Night Photography Blog — National Parks at Night

Lance Keimig

Seize the Night, Online! — Announcing the Second Annual Night Photo Summit

We are delighted to announce the second annual Night Photo Summit!

Last winter, we hosted and produced the first Night Photo Summit, a 3-day virtual conference to celebrate everything we love about night photography. It was intense. It was educational. It was fun!

We created the summit as a way to share our passion with you, the community of like-minded photographers who love the night.

Over 350 people joined together for a long weekend of inspiration and camaraderie, and it was such a blast that we knew, even before it was over, that we would do it again in 2022.

Join us from February 4-6, 2022, to experience 3 days of dynamic presentations from 30-plus world class photographers, authors, artists, rangers, an astronomer, and even a meteorologist.

Sessions and Speakers

There are sessions about creativity, dark skies and weather, and of course night photo techniques––image capture, lighting, time-lapse, post-processing and more.

There are classes for all levels, including a Night Photography Fundamentals track, as well as intermediate and advanced level courses, all totaling for over 45 hours of learning and virtual adventure. And we are thrilled to have our friend and world-renowned nature and cultural photographer Art Wolfe share his World at Night project turned book.

There will be panel discussions (including “Women in Night Photography—Challenges and Achievements Under the Stars”), a group image review with the National Parks at Night instructors, and opportunities to connect with the wider community of creative professionals who share a love of night photography.

Our incredible lineup of speakers and talks includes:

  • Adam Woodworth: “Milky Way Crash Course”

  • Amir Shahcheraghian: “10 Years of Night Sky Photography in the Desert National Parks of Iran”

  • Art Wolfe: “Art Wolfe Presents: Night on Earth”

  • Autumn Schrock: “Process to Print: Making Your Night Photos Shine on the Wall”

  • Chris Nicholson: “Oceans, Lakes, Rivers and Ponds: Working with Water at Night”

  • Colleen Miniuk: “Finding Your Creative Voice”

  • Erik Kuna: “Planning a Milky Way Adventure with PhotoPills”

  • Forest Chaput de Saintonge: “Deep-Sky Astrophotography with a Telephoto Lens”

  • Gabriel Biderman: “Out of this World: Beyond the Basics of Star Trail Photography”

  • Gunther Wegner: “Day to Night Transitions: The Holy Grail of Time-lapse Photography”

  • Hannu Huhtamo: “Drawing with Light”

  • Imma Barrera: “Under the Night Sky as a National Park Artist in Residence”

  • Jess Santos: “Building Your Instagram Presence”

  • Kah-Wai Lin: “Photographing Auroras and Winter Landscapes”

  • Ken Lee: “How to Use Light Painting Angles to Create Detail, Texture and Drama”

  • Kevin Adams: “Fantastical Fireflies”

  • Lance Keimig: “8 Lessons from Early Night Photographers That Will Make You Better Tonight”

  • Matt Hill: “How to Capture and Edit Multirow Night Panoramas”

  • Michael DeYoung: “Using the Best Weather Forecasts to Find Clear Skies and Perfect Clouds, Day or Night”

  • Michael Frye: “Expressive Night Photography”

  • Mike Mezeul II: “Extreme Nature in the Night”

  • Nicole Mortillaro: “What to Look Forward to in the Night Skies of 2022”

  • Ranger Rader Lane: “Night Skies in our National Parks”

  • Rafael Pons: “How to Plan Your Night Sky Photos (Milky Way, Star Trails and Meteor Showers)”

  • Royce Bair: “Low-Level Lighting: How to Create Stunning Nightscapes”

  • Susan Magnano: “Luminescent Portraits: A Live Demo with Light Writing”

  • Tim Cooper: “Creating Realistic Landscape/Milky Way Blends”

  • … and more to be announced!

Sponsors & Giveaways

Every attendee will be automatically entered into drawings for a large number of giveaways from our generous sponsors, as well as amazing session-specific giveaways from speakers. Prizes include a Gitzo tripod, Vallerett photography gloves, a KelbyOne membership, a book and print from Art Wolfe, light painting tools, an Irix lens, a Move-Shoot-Move star tracker and more.

The Night Photo Summit is sponsored by Chimani, Coast Portland, Irix, Ledlenser, Manfrotto/Gitzo, Move-Shoot-Move, the NightScaper Conference, PhotoPills and Vallerret, with additional sponsors to be named soon.

How to Join Us

If you’re into night photography, or if you want to get into it, this is an event you absolutely do not want to miss.

Tickets are $399, and include:

  • 3 days, more than 25 instructors, over 45 hours of inspiration, instruction and fun

  • 1 year of access to re-watch any of the courses

  • a live image review session

  • three panel discussions

  • exclusive glow-in-the-dark summit T-shirt (mailed to attendees with U.S. addresses, and we may be able to help those from other countries too!)

  • personal access to product experts from manufacturers and developers sponsoring the event

  • giveaways throughout the duration of the summit

  • an unprecedented opportunity to connect with like-minded photographers passionate about the night

Moreover, if you purchase your ticket before noon EST on January 14, you’ll get your shirt and a swag bag (USA only) before the summit!

Registration is available now, so sign up today and mark your calendars to join National Parks at Night for the world’s second online Night Photo Summit!

JOIN US ON SOCIAL MEDIA

As if that isn’t all enough, we’ll be releasing plenty more information over the next few weeks. To stay tuned in to it all, we invite you to follow the summit social media accounts on:

We are very much looking forward to seeing you online next month. In the meantime, feel free to ask us any questions via the social media accounts above, in the comments below, or through the Night Photo Summit webpage.

Seize the night … online!

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.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

How I Got the Shot: Star Circles Over West Quoddy Head Lighthouse

West Quoddy Head Lighthouse. Nikon D780 with a Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 lens at 18 mm. Five stacked frames shot at 10 minutes, f/3.2, ISO 800.

The Location

After our recently completed PhotoPills workshop in Acadia National Park, Chris and I took an extra day and night to visit Lubec, Maine, and the West Quoddy Head Lighthouse––the easternmost point in the continental United States and the light that warns ships of its rocky shores.

We both enjoy working out different strategies for photographing lighthouses with different types of beacons. Some beams are continuous, some pulse or flash, and some rotate. Each type requires a unique approach to get the best possible exposure (or exposures) for both the lighthouse and the surrounding landscape.

West Quoddy Head Light is among the most common in the category: those with a pulsing or flashing light. The beacon switches on and off every few seconds in a consistent, unique pattern (referred to as the lighthouse’s “characteristic”) that enables mariners to establish their location.

Seafaring folk just need to know what the colors and pattern are—they’re not concerned about anything else. But night photographers? We care. The longer that the light remains off (the “eclipse,” in lighthouse terminology), the easier it is to photograph, because the longer it’s on (the “flash”), the harder it is to control in a night exposure. West Quoddy Head’s characteristic is a white beam that flashes for 2 seconds, eclipses for 2 seconds, flashes for 2 seconds, eclipses for 9 seconds, then repeats (Figure 1).

Figure 1. This animation depicts what the 2-2-2-9-second flash sequence of the West Quoddy Head Lighthouse looks like in-person. This is the drastic change in exposure you need to compensate for when shooting a flashing-beam lighthouse. © 2021 Chris Nicholson.

Even for lighthouses with long eclipses, exposure is still a challenge, because the lantern is so bright. The usual technique to keep the flash from blowing out in an exposure is to cover the lens while the light is on and expose when the light is off over an extended period of time until an adequate ambient exposure is achieved. You still want to see the light, of course, so you allow the camera to see just a single flash.

Now let’s get back to Lubec and West Quoddy Head Lighthouse. We had arranged for after-hours access to the grounds, which is in a state park that is normally closed at sunset. We’d had a long day of travel and arrived after darkness had already fallen. There was no moon that night, and we set up without the benefit of daytime scouting. (Chris had been there before, but almost 20 years earlier!)

The lighthouse is situated on a peninsula (Figure 2) at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, making it accessible from all sides with lots of photographic opportunities. The candy-striped paint and classic keeper’s house are easy to work with, but what really makes this lighthouse fun to photograph is its characteristic—that flash pattern of 2, 2, 2, 9.

Figure 2. Google Earth view of the West Quoddy Head Lighthouse.

The unusually long 9-second period of darkness makes it easier than most other lighthouses to get a good image without over-exposing the lantern. This was especially helpful on that moonless night, as there was almost no light source other than the stars to illuminate the overall scene. A few dim lights (an exit sign and a computer’s glow) inside the keeper’s house lit a couple of the windows, but did little to light the landscape.

The Composition

My initial inclination was to set up beneath the lighthouse on the north side to capture the vertical core of the late-season Milky Way behind it (Figure 3). This required using an ultrawide lens tilted significantly upward. The resulting composition was tight on the sides, had too much foreground and had too much perspective distortion for me to correct effectively in post-production.

Figure 3. West Quoddy Head Lighthouse test shot. I wanted to get the Milky Way in the frame, but didn’t like the compositional options. Nikon D780 with a Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 lens at 15mm. 8 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 12,800.

I moved around to the south side of the lighthouse and set up a horizontal composition that included the keeper’s house, the ocean and a great alignment to make star circles. I wished that we had at least a little moonlight for the landscape, but that was not the case.

I established my composition with the intention to keep the camera level (in order to minimize distortion) and to crop out some of the resulting dark grassy foreground.

Then I focused on an illuminated window in the keeper’s house. I was about 50 feet from the house, so I knew that with an 18mm lens I could safely focus on the foreground and still have the stars in focus. (See “Use Hyperfocal Distance to Maximize Depth of Field at Night.”) Since we had just finished the PhotoPills bootcamp and those skills were fresh in my mind, I confirmed my focus choice with the Advanced DoF pill and found that if I focused at 50 feet then my depth of field would be from 18 feet to infinity. That was plenty!

The Exposure

While we generally use a baseline of 20 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 6400 for starlit scenes, that’s really a compromise exposure that underexposes to keep the stars as points of light. I prefer to add at least a stop of extra exposure for my star trail images; my go-to baseline for star trails is 10 minutes, f/3.2, ISO 800.

I could have used the Six Stop Rule to extrapolate, but since I was changing all three exposure variables from my test shot, it was easier to use the Exposure pill in PhotoPills to translate from the test exposure to the final exposure. In this case, a successful test of 1 minute, f/2.8, ISO 6400 yielded a final exposure of 10 minutes, f/3.2, ISO 800 (Figure 4). Boom! My go-to baseline was almost exactly the same as that night’s perfect exposure.

Now that I had fixed the composition, focus and exposure, it was time to get down to the real task at hand. In order to get a good semblance of a star circle with a wide lens, I knew that I would have to do at least 30 minutes of exposures, and preferably more.

Figure 4. Unadjusted frame from the series, showing the single-shot exposure. Nikon D780 with a Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 lens at 18 mm. 10 minutes, f/3.2, ISO 800.

If you’ve been paying attention, you might be wondering at this point how I’d go about exposing long enough for a star circle while covering the lens whenever the light was flashing. The short answer can be summed up with two words: patience and determination.

That meant that I would have to stand behind the camera covering and uncovering the lens according to the flash sequence of the lighthouse for the entire series of exposures. I probably could have used the cover-the-lens technique for just one exposure and then masked out the lighthouse from the rest of the images in post, but that’s not how I roll. I wanted to do as much in-camera and as little in post as possible.

I practiced for a couple of minutes to get the rhythm of the flash sequence down, and then started my first exposure, not knowing how long I’d be able to keep it up without accidentally uncovering the lens at the wrong time. To keep my count, when I wasn’t covering the lens, I was waving the black card in time with my counting. As luck would have it, I managed to pull off five 10-minute exposures, each with good highlight detail, even keeping it together when Chris came over to see what I was up to and started chatting.

Counting, covering and uncovering while trying to hold a conversation is not an easy task. It was on the sixth exposure that I whacked the lens with my black card and moved the camera ever so slightly. So that was it. Fifty minutes of star trails behind a lighthouse with a well-exposed lantern. That was a record for me, but now I can’t wait to go back and do it under a full moon!

The Processing

Stacking the images in Photoshop was relatively easy because of the way I’d gone about capturing the raw materials. The light wasn’t blowing out in any of the exposures, so it was a simple matter of:

  1. selecting the five frames in Lightroom

  2. choosing Photo > Edit In > Open as Layers in Photoshop

  3. selecting all five layers

  4. changing the blend mode of the five layers to Lighten (Figure 5)

Figure 5.

I made a few minor touch-ups, then saved and returned the image to Lightroom.

Wrapping Up

Lighthouses are a challenging and fun subject for night photography. Sometimes the approach is dictated by geography––like the charming Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse in Acadia National Park and how it demands certain compositional compromises—while others offer 360 degrees of access.

The technique to get the best images varies from one lighthouse to the next, but the biggest challenge is usually trying to manage overexposure in the lantern while getting enough exposure for the landscape. The solution to that challenge varies depending on the lighthouse, and in this case the particular set of challenges pushed me toward a final photograph (Figure 6) I was quite happy with.

Figure 6. The final image of West Quoddy Head Lighthouse. Nikon D780 with a Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 lens at 18 mm. Five stacked frames shot at 10 minutes, f/3.2, ISO 800. That was fun.

If you’d like to have a go at some of the best lighthouses in North America, sign up for the waitlist for our Lighthouses of the Outer Banks, Acadia National Park or Monhegan Island workshops, and keep an eye out for more lighthouse workshops in the future.

What lighthouses have you photographed at night? We’d love to see! Feel free to post your take on this towering genre in the comments, on our Facebook page or on Instagram (tag us @nationalparksatnight and/or hashtag us #nationalparksatnight).

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.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Good Reads for 2021: 11 New Books for the Night Photographer

Interested in books about photography, night and national parks? See the National Parks at Night Bookshelf.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m a book hound. I always have my eyes open for new (or old) night photography books. Over the past year I’ve written two posts about “essential” books for night photographers (“10 Essential Books for the Night Photographer’s Library” and its sequel “10 More Books to Round Out your Night Photography Library”). Most of those are classic titles, more than a few of which are out of print and hard to find.

I hope I haven’t created an impression that all good night photography books are old. In truth, this genre of photography is not just alive and well, but is thriving. In fact, Matt Hill rightfully speaks about this being “the golden age of night photography.”

Proof of that is on the shelves, with plenty of new volumes of and about night photography being published. There have been a number of recent releases of note, with three forthcoming books due later this year that you’ll be sure to want to check out.

Below you’ll find my choice of 11 contemporary night photography books that are well worth your time and money.

Monographs

A monograph is a lifetime goal for many photographers, and a great showcase for one’s imagery. Monographs can also serve as inspiration for the rest of us. With advances in on-demand printing, small niche publishers are able to produce short runs of books with specialized interests with relatively low risk.

One such publisher is America Through Time, which caters to the urban exploration crowd, with monographs that depict the buzzing energy of vast metropolises to the places that humans have left behind. They’ve released several such books with a nocturnal theme lately, by Troy Paiva, Ken Lee and Mike Cooper.

TOKYOO.jpg

TO:KY:OO

by Liam Wong

Liam Wong is a bit of an outsider to the night photography world, but is a young man with a powerful vision. His supersaturated cyberpunk-inspired night views of Tokyo have recently been published by Thames and Huson in TO:KY:OO.

Wong is a young Scottish video game designer and art director who brings his experience to a relatively newfound love of night photography. His highly stylized images of Tokyo at night are reminiscent of Blade Runner or other science fiction dystopian worlds.

His day job took him to Tokyo at a time when he was in the process of teaching himself photography, and he applied his design sensibilities and strong sense of color to his imagery. These are not long exposures—no star trails here! The images are all about the throbbing mass of humanity that makes up one of the world’s most interesting cities. The photos in TO:KY:OO are unlike anything else I’ve seen and are definitely worth exploring.

Junkyard Nights.jpg

Junkyard Nights: Haunting NorCal’s Automotive Graveyards

by Troy Paiva

Troy Paiva is a modern legend. For more than 30 years he’s been photographing all sorts of abandoned places in California, employing a style of light painting that he developed in 1989 using Vivitar flashes and colored gels. An entire generation of night photographers have been inspired by his work, initially on Flickr, his website LostAmerica.com, and later through his books. The two recently published volumes here represent books numbers 4 and 5.

Junkyard Nights is a nocturnal love letter to the ghosts of our automotive past. The images in this book were made by the light of the full moon in two old-school junkyards in California’s agricultural heartland. The accompanying text not only conveys the essence of these desolate industrial landscapes, but it also examines the place these mid-20th century cars hold in the context of 20th century design.

Night on Earth.jpg

Night Salvage: Haunting SoCal’s Automotive Graveyards

by Troy Paiva

Like Junkyard Nights, Night Salvage is a nocturnal love letter to automotive junkyards. The images in this volume represent three collections of junk cars lost in the deserts of Southern California. As usual, the images are accompanied by amusing anecdotes of Paiva’s nocturnal adventures, as well as by informed historical notes about the cars and the locations he photographs.

Let Paiva be your guide through these derelict graveyards filled with slowly decaying cars: a classic abandoned high desert junkyard, a TV and movie prop vehicle graveyard, and a little-known art project consisting of thousands of cars resting forgotten in a remote canyon.

Abandoned Louisiana.jpg

Abandoned Louisiana: Under a Bayou Moon

by Mike Cooper

Abandoned Louisiana: Under a Bayou Moon is a nocturnal photographic journey through the ruins of the Bayou State. Cooper proudly acknowledges the influence of Paiva on his work, and it is clearly derivative. That’s OK, as Cooper is a quick learner and has applied his skills and passion to document ruins—both obscure gems and public eyesores throughout the state.

More than 200 images reveal a side of Louisiana that is usually either overlooked or hidden from view. If you like images of light-painted abandoned sites, and have an interest in Bayou culture, then this book ought to be right up your alley.

Abandoned Southern California.jpg

Abandoned Southern California: The Slowing of Time

by Ken Lee

Ken Lee is a personal friend, and we’ve long admired each other’s work. It’s been a real pleasure to watch his photography evolve and to see his success over the last several years.

The quiet, empty places shown in Lee’s images tell stories of desert dreams fueled by gold, war, optimism and wealth, only to later be abandoned and left to slowly disintegrate. Abandoned Southern California: The Slowing of Time offers a different take on all kinds of lonely and abandoned places in the Southern California desert.

Ken’s second book, Abandoned Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: California Revealed, will be released later this year.

Night on Earth.jpg

Night on Earth: Photographs by Art Wolfe

by Art Wolfe (coming October 5, 2021)

As our friend astronomer Tyler Nordgren says, “Half the park is after dark.” He’s right, but the greater truth of the matter is that half the world is after dark, and much of what goes on in the dark is mostly unseen to the human eye. There is so much that happens while most people are sleeping, and this collection of photographs is a testament to what most of us will never see. Photographer Art Wolfe traveled to every continent to explore and document the nighttime world of animals, humans and nature.

Including twilight and low light images along with true night photos, Night on Earth’s subjects are as diverse as the hustle and bustle in Morocco’s nighttime markets, Balinese fire dancers, volcanic eruptions in Iceland, penguin colonies in pre-dawn Antarctica, star trails over the Australian Outback, and street scenes in Tokyo. Wolfe is one of the preeminent photographers of his generation, and this first collection of night images from him is sure to be a worthy addition to any photographer’s library.

How-To & Reference

Collier’s Guide to Night Photography in the Great Outdoors.jpg

Collier’s Guide to Night Photography in the Great Outdoors (second edition)

by Grant Collier

Grant Collier’s how-to night photography book is a good one. It slipped largely under the radar when the first edition was published in 2015. This second edition of Collier’s Guide to Night Photography has been revised and updated and includes 50 new images. The gear section and all weblinks have been updated, and all information on post-processing is up-to-date for use with Photoshop and Lightroom. There is also new information on Photoshop plug-ins and other software that is useful for night photography, and he covers all the bases of natural light night photography.

Night Sky Photography.jpg

Night Sky Photography: From First Principles to Professional Results

by Adam Woodworth

Rather than just covering the bases, Adam Woodworth has scored a home run with his first book: Night Sky Photography: From First Principles to Professional Results. Adam gave a great presentation on Milky Way panoramas at our Night Photo Summit in February, and I had just received my copy of his book the week before. I’m impressed, and will state unequivocally that this is one of the best and most up-to-date books on astro-landscape photography available.

In clear, concise language, Woodworth walks the reader through the steps to successful astro-landscape photography. Note that it’s not a complete guide to general night photography (it doesn’t cover urban night photography, and has limited information on light painting)—it’s strictly astro-landscape. He does cover stacking and tracking, with a great section on panoramas. Highly recommended.

2021 Night Sky Almanac.jpg

2021 Night Sky Almanac: A Month-by-Month Guide to North America’s Skies

by Nicole Mortillaro

The 2021 Night Sky Almanac is the ideal resource for both novice and experienced sky watchers in the United States and Canada, with all of the advice, information and data that enthusiasts need to understand and enjoy the wonders of the night sky.

This in-depth guide first introduces readers to the objects in the sky—from stars to comets to globular clusters—and then takes you through the cosmic events to look out for each month in 2021, with sky maps, moon phase charts and info about the planets.

The almanac is both a comprehensive introduction to astronomy and a quick reference book for more experienced sky watchers who don’t want to miss a thing. Its compact size means it’s perfect for taking on any night photography adventure.

Inspirational

The World at Night.jpg

The World at Night: Spectacular Photographs of the Night Sky

by Babak Tafreshi

Bringing together the images of over 40 photographers across 25 countries, The World at Night: Spectacular Photographs of the Night Sky is a collection of images curated by The World at Night founder Babak Tafreshi.

What makes this book unique is how the images are organized. The sections include: “One People, One Sky,” which attests to the unified nature of earth and mankind; “World Heritages,” which not surprisingly features night photographs of World Heritage Sites; “Events That Shook the World,” which is about celestial events such as comets, eclipses and unusual atmospheric phenomena; “The Fragile Beauty of Darkness,” which uses gorgeous images to show the importance of preserving dark skies; and “Dark Sky Refuges,” which showcases dark-sky parks and other astro-tourism destinations.

To Know a Starry Night.jpg

To Know a Starry Night

by Paul Bogard (coming October 12, 2021)

Paul Bogard gave an impassioned presentation based on his earlier book, The End of Night, at our Night Photo Summit. His newest book, scheduled for publication in October, combines his lyrical writing with the night-sky photography of Beau Rogers. To Know a Starry Night explores the powerful experience of being outside under a natural starry sky––how important it is to human life, and how so many people don’t know this experience. As the night sky increasingly becomes flooded with artificial-light pollution, this poignant work intends to help us reconnect with the natural darkness of night, an experience that now, in our time, is fading from our lives.

In Conclusion

Now that the seemingly interminable pandemic is winding down in some places, and summer has arrived here in the Northern Hemisphere, everyone is looking forward to spending more time outdoors photographing and less time behind a computer, but that doesn’t mean there’s no time for books in our lives!

Whether chillaxing by the pool, or waiting at the airport for a flight to your next night photo destination, any or all of these books will make great summer reading to inform, educate and inspire you to get back out there and to seize the night.

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.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

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!

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.

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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

The Next Steps: 10 More Books to Round Out your Night Photography Library

Last June I wrote a post titled “10 Essential Books for the Night Photographer’s Library,” in which I confessed my addiction to collecting photo books. Not surprisingly, the list was fairly predictable and included night photography’s greatest hits. That’s not to say I didn’t sneak in a curve ball or two––Bill Brandt’s scarce and expensive A Night In London comes to mind.

Of course, the night photography world contains more than just 10 important books, so this week I’m extending the list with 10 more. In keeping with the Apple Music theme, we’ll call this post “The Next Steps.” (Yes, there will be a “Deep Cuts” edition down the road.)

Several of these books are out of print, but most are easy enough to find on the used market, although some quite expensively, for sure. Some also can be had for just a few dollars, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth collecting. Like me, Gabe Biderman has an expansive collection of photography books, so I consulted with him when compiling this list. They are presented here in no particular order.

Day to Night, Stephen Wilkes

I have admired Stephen Wilkes’ work for a long time. The Griffin Museum of Photography near Boston exhibited his Ellis Island photographs as 40x50-inch Cibachrome prints in 2008 and left me breathless. I haven’t picked up my own copy of Day to Night yet, but have been admiring Wilkes’ growing body of work for several years. Each panoramic image is made up of many, many (up to 2,000) photographs shot over the course of 30 hours from a single stationary camera position. The images were made in both iconic urban environments and stunning natural landscapes, and tell a great story, or more often, many intertwined stories in a single image. The results are a unique and stunning way to record the passage of time––in essence, a 24-hour time lapse in a single frame.

 

The World at Night, Babak Tafreshi

Babak Tafreshi is an Iranian photographer and founder of the group The World at Night, a collaboration of photographers from 25 countries who are dedicated to capturing, preserving and sharing the night sky. Tafreshi has curated the images in The World at Night, which are divided into six groups:

  1. symbols of all nations and religions embraced by the sky

  2. UNESCO World Heritage Sites at night

  3. the universe revealed through constellations, auroras and other wonders

  4. images highlighting the beauty of dark skies away from light-polluted areas

  5. celestial events, from comets to eclipses

  6. astro-tourism destinations, such as ancient astronomical monuments and modern observatories

It’s an interesting book, full of powerful images. For an anthology representing 34 photographers from around the world it’s disappointing that there are no women included, and that the photo credits are in the back of the book rather than with the images. (Yes, I realize that there is only one book by a woman on this list. There are many contemporary women night photographers, but relatively few published ones.)

 

Celestial Nights: Visions of an Ancient Land, Neil Folberg

Neil Folberg is the son of legendary San Francisco gallerist Joe Folberg, and when Joe died, Neil took over the gallery and moved it to Jerusalem. The images in Celestial Nights were made primarily in the Sinai desert in Israel, Egypt and Jordan. First published by Aperture in 2001, and again by Abbeville in 2008, both editions are beautiful reproductions of Folberg’s unique night photographs, which were made between 1997 and 2000. Many of the images are composites of infrared landscape images combined with sky images made with a tracking device—which is the only way to photograph star points on film.

There is a transient and mystical quality to these photographs. They are realistic and believable, yet otherworldly. They are remarkably successful, and doubly so for being film-based composites. This one is a must-have.

 

Nightwatch: Painting with Light, Noel Kerns

This dense collection of work from locations across the United States covers a lot of ground with light-painted scenes that are reminiscent of but distinctly different than Troy Paiva’s Lost America style. Nightwatch is a compendium of 254 pages of night photography and light painting that encompasses subjects ranging from abandoned gas stations, motels, decommissioned military bases and decaying industrial complexes, to forgotten farmhouses and ghost towns. Noel Kerns’ work is presented with supporting commentary on the locations. It’s very reasonably priced, especially for a book of this quality and size.

 

Lost America: The Abandoned Roadside West, Troy Paiva

Hopefully you caught Troy Paiva’s recent presentation at our Night Photo Summit last month. His images, collected over 30 years—presented with experiences and anecdotes from when they were created—made for an entertaining and informative hour. Think of his first book as a denser version of the first half of that career, on paper instead of on Zoom. Yes, you need to pick up a copy of Lost America, the seminal work from the guy who defined (if not invented) the genre of light-painted abandonments. There are four other collection-worth volumes of Paiva’s work in print, including the most recent titles Boneyard, Junkyard Nights and Night Salvage.

 

Night/Shift, Lynn Saville

Lynn Saville has published three books of night(ish) photographs, beginning with Acquainted with the Night in 1997, followed by Night/Shift in 2009, then Dark City in 2015. The first book contains gritty, grainy, 35mm black and white images interspersed with selected poems. (The book title is from a Robert Frost work.) I’ve just ordered Dark City recently, but it appears to be a continuation of the twilight color work of the New York images in Night/Shift. It’s remarkable how Saville can find such quiet scenes in places as busy and bustling as Manhattan. Her work reminds me of a looser version of Jan Staller’s gorgeous book Frontier New York from 1988. In Arthur C. Danto’s introduction, he writes that Saville’s images remind him of Atget’s Paris: “She is his New York counterpart, the Atget of vanishing New York, prowling her city at the other end of the day, picking up pieces of the past in the present, just before it is swallowed by shadows.” High praise indeed.

 

Theaters, Hiroshi Sugimoto

For almost four decades Hiroshi Sugimoto has been photographing the interiors of theaters using a large-format camera and no lighting other than the projection of the running movie. He opens the aperture when a film begins and closes it when it ends. In the resulting images, the screen becomes a reflector that subtly brings forward the rich architectural details of these spaces. Sugimoto’s minimalist black and white images draw you in to a quiet world of contemplation, be it his famous seascapes or these theater interiors that include the classic American movie palaces of the 1920s and 30s, historic theaters in Europe or disused theaters that show the ravages of time. (Tip: Theaters is quite expensive, but the French-language version can be acquired for one-third the price. It’s all about the images anyway.)

 

Mont St Michel, Michael Kenna

Michael Kenna has said that he doesn’t think of himself as a night photographer, and doesn’t distinguish between daytime or nighttime image-making. Like his countryman Brandt, whose work inspired Kenna early on, Kenna’s daytime images sometimes look like night, and vice versa. No matter, his photographs are always stunning. He has published more than 30 monographs in about as many years; very few photographers have consistently produced such compelling work. Once you have acquired Night Walk and Night Work, the two books mentioned in the previous post, Mont St Michel (or the equally great titles Ratcliffe Power Station, Rouge and Venezia) should be next on your list. They all contain a significant portion of night images, and are still affordable, unlike some of Kenna’s harder to come by books.

 

Secret City, Jason Langer

Jason Langer worked as Michael Kenna’s assistant from 1989 to ’95, but has very much set his own course since setting out on his own. He’s published three books of his work, with Secret City being the first, as well as my favorite. Many of his images include people, something you’ll never see in a Kenna photograph! Those photos aren’t portraits, at least not in the traditional sense. His noirish images tell anonymous stories that convey universal experiences, usually on the darker side of the emotional scale. You might describe Langer’s work as haunted, or more likely haunting––a fleeting moment that could easily be missed or overlooked, but when captured by Langer’s camera, cannot be ignored. Think Edward Hopper meets Brassai and you might just conjure up something close to a Langer photograph.

 

The End of Night, Paul Bogard

Paul Bogard gave a passionate presentation based on The End of Night at the Night Photo Summit, and it made me want to go back and reread this delightful book. A warning in many ways, it foretells of the consequences of the loss of dark skies to light pollution, and how that is affecting all life on the planet. At the same time, it’s a love story to nature, to the Earth and to the night itself. The End of Night is not a photo book, but anyone and everyone who cares about the night should read it.

Buying Books

Where can you find these titles? Aside from Amazon and eBay (the latter tends to be overpriced for books), look at AbeBooks, a used-bookseller marketplace, especially for rare and out of print titles. PhotoEye in Santa Fe is another great resource; if you find yourself in New Mexico, it should be a bucket-list stop.

I have to warn you though, photography books are addictive. I bought three more books just doing research for this article. Writing this took me several times longer than it should have because I kept getting sucked down the rabbit hole of checking out other books and adding them to my wish list.

Note: You can see these books and many more our Bookshelf page, where you can peruse volumes that the five of us love and recommend. You can also use the links above to learn more and/or to purchase them. Many are affiliate links that reward National Parks at Night with a small commission when you use them, which helps maintain this website and enables us to provide quality content at no cost to you.

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.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT