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Health & Fitness

Homebody: A Photoblog of Kings Park (And Close By). #7: Gimme the Night

     Night time is the right time to get outstanding images.  Who needs a whole bunch of light anyway? 

     Actually, there is quite a bit of light available to make images at night.  The stars and moon serve as natural light sources.  If you leave the shutter open long enough you can create an image that, at first glance, looks like it was made at 12 noon.  Except that there’s just something a little eerie about the picture, something a little off.  If you’ve ever seen any of these strangely beautiful photographs you will understand.  And then of course there are the artificial light sources that abound in a developed area.  In fact, around here it can be difficult to find an area dark enough to make a really long exposure.

     There’s something primal about making pictures at night.  Shortly after sunset, as we enter the blue hour, our miraculous stereo color vision starts to fail.  Everything becomes black and white and gray and real close too.  The world now belongs to the nocturnal creatures who navigate and hunt with enhanced night vision and sense of smell.  Face it:  Deep down you know the night is a little scary; we should be huddled in our caves.  After all, we invented fire, the electric light bulb, and night vision devices to deal with it.  And when I make pictures at night I bring along a flashlight so I can see where I’m going and what I’m doing.  Did that rock just move?!

     I have to confess that it was difficult to choose an image for this blog post.  I love all my night photographs.  I chose this one, Night Moon, because it was based on an early photograph I saw in a photo history book.   That photo, one of the first night landscapes, was a moonrise over a lake through a grove of trees.  It is incredible that such a photograph was taken with the equipment and processes in use 160 years ago.  It’s also a better shot than mine to boot!  The settings for my photo were 24 seconds at f/11, ISO 100.  Taken from the safety of the front porch of my cave....uh...house.

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     Kings Park Photo Club:  Next meeting is Thursday, June 20, 2013, 7 PM at the Kings Park Library.  Congratulations to photo club member Dick Chen.  Dick has travelled the world on business and made some outstanding photographs which are now on display at the Library for the next few weeks.  Don’t wait for the photo club meeting to check out his work, see it now.

     Photo Tip:  “It Worked For Me:”  Another essential extra piece of gear for the photographer is a spare battery (or two).  Keeping the shutter open for long exposures at night uses a lot of juice.  There’s nothing worse that running out of battery power in the middle of a shoot (night or day).

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     Thanks for reading.  If you have any suggestions for discussion topics, please post them in the comments.


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