Exploring Night Photography

Melody Hendrix

A Time to Live

Successful and rewarding photography is a lifetime of  learning as with any hobbies or career. With every new morsel of enlightenment comes excitement in taking that knowledge and being creative with it. Once you learn a new technique, you can’t wait to put it in motion.

One weekend my dear friend Pat and I stayed a few days in near St Augustine right on the beach. It was a quiet beach with a pier in the distance not too far away. As photographers, Pat and I are used to getting up hours before sunrise. We love to capture beautiful Florida sunrises. On our first morning, we woke up about 4 am. Pat tells me she has been taking classes on low light and night photography.  She encouraged me to walk down to the beach to practice what she has learned. I thought it was a little eerie, but agreed. When we walk out the back door of the hotel, it was pitch black. There were no lights at all on the beach and we needed a flash light to find our way down to the water. At this point I thought my dear friend had lost her mind. She thinks we are going to take pictures in the dark, where there is no light at all. 

There was a little light coming from the pier in the distance and twilight was about an hour away. In-spite of my hesitation, she was excited about this venture and encouraged me to follow her lead. So I did.

We walked to the waters edge, and put our cameras on our tripods. She explained the camera settings to me and I complied. We must set up our cameras to take a very long exposure. This means that unlike our eyes that see light, the camera collects light. So once the shutter button is pressed, the camera keeps collecting the ambient light until there is enough to make an image. 

So I pointed my camera towards the pier, made sure my tripod was firmly pressed in the sand and I pushed the shutter button. I heard it open the shutter, then I waited……. and waited….. and waited. I thought something was wrong, nothing was happening. Then at last, I heard the click of the shutter closing. Then I waited and waited for the image to come up on the lcd screen. 

Finally the image appeared and I couldn’t believe my eyes. This is the picture I saw. Not only did the scene appear, the color of the twilight was beyond my expectations. The cobalt blue of twilight is the most beautiful color. You can slightly see it with your eyes, but when the camera collects it, it is deep and intense. This is one of my favorite pictures, and one of my favorite photography experiences.   

Welcome! I’m so glad you stopped in to visit. I am retired and enjoying life. My hobbies are my 5 grandchildren, son and daughter, and my loving husband. I am a photographer and extreme nature lover. I love spending time in my garden or in the wilderness connected to God my Creator.

Tags: Night Photography, Photoblogger, Photography