Night time photography comes with it’s own particular set of challenges, not least being out long after dark and being alert to all the perceived ‘life’ that carries on unseen on the edges of this realm. I love it and once I settle in don’t want to leave. Often I don’t, choosing to bed down on the grass for the night after my camera has caught enough light to form an image.
The set up is always quite tentative. Predicting how the land will lie once darkness has fully arrived at takes time and you only get one chance as recomposing in the blackness is not possible. Neither is refocusing! I find the secret is to get all set and then just crack open the flask and grab a few comparative exposures as I await full dark.
On the run up to the big moment I usually grab a few shots to set the scene. But then it’s just a matter of waiting for the right time to release the shutter and sitting there for the hour or so.
The final image of this set, the big square landscape took forty minutes to expose at 800iso. If you look very carefully you’ll see a trail of lights that pass over the Cumbrian mountains on the right. Odd, because I never heard a thing!
