NIGHT LIGHTS

For the best night-time urban landscape shots, capture twilight images and balance challenging colour, detail and exposure effects in post-processing

- Peter Fenech

It is hardly surprising that cities are popular subjects for photography. Many of us live in or close to metropolitan areas, meaning that we spend a large portion of our lives surrounded by buildings, street lights and vehicles. It is a surprise, therefore, when we discover just how complex the urban environment is when capturing accurate colour and exposures, leading to many disappointing shots.

One missing element in many images is active sky colour. Most pro urban night shots aren't, in fact, shot at night at all, instead, they are created during the golden or blue hours. At these times, it's possible to create a feeling of darkness while minimising areas of empty black sky at the top of the image frame. Capturing accurate exposures of subjects illuminated from within and controlling the white balance of natural and artificial light, represents the need for careful use of metering and being a deft hand at targetted post-processing.

Add to this the need to shoot handheld in places where tripods are impractical and, even for an experienced photographer, it can be challenging to produce consistency in our night cityscapes. So, let's look at how we can best manage extreme contrast of colour and tone while battling blustery conditions after a rain shower on an evening shoot in the big city.

Shooting steps

1 Secure the camera Shooting from a busy walkway on the famous London landmark of Tower Bridge made using a tripod impossible, so we set the camera up on a monopod, which offered a balance of steadiness and safety in blustery conditions. Secure any loose camera straps to reduce the possibility of vibrations.