swashbuckling past, the Spanish Civil War and Franco’s cozy relationship with Germany and Italy during the war) and to instead show what a warm and welcoming place it truly was.

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“Plazuela De La Morería—In the heart of old Madrid. It owes its name to the fact of having been the dwelling place of the Moors at the time of the conquest by the Christians. It was generally believed that the Spaniards expelled all of the Moorish inhabitants as they conquered one town after another. This is not so. After the conquest, Arabs and Christians lived together. The historical truth is that when the latter took Madrid, they fixed, in their generosity definite spaces for the former to live in.” (Rincones Del Viejo Madrid: Nocturnos)

The book shows romanticized scenes of quiet plazas and passageways of the Moorish Quarter, the oldest part of the city, lit by gaslights at night. The streets are mostly deserted, and the few human figures that populate the scenes are shadowy and mysterious. The photos are likewise moody, dark and ominous, and they are full of atmosphere. One thing they are not is welcoming. The scenes presented on the pages of this handsome and expensively produced volume would be more fitting illustrations to a murder mystery novel than to a tourist board promotion.

Each of the 41 images has a description of the location where the photo was taken in both Spanish and English. It’s doubtful that the book made much of an impact on international relations, and although Alfonso, as he was known, is one of the more important Spanish photographers of the time, he is not widely known for this work.

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“Calle Del Cordon—This is one of the most felicitous hits of portraying the night in the venerable nooks, in old Madrid. The narrowness of the streets causes the buildings to look higher and weighed deeper down with mystery. It seems as if a curtain were raised behind which we perceive the decoration of fairy tales, of legend, and adventure.” (Rincones Del Viejo Madrid: Nocturnos)

In 2009 I had a conversation with photo historian Gerardo F. Kurtz, who introduced me to both Alfonso and the book. Unfortunately I’ve not been able to discover much else about this obscure publication since then, and only recently did I find an excellent copy online through AbeBooks.

Gerardo is one of the preeminent historians of photography history on the Iberian peninsula, and my email conversation with him was fascinating and revelatory in multiple ways on multiple topics. I’m excerpting a few of his thoughts on Rincones here in an attempt to convey both the motivation of the photographers and how the publication came to be.

Gerardo wrote to me:

“This production must have been conceived (and produced) in context of the then-just-developing forces that were behind the promotion of the city of Madrid as a tourist place, as a modern city and as a safe one. What this book states in that context of dangerous Madrid is obviously lost in our understanding, but the myths of nocturnal danger of Madrid—romantic views of the sword fights and of criminal violence—were certainly strong and had a good grip on collective understanding (misunderstanding one might better say).

“The general visual aesthetics of the whole book, not just of the images themselves, is clearly in tune with the rest of all the ‘official’ material produced in that period. In any case, this production is clearly not an outsider to its time and environment—it is far from something coming from the atelier of an artist trying to put forward his own vision. His vision is there, of course, but here one could hardly suspect it being the key issue put forward with the book.

“There has been, to my understanding, very little effort to understand the factors and prevailing views of the artists—like Alfonso—who worked during this peculiar period of time called the ‘el franquismo.’ My untrained view is that there was lots of talent involved in the propaganda efforts and that the regime was in fact very aware of the need to use and promote good talent, but alas, tuning it and putting it to the service of a social reality, at least more to a social reality than to a political one.

“Most now want to see only the political and perverse side of it all, and this has deeply distorted the understanding of the historical reality of that time. In any case, I have always understood Alfonso as one of those talented artists, phased into the scene, if not a direct part of it.

“His Nocturnos would be the typical material put at the service of an editorial idea, and his technical skills (here he is certainly bragging and telling us that photographically ‘it can be done’) were brought out to everyone’s view, but his images could still be understood as something produced by him as a free and talented artist. A complicated combination and a complicated issue.”

Alfonso’s Photos

Alfonso was an accomplished commercial photographer who as far as we know was not politically motivated, but who eagerly accepted this assignment as both a well-paying job and as a way to show off his photographic prowess in a technically challenging assignment. Photographic technology had advanced considerably in the 1940s, with new emulsions and new optics making night photography more accessible and good results more attainable than in the past.

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“Calle Del Codo—In the background, The Plaza de la Villa. In the foreground, the house with the historical tower of Lujanes. The ground where the narrow lane is situated, belonged to the Vargas, who were knights in the town. The shape of the street is exactly like an elbow. The name was given by the Marquis of Grafal, Magistrate of Madrid.” (Rincones Del Viejo Madrid: Nocturnos)

Sancehz is not known to have made other significant night images, nor to be someone who was passionate about the aesthetic possibilities of night photography. The images are somewhat repetitive and not highly creative, but they are extremely well-executed and show remarkable control of the high-contrast scenes of his subjects. He often included streetlights in the images, and the level of detail in both the highlights and shadows reveals that he must have worked hard to create a strategy of exposing and developing his film for maximum detail.

To someone without firsthand knowledge of film-based photography, the images are probably not very exciting, but for the time when they were made, these photographs were quite the technical achievement.

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“San Pedro El Viejo, Bajo La Escarcha De Enero—Behind the railing of Santisteban at the end of the Nuncio Street, there stands the church of san Pedro the Old with its proud tower. It is the oldest of the temples in Madrid among those of which have held through the course of times the devotion of the Madrid people. On the side of the Evangel in a chapel by itself lie the remains of the noble family of the Lujanes.” (Rincones Del Viejo Madrid: Nocturnos)

When placed into context of other thematic bodies of night photography from the 1930s through the 1950s––the work of Brassai, Harold Burdekin and John Morrison, Bill Brandt, Volkmar Kurt Wentzell and O. Winston Link—Alfonso’s Rincones Del Viejo Madrid stands out as an important project, as an early example of commissioned night photography as opposed to a personal project, as a historical record of an interesting chapter of Madrid’s history, and as a superb technical accomplishment in night photography.

Connecting with the Past

As I look back on my own career and at varied attempts to find paid night photography assignments alongside simultaneous self-assigned passion projects, I can’t help but think of the mixed emotions Alfonso may have felt at being hired for the Rincones project. It was clearly a posh assignment, and one that allowed him some creative expression and to showcase his technical expertise. On the other hand, it was work for hire to promote a political agenda, and we’ll never know if that bothered him or if it never even crossed his mind.

We are lucky that the work survives in an extravagantly produced goat-leather bound book with marbled endpapers and with high-quality photogravure printing. I’m quite fortunate to have been able to acquire my own copy of this rare book and to have had the privilege to learn about its history from Gerardo. I hope that you as well enjoy both the images and the history.

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“Calle del Rollo—The lower part of this street, at the back of that of the Conde de Revillagigedo, was named Calle de la Parra (Vine Street). It was famous in the time of the Master Juan Lopez, professor of studies, in the town. He was fined for not hindering or punishing his pupils who stole the grapes from a vine. Vexed because of the fines and warnings, he kept in prison for three days, Miguel de Cevantes, who was the perpetrator of the scaling of the walls and the stealing of the grapes.” (Rincones Del Viejo Madrid: Nocturnos)

I’m always on the lookout for historical examples of night photography, especially by lesser or unknown photographers. The images of Brassai, Brandt and Link are well-known and widely published, but the discovery of the fascinating work of artists such as the Vargas Brothers, Burdekin and Morrison, and Alfonso broaden and expand our understanding of night photography as an oeuvre.

How many more glass plate masterpieces lay waiting to be discovered in dusty wooden crates hidden away in long-forgotten attics? Surely there were early photographers outside of Europe and America who found a passion for photographing by moonlight or streetlight, but whose work has never been seen. I’m still searching, and will report back to you with more Muses from the Past.  

Lance Keimig is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He has been photographing at night for 30 years, and is the author of Night Photography and Light Painting: Finding Your Way in the Dark (Focal Press, 2015). Learn more about his images and workshops at www.thenightskye.com.

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Muses From The Past: Train Photographers

Analyzing classic photographs can be an effective way to progress in one’s own work. The key is not to simply mimic someone else’s great ideas, but to use the knowledge that comes with reproducing the work of masters and move on to create something new. With this in mind, National Parks at Night's Lance Keimig offers this ongoing series highlighting some of the early masters of night photography. We'd love to see any photographs you create after learning more about the pioneers of this niche—please share in the comments section!

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I photographed these three rail cars on a productive evening with Tom Paiva at the Southern Pacific rail yard in Oakland, California, in 1995. Pentax 6x7 with a 55mm lens, shot on Fuji color negative film.

Most anyone with more than a passing interest in night photography has seen images by O. Winston Link, the best known of a generation of train photographers who lovingly documented the last days of the steam locomotive in the U.S. The rise of the automobile and the construction of the interstate highway system led to the demise of passenger rail travel in the years between World War II and the mid-1960s. Concurrently, that and the development of more powerful and efficient diesel engines were responsible for the end of steam railroading.

Nostalgia for a dying way of life led to a renewed interest in trains. Photographers––a notoriously romantic lot—were inspired to document the end of this quintessentially American way of life.

“Call it our myth of mobility. We believe that going somewhere else, down a distant track, away from present situations, can only mean broader fulfillment: a remedy for what ails us. It’s our restlessness that best understands and appreciates the symbolism trains and railroads play in our lives.”

— Richard Steinheimer

It was the rise of the railroads in the 19th century that led to American expansion across the continent and the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny. Small towns had sprung up along the railroad, which was a lifeline to their prosperity, and in some cases, their very survival.

Later, interstate highways were built without regard for these towns, and designed to allow people to quickly and efficiently move between major cities or to go from state to state rather than from one town to the next. As the trains faded toward history, they became a popular theme for nostalgic photographers.

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Richard Steinheimer, “Southern Pacific #4194 ‘Tehachapi’ Night Train 55 at Glendale Station,” Glendale, California, 1950. Steinheimer was one of a number of highly dedicated train photographers who often shot at night from the 1950s through the 1980s, but who were all generally less well known than O. Winston Link.

The most challenging images these train photographers made were the night photographs, which were technically complex, and often required considerable equipment and planning. Link’s heroic work is well documented; there is even a museum dedicated to his train photographs in Roanoke, Virginia (which we will visit during our Blue Ridge Parkway workshop this coming July).

Sadly, Link did not receive much recognition until very late in his life and his last years were truly tragic. Today, his original prints are highly sought after and command thousands of dollars. Many of Link’s contemporaries also never received the recognition they deserved. Many of those photographers saw and were inspired by Link’s images in early issues of Trains magazine. This post, in keeping with the theme of the “Muses From The Past” series, concentrates on some of those lesser-known but equally talented train photographers.

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Rails After Dark was a group of photographers—Howard Pincus, Bob Hart and Al Papp—who collaborated to make ambitious O. Winston Link homages from 1983 to ’87. The symbolism is obvious as this Delaware, Lackawanna and Western commuter train coasts past a cemetery in Basking Ridge on its way to Summit, New Jersey, in 1984, a month before the elderly fleet shut down for good.

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Another Rails After Dark image from the 1980s that’s reminiscent of Link’s style. A 1930 Ford Model A awaits the passage of the Valley railroad 2-8-2 #40 in Centerbrook, Connecticut. Rails After Dark used the same type of lighting as O. Winston Link used––4x5 view cameras, a large battery-capacitor sync flash system with hundreds of feet of wire, and hours of setup time.

Nighttime train photography is not a walk in the park. Massive black objects against a black sky, often moving at 50 miles per hour, make for intimidating subject matter. Safety and access were major concerns, and these photographers had to coordinate with the railroads to gain both permission and access, and hopefully cooperation. It’s likely that the engineers might not have appreciated being blasted unexpectedly by thousands of lumens from a string of 30 or so flashbulbs.

Most of these photographers worked with large format cameras and significant amounts of supplemental lighting, which were in the form of either flashbulbs or strobes. Flashbulbs were more powerful, making it easier to light a large scene, but were more difficult to work with. They became increasingly scarce and expensive as the strobe became more popular due to its shorter flash duration and reusability.

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Jack Delano made some of the earliest color night photographs while shooting for the Farm Security Administration in 1942 to ’43. Here, the night is lit by a giant Pabst Blue Ribbon sign above Chicago's South Water Street freight terminal in April 1943.

Even if a photographer managed to coordinate for a train to stop in a photogenic location, most times there was only a single opportunity to make an image. Swapping out dozens of white hot flashbulbs strung along the tracks or under a trestle was time-consuming, and time was money for the struggling railroads. One solution was for a photographer to set up multiple cameras. One of Link’s great behind-the-scenes shots (below) illustrates the technique.

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O. Winston Link using multiple cameras for a night-train photograph.

Exposures and development had to be precisely orchestrated, for with only one or two sheets of film, everything had to be perfect. Many of these scenes were extremely high in contrast, and if the train was moving, exposure times had to be quick. There were many uncontrollable variables and usually a short window of opportunity to get the shot.

Link may be the most famous, but he wasn’t the first night-train photographer. The first night-train photograph was probably the one made by H.L. Arey in Tillamook, Oregon, in 1914. (You can see it in Lucius Beebe’s book Great Railroad Photographs). Philip Hastings began photographing trains at night beginning in the early 1940s, and Jack Delano was commissioned by the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information to document the nation’s railroads in 1942 and ’43. He made some of the first color night photographs for this project.

Many of the photographers inspired by Link’s work would continue to photograph trains well into the diesel age. For an excellent overview of the best of train night photography, check out the book Starlight on the Rails by Jeff Brouws. Of the books on Link’s work, A Life Along the Line and Steam, Steel, and Stars are the best.

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Jack Delano’s stated mission was “introducing America to Americans.” In 1942 and ’43, Delano spent time in the rail yards of Chicago documenting the busy freight hub and the workers who kept the trains running 24 hours per day. He made most of these images on 4x5 Kodachrome transparency film, and many of them showed light trails from the yardmen’s lanterns.

These days, passenger train travel is an afterthought for most people, except for those in the suburbs who have access to commuter lines. Millions of tons of freight is shipped across the country on trains every day, but unless you live within earshot of the tracks you could be forgiven for being oblivious.

Regardless, there is an undeniable romanticism associated with trains in America, making them ripe subject matter for night photographers even today. If you find yourself in need of inspiration, make your way down to the train tracks, set up your tripod and listen for that lonesome whistle.

“I was riding number nine

Heading south from Caroline

I heard that lonesome whistle blow

Got in trouble had to roam

Left my gal and left my home

I heard that lonesome whistle blow”

— Hank Williams

Lance Keimig will be presenting a talk on “An Abbreviated History of Night Photography” during National Parks at Night’s Night Photo Summit, February 12-14. He might just sneak a few train images into the presentation.

Lance Keimig is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He has been photographing at night for 30 years, and is the author of Night Photography and Light Painting: Finding Your Way in the Dark (Focal Press, 2015). Learn more about his images and workshops at www.thenightskye.com.

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Bombs, Bobbies and an ISO of 2: The Challenges of Early Night Photography

A couple of years ago when Matt referred to this being “The Golden Age of Night Photography,” I wholeheartedly agreed. The amazing technology at our fingertips has made this niche more accessible and popular than ever. But if this is the golden age, then surely what came before was the silver age of night photography.

Before silicon chips, it was tiny silver halide crystals that formed our images when photons of light penetrated our lens apertures to land on film or plate. Photographers who have never experienced shooting film at night have no idea just how easy they have it today.

In this week’s blog post, I reminisce about the trials and tribulations of film-based night photography. I want to share with you some of the struggles and challenges, misadventures and woes of the early night photographer. I believe that we can learn a lot by looking at the images of those who have come before us, and perhaps gain an appreciation of just how good we’ve got it.

Even Daylight Was Hard

Whenever I give a talk on the history of night photography, I always start with the first photograph. In 1826 or ’27, Nicéphore Niépce made an 8-hour exposure on a small copper plate, which resulted in a barely recognizable scene at his farm in France (Figure 1). The materials he had to work with were of such limited sensitivity that recording the image took all day—in bright sunlight.

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Figure 1. Joseph Nicéphore Niepce, “View From The Window at Le Gras,” c. 1826-27. After ten years of work that began in 1816, Niepce exposed this image on a pewter plate coated with bitumen of Judea with a camera obscura, an optical device used by artists as a drawing aid. After an exposure of at least 8 hours, Niepce washed the plate with a mixture of white petroleum and oil of lavender, and the result was the first permanent photograph. The image is on permanent display at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

Sadly, Niépce succumbed to the mercury vapors used to develop his plates before he could be credited with inventing photography. That credit would go to his business partner Louis Daguerre, who survived the toxic fumes and had his name immortalized with the first commercially available photographic process.

Daguerreotypes required exposures of a minute or more in sunlight, which would have required exposures longer than the night itself, making night photography impossible (except perhaps in 24-hour darkness at the poles).

Later, Boston-based photographer and inventor John Adams Whipple spent the years 1849 through 1851 trying to photograph the moon through a telescope on a daguerreotype plate. Working at the Harvard observatory, he eventually managed to pull it off (Figure 2).

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Figure 2. John Adams Whipple worked for 3 years to make this Daguerréotype of the moon through a telescope at the Harvard University Observatory in 1851. The telescope utilized a tracking device to compensate for the earth’s rotation during the long exposure.

The wet plate collodion process began to replace Daguerréotypes around 1851. These plates had to be coated, exposed and developed before the sticky emulsion dried on the glass or tin plate, which took about 10 minutes. That wasn’t nearly long enough for night exposures back then due to the limited sensitivities of the materials at hand.

The French photographer Nadar found a way to make low-light exposures on wet plates by using burning strips of magnesium wire as a light source to illuminate the scene. In the early 1860s he made a series of photographs under the streets of Paris in the catacombs discovered during the construction of the metro tunnels and sewers (Figure 3). The acrid smoke of the burning magnesium made breathing nearly impossible, but he was able to record images without any ambient light.

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Figure 3. Nadar pioneered the use of artificial lighting in photography, and was the first person to photograph below ground, in the Catacombs of Paris in 1862.

Coming Into the Dark

Night photography didn’t become truly viable until the invention of the dry plate process in the late 1870s. There are a few anonymous examples of early astro-photographs, but night photography didn’t take off in earnest until the end of the 19th century.

Victorian photographer Paul Martin was one of the first photographers to have a serious go at night photography. During the course of documenting London street scenes in the late 1890s (Figure 4), he began staying out later and later in the evening, and he discovered that it was actually possible to photograph in the dark.

In addition to the technical challenges he faced, Martin was routinely ridiculed by people telling him that it was impossible to take pictures when there was “no light.” Even the police repeatedly questioned his sanity for attempting such a foolish activity, and they ruined many of his exposures when they approached with their lanterns. Martin soon learned that he could save his hard-won exposures by covering the lens as a policeman approached and then uncovering the lens to finish the exposure once the bobby was satisfied that he was a harmless kook.

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Figure 4. Paul Martin, “A Wet Night on the Embankment,” 1895-96. Martin received the Royal Photographic Society's Gold Medal for his series of pioneering night photographs titled “London by Gaslight.”

Martin’s work in London caught the attention of the American photographer Alfred Stieglitz in New York. Stieglitz also became fascinated with trying to record night city scenes, so much so that he defied his family’s orders not to go out and photograph in a snowstorm while he had pneumonia (Figure 5).

Stieglitz wrote in his autobiography:

“One night, it snowed very hard. I gazed through a window, wanting to go forth and photograph. I lay in bed trying to figure out how to leave the house without being detected by either my wife or brother.

“I put on three layers of underwear, two pairs of trousers, two vests, a winter coat, and Tyrolean cape. I tied on my hat, realizing the wind was blowing a gale, and armed with tripod and camera—the latter a primitive box, with 4x5 inch plates—I stole out of the house. … The trees on the park side of the avenue were coated with ice. Where the light struck them, they looked like specters.

“The gale blew from the northwest. Pointing the camera south, sheltering it from the wind, I focused. There was a tree—ice covered, glistening—and the snow covered sidewalk. Nothing comparable had been photographed before, under such conditions.

“My mustache was frozen stiff. My hands were bitter cold in spite of the heavy gloves. The frosty air stung my nose, chin, and ears. … It must have been two o’clock in the morning. … After nearly an hour’s struggle against the wind, I reached home and tiptoed into the house, reaching the third floor without anyone hearing me.

“The next day I went to the camera club to develop the plate. The exposure was perfect.”

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Figure 5. Alfred Stieglitz, “An Icy Night,” 1898. Steiglitz made this image on a frigid night during a snowstorm in January 1898 after a bout with pneumonia. Steiglitz was particularly proud of this image, and it cemented his interest in night photography. His influence on art and photography in America was enormous, and he is also largely responsible for night photography taking hold in New York at the turn of the 20th century.

Working With Light-Insensitive Materials

Working with materials that were not very light-sensitive, and with the lower light levels of turn-of-the-century street lights, early night photographers had to do everything they could to gather light for their exposures. Wet pavement reflected much more light than dry, and fog helped to illuminate a scene. Night photography was largely done in inclement weather as much out of necessity as it was for the enhanced mood and atmosphere.

In addition to being less sensitive than today’s digital sensors—can you imagine shooting at ISO 2?—plates and film suffered from reciprocity failure. The longer these materials were exposed, the less sensitive they became. This set up an interesting paradox: The longer the exposure, the longer the exposure––which in turn meant a longer exposure was required.

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Figure 6. Edward Steichen, Balzac, “Towards the Light, Midnight,” 1908.

Steiglitz’s great friend and colleague Edward Steichen is credited with making some of the earliest photographs by moonlight at the studio of the French sculptor Auguste Rodin in 1908 (Figure 6). He photographed a series of images of Rodin’s sculpture of Balzac over three nights, experimenting with different techniques in hopes of getting a good exposure.

The resulting images are now considered some of his most important works, but at the time he was accused (mainly by the French) of being a fraud. Their rationale? He must have been faking the images because, as everyone knew, making photographs by moonlight was impossible. Little did they know that only a century later people would be making hand-held exposures of the Milky Way with telephones.

The Ultimate Challenge

Perhaps no one better exemplifies the challenges faced by early night photographers than Margaret Bourke White. One of the few western journalists behind the Iron Curtain during World War II, she was sent to Russia by her editor at Life magazine in 1941, and was the only foreign journalist in Moscow when the German bombers arrived.

Bourke White initially photographed the bombing of Moscow from the roof of the American embassy (Figure 7), because the Russian blackout wardens at her hotel forced everyone underground during the raids. Later she set up multiple cameras on the balcony of her hotel room (which faced the Kremlin and Red Square) when the raids began, then rushed to the underground shelters. After the all-clear was given, she returned to close the shutters and to develop the film in her bathroom. In her autobiography she wrote: “To me, the severity of a raid was determined by whether it was a two camera, a three camera, or a four camera night.”

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Figure 7. Margaret Bourke White, “Central Moscow With Antiaircraft Gunners,” 1941. Bourke White was one of the only foreign journalists in Moscow when war broke out between Germany and Russia in 1941.

We Really Have it Pretty Good

Any contemporary night photographer worth their salt has a tale or two of harrowing experiences of being rousted by security or nearly stepping on a rattlesnake, but when it comes to the technical difficulties of making images at night, there’s not much that can compare to what those early pioneers had to contend with.

Posting to Instagram from a lonely peak in a national park doesn’t make for much of a story compared to coating your own glass plates in a portable darkroom and then exposing and developing them on the spot with highly toxic fumes while worrying about being blown to bits by Russian bombers.

Think of these pioneers and remember their images and what they went through to make them the next time you’re out feeling cold or tired during a night photography outing. Keep calm, and carry on.

Lance Keimig is our resident photo historian and cantankerous luddite who still has a darkroom and freezer full of film. He writes the occasional blog series “Muses From The Past” about early night photographers for National Parks at Night. The darkroom is in boxes in his garage, but he still has it. Someday …

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Muses from the Past: A. Aubrey Bodine, Baltimore’s Photographer Laureate

Analyzing classic photographs can be an effective way to progress in one’s own work. The key is not to simply mimic someone else’s great ideas, but to use the knowledge that comes with reproducing the work of masters and move on to create something new. With this in mind, National Parks at Night's Lance Keimig offers this ongoing series highlighting some of the early masters of night photography. We'd love to see any photographs you create after learning more about the pioneers of this niche—please share in the comments section!

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I grew up in Baltimore and discovered night photography there in 1986. Some of my earliest images—two of which I still regard as decent—were made downtown on West Read Street, just a few blocks from A. Aubrey Bodine’s studio, and where he made many of his best night images.

As a Baltimore native son, it was hard not to be aware of Bodine’s photographs and his connection with the Baltimore Sun. I was introduced to his images during a photography class at the local community college early in my career, but I didn’t know that he had made a large number of night images. That’s a discovery I made only quite recently on a family visit to my hometown.

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Pratt Street and Long Dock, 1959.

Bodine began working for the Baltimore Sun newspaper in 1920 at age 14, was promoted to commercial photographer at 18, and became the Sunday Sun feature photographer at 21. He became the photographic director of the Sunday Sun magazine when it was created in 1946. The exposure he enjoyed through his position at the newspaper brought a level of celebrity, and he was well-known and admired as a result.

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First Presbyterian Churchyard, c.1950.

In addition to being employed by the Sun for 50 years, Bodine also exhibited at photo salons both nationally and internationally, and he won many awards. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the Photographic Society of America (PSA) in 1965, as one of the first 20 photographers to be awarded this highest honor along with Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston. Bodine was a founding member of the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) and was the first photographer to have a fellowship in both PSA and NPPA.

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Tyson Street, c. 1950.

Although he photographed at night between about 1935 and 1960, most of Bodine’s nocturnal images were made in Baltimore around 1950. The Mount Vernon neighborhood was a favorite subject. It’s the location of the Washington Monument, featured in many of those images. He also photographed Baltimore Harbor at night, which is a much different place today after major revitalization that began in the 1980s.

Like many night photographers, Bodine learned early on that bad weather makes for great night photos. His night images were made in urban environments with high-contrast lighting, which requires a very different approach than photographing the Milky Way in a national park. He wrote, “Never attempt night photography when the night is clear—always choose a rainy, foggy or snowy night. You will then be able to catch the street reflections and outline the buildings.” That’s good advice for shooting in cities at night, similar to what I’ve been teaching workshop participants for two decades, and something that English photographer Paul Martin figured out way back in 1896.

Bodine advised exposing for four to five times the normal exposure length, and using a fast panchromatic film. In those days, that typically meant the equivalent of ISO 100. The real secret to the success of Bodine’s night images was his modified film developer. In his 1987 biography of Bodine, Harold Williams wrote, “What Bodine did in his darkroom he taught himself by experimentation; much of what he did was unorthodox. He mixed chemicals by intuition that came from experience, not by following directions on the container.”

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Bodine used a weak developer and an extended development time, the tried-and-true method for controlling highlights in high-contrast night scenes in film photography. The results were often spectacular, even showing detail in the gaslights that illuminated many of Baltimore’s neighborhoods.

Bodine was a master printer, which was a little unusual for a newspaper photographer of that era, but he felt that exhibiting his work greatly contributed to his development as an artist. He made large exhibition prints of many of his images––the archive of which his daughter Jennifer has managed since 2000. (You can view the archive at aaubreybodine.com.)

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Excerpts from the Mallinckrodt Photo Bulletin No.71 from 1955, which featured the night nhotography of A. Aubrey Bodine, along with his advice for developing black and white film shot at night.

I’ve been fortunate to exchange a series of emails with Jennifer about her father’s work, and she has invited me to meet with her and view firsthand some of his prints and writings the next time I visit Baltimore. Needless to say I’m thrilled for the opportunity, and will report back in a future post. Just the thought has me scheming to pull out my view camera and try to find some of the locations of Bodine’s images.

For today’s digital night photographer, one of the most important lessons we can learn from Bodine is that experimentation and breaking the so-called “rules” can lead to solutions to the challenges we encounter in the field. It’s just as true today that trial and error and careful observation of the results is the best way to address the challenges of night photography.

My research into his work and career has also reminded me of the importance of printing and exhibiting our images, something Bodine did throughout his career, independent of his newspaper work. (If you’ve been wanting to print your images, but aren’t quite sure how to begin, check out Gabe’s recent blog post “Make Printing Part of Your Process.”)

Note: To read more about early night photographers, you can read the first chapter of Lance’s book, Finding Your Way in the Dark.

Lance Keimig is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He has been photographing at night for 30 years, and is the author of Night Photography and Light Painting: Finding Your Way in the Dark (Focal Press, 2015). Learn more about his images and workshops at www.thenightskye.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Muses from the Past: The Night Photographs of Jessie Tarbox Beals

Analyzing classic photographs can be an effective way to progress in one’s own work. The key is not to simply mimic someone else’s great ideas, but to use the knowledge that comes with reproducing the work of masters and move on to create something new. With this in mind, National Parks at Night's Lance Keimig offers this ongoing series highlighting some of the early masters of night photography. We'd love to see any photographs you create after learning more about the pioneers of this niche—please share in the comments section!

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In his book Conversations With Picasso, the famous Hungarian night photographer Brassai tells of how Picasso came to nickname him “The Terrorist” because of his use of explosive magnesium chlorate flash powder to illuminate his photographs. Brassai certainly was not shy about his generous use of the smoky, smelly substance, but perhaps the lesser known photographer Jessie Tarbox Beals is better deserving of the moniker.

Jessie Tarbox Beals, c. 1905

Beals is known as the “first woman news photographer,” and the “first woman night photographer,” and was also one of the first female photographers to use flash powder. In 1905, the New York American reported:

The explosion of an over-charge of flashlight powder set off by two photographers, one of them a woman, just as crowds were poring out of the Garrick Theatre, caused tremendous excitement and considerable damage. Windows in several houses were broken, scores of families, brought out of bed by the detonation, which rang through three blocks, came scurrying into the street, some of them in their bedclothes. The theatre patrons were panic-stricken, and there was a stampede to get out of the neighborhood. The photographers were trying to get a special group coming out of the theatre, from a stoop across the street, when the explosion occurred. Two pounds of flashlight powder, four times the usual amount, is alleged to have been set off.

It was difficult for any photographer to estimate the amount of powder needed to light up a space outdoors. Despite their severe shaking up, both the man and the woman recovered sufficiently to lose themselves in the crowd and get away. … Palmer Hunt, who lives at 70 West 35th Street, whose windows were wrecked, said that he thought that the explosion was due to an attempt on his life. He said that he is a strike-breaker, and at the head of the Iron Worker’s Ass’n, a non-union organization. Investigation proved however, that the entire disturbance was due to a no more serious disturbance than that which lay behind the effort of the photographers to get their coveted picture.

And all these years since 9/11, I’ve been wondering what photographers had to do with terrorism every time I get rousted by the cops or an over-zealous security guard. Turns out I can blame it on Jessie Tarbox Beals!

Beals was born in 1870 and died in 1942, which made her a close contemporary of Alfred Stieglitz. While Stieglitz left a larger legacy, Beals was a remarkable woman whose drive and spirit enabled her to succeed in a challenging profession against significant odds.

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Throughout her career, Beals worked with an 8x10 view camera, even at night. A large view camera is cumbersome even in the daytime, but is exceedingly difficult to work with in the dark. Her basic kit consisted of camera and lenses, a bulky wooden tripod, holders, and heavy glass plates that weighed about 50 pounds.

Like most women of her day, Beals had to work at least twice as hard as men to make any headway, and she worked tirelessly to make ends meet. She often made speculative images of events and sold 8x10-inch contact prints for 60 cents apiece!

There are relatively few mentions of night photography in Beals’ papers, nor in her 1978 biography written by Alexander Alland, but there is plenty of photographic evidence.

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The archive of her work at Harvard University’s Schlesinger library contains well over 100 prints of nocturnal images that span Beals’ photographic career. She photographed New York at night at the same time as Stieglitz and his followers, but primarily as a journalist. Her images were sharp and in stark contrast to the soft focus dreamscapes of the pictorialists.

Sadly, we will never understand her motivations to photograph at night, nor how she initially happened upon night photography in the first place. Stieglitz and his colleagues had been photographing in New York since about 1895, and there is some evidence that Beals was aware of Stieglitz and certainly his 291 Gallery where many of the pictorialist’s night images had been shown.

Beals took many night views of the pavilions of the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, houses lit by gaslight in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood, and later the mission-style architecture of Santa Barbara after she moved to California in 1922.

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Beals had trained her husband to be her assistant, and he processed her plates and made prints—but they were generally of the down and dirty variety a journalist makes on the fly for a deadline rather than as precious works of art. As in the examples shown here, Beals’ night views are generally ordinary scenes showing a record of time and place.

The significance of her legacy is more one of a pioneer than a maker of images. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Beals’ efforts paved the way for other women photographers who came after her. Alland wrote in his biography of Beals that after her success in New York, there was an increasing number of other women photographers who ironically became her competitors. It was that competition for assignments that in part ultimately led to her relocating to California.  Photographers such as Bernice Abbott, Helen Levitt and Margaret Bourke White followed close behind in the footsteps and tripod holes of Jessie Tarbox Beals.

“There wouldn’t be the slightest use
For it to snow in Boston,
Because my aching pocket book
Has such an awful frost on.
I want to go and take some more
Night photos in your city,
But till some “dough” doth make a show,
I can’t, and more’s the pity.”

— Jessie Tarbox Beals

Lance Keimig is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He has been photographing at night for 30 years, and is the author of Night Photography and Light Painting: Finding Your Way in the Dark (Focal Press, 2015). Learn more about his images and workshops at www.thenightskye.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT