A man got out of the car, clambered over the fence and walked slowly towards me, shining a torch in my face. I could have retaliated with my Lenser T7 but chose not to because he’d have been blinded for a week. Bear in mind this is after 8pm on a November night and despite the full moon, it’s too dark for either of us to make out what the other is doing, or about to do.
I’ve been trying to get a decent night shot of this place for the past 2 years. 2011 has been a poor year in terms of clear skies coinciding with the full moon, therefore severely limiting photo opportunities for the aspiring night photographer. This month came up trumps and the night of November 10th and into the early hours of November 11th saw a super bright full moon accompanied by almost cloudless skies.
BALALLAN POST OFFICE Back in August of this year I received an order for a print of my Balallan Post Office photo from Kate Morgan, all the way from Australia. Kate mentioned the post office had previously belonged to her great aunt and uncle, Joan and Angus. A few days ago I received a follow up email from Kate informing me the print had arrived safely. She also included this great photo taken outside the very same building. I love […]
THE ITALIAN JOB Earlier this year I was asked to do a moonlit photo session featuring John Neil Mitchell’s championship winning quadcross bike. John recently won the UK title for the third time (more info here). This month (October) was the first opportunity to get the job done – in part due to poor weather in previous months during the full moon period and also timing the shoot to coincide with both us being available. A few days prior to […]
US PHOTOGRAPHER LANCE KEIMIG VISITS HARRIS Back home after an afternoon trekking around the south west corner of Harris with Massachusetts based night photographer, Lance Keimig. Lance is conducting one of his annual tours of the Scottish islands. Since 2004 he’s been alternating visits between Orkney and the Western Isles. This year it’s the turn of Lewis and Harris. I first came into contact with Lance after seeing his amazing night photo of Calainis, taken during his tour of the […]
The best tool I’ve found so far for lighting my night photographs (apart from the moon!) is the Lenser T7 LED torch (note: torch = flash-light in the US). For it’s size, the T7 is an incredibly powerful torch. I’m sure there are others capable of getting the job done but having used the T7 for more than a year, I see no need to go in search of anything else. It operates off 4 x triple A batteries and […]
Anatomy of an Exhibition Poster How two classic mid 1970s punk albums, a raven’s skull and the lighting techniques of Phoenix based photographer Joel Grimes provided the inspiration for an exhibition poster… Back in February, An Lanntair, the Western Isles’ premier art gallery hosted an exhibition centred around my involvement with high performance aircooled Volkswagen engines, entitled: ‘Muscle: Anatomy of a Racing Engine‘. The plan, according to exhibition director Roddy Murray, was to attract a new group of people into […]
CUISHADER SHIELINGS, ISLE OF LEWIS I was hoping for a break in the weather during last month’s full moon (Feb 2011), so I could travel north to Ness again following the previous month’s visit. The plan was to find the shielings at Cuishader. I’d seen several daytime shots of these great little buildings and was keen to give them my night photo treatment. Thursday 17th, the night before the full moon looked the safest bet for the week. The forecast […]
Before venturing out on a long night shoot session, three items I find indispensable… tripod battery grip shutter release cable On my first night shoot, I tried getting by without two of the above but very quickly decided I needed all three before my next attempt. 1. Tripod I already had a budget tripod purchased from Jessops many years earlier. It worked OK for fast exposure snapshot type pics but for long exposures it wasn’t sturdy enough. I needed something […]
Two words: “Go Wide!” No, make that three words: “Go Ultra Wide!” For outdoor night photography, a wide angle lens is my first choice. A wide lens gets more stuff into the picture. You can get up close to your subject and still capture an expansive background, whether it be the sky, trees, hills, whatever. As in this shot: Like most of my night photos as of December 2010, I used a Canon 10-22mm lens set to 10mm. You’ll notice […]