nightphotography Archives - Page 5 of 14

November 6, 2018November 6, 2018

Evening in the Park

The other night we hung out in a tree-lined park with outdoor cafes and listened to live music by candlelight. And to top it off, we were a thousand miles from land.

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Evening in the Park — The scene at night in the Central Park neighborhood on board Symphony of the Seas

The Symphony of the Seas has six neighborhoods, and Central Park is my favorite. There are upscale restaurants with outdoor seating. At one end is Vintages, a wine bar where somehow, I end up at least once a day. In the afternoon, there might be one or two patrons, and you can sit at an outdoor table, and watch folks stroll by.

more night photography from the gallery

There are way too many choices; neighborhoods, restaurants, nightclubs, sports, shopping, and bars. Speaking of which; there are at least sixteen different bars, and I had a plan to try each one. I’m only halfway through, and it’s not looking like I’ll hit the goal. But rest assured, it’s not for lack of trying.

September 6, 2018September 6, 2018

Midnight Road Trip

A few years ago I took an all-night drive down the Pacific Coast Highway. The only rule was that I had to be back at the San Jose airport by eight in the morning. So I gassed up the rental, picked up a couple of Red Bulls, and started driving.

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By day, it’s one of the most scenic highways. By night, it feels like another world. Once you get below Carmel, there is no light pollution, and the stars are big and bright. As it happened, the moon illuminated the road, and my eyes got used to it, was more comfortable than daytime driving. I would stop at pullouts overlooking the coast and take long exposure images like this one at ten seconds.

more long exposures from the gallery

Also, the lighthouses are fun to look at as they cast their rotating beams in the fog and low clouds. The one in the distance is Point Sur Lightstation. I made it down to San Simeon and turned the car around. It was a long drive back, but the sense of adventure (and Red Bull) kept me going. I made it back in time to grab my bags from the hotel and catch my flight home. And lucky for me, it was the pilot’s turn to drive, so I slept all the way back to Florida.

August 13, 2018August 13, 2018

Time Travel

To be honest, I don’t remember taking this photo. No matter how many images I make, I usually remember each one. Pictures to me are memory boosters, I only have to look, and I’m transported back in time: I’ll have a recollection, however vague, of that moment. But for whatever reason, this one escapes me.

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Time Travel — A picture I took down a random street in Barcelona’s gothic quarter

I was shooting with a wide open aperture and high ISO so that I could snap photos as I saw them. I was a little like a snap-happy tourist. I’ll call it street photography but, I was having fun, so maybe a bit of each.

see the European gallery

Barcelona is one of those places where the architecture steals the show. The architecture is old, and it belies the fantastic amount of history in these walls. To me the street lamps have an 18th century feel to them, and perhaps some of them are that old. When they finally invent the time machine, I’ll be coming back here to take a few more photos to see if it looks the same. Hopefully, I won’t change history while I’m at it.

July 16, 2018July 16, 2018

Ruby Falls

The last stop of our road trip was Chatanooga Tennessee. We passed it on the way up and made a note to stop here at Ruby Falls on the way back.

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This 145-foot waterfall is inside a mountain and over 1000 feet below the surface. The caverns are limestone eroded by the water over millions of years. There is some info on the geology at Wikipedia.

the gallery

To get here, you take an elevator down into the mountain and walk half a mile through narrow caverns. If you’re not used to tight spaces, it can be a little claustrophobic, the thought of millions of tonnes of earth and rock above your head is unsettling. But our guide was kind enough to point out that in the event of a cave-in they had insurance and, we would all be covered.

May 30, 2018

View From Cambie Street Bridge

The geodesic dome on the right is the Telus World of Science. I took this photo while standing on the Cambie Street Bridge in Vancouver. I’ve made different shots over the years, here is one from roughly the same angle and here is another.

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View From Cambie Street Bridge — A view of the Telus Science World at the end of False Creek in Vancouver

To Vancouverites, this is a typical scene; in fact, the sight is just part of the scenery. That’s true of anything we see day-in-day-out. But when I come back after being away, walking across the bridge at night is one of my favorite past times.

In fact, you can walk all over Vancouver; you don’t need a car. I rarely rent one when I’m here unless I’m traveling outside the city. Mostly I take the Skytrain which you can see in this picture.

Dancing Dining Cocktails

A while back I met a friend for dinner here at Citywalk in Orlando. It was on a Monday and one of the slowest days of the year. The ordinarily crowded scene was utterly empty. It’s not often you get that here.

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Dancing Dining Cocktails — Citywalk in Orlando’s Universal Studios theme park

I didn’t go to take pictures, but I brought my camera anyway. I captured this as I was heading back to the car. It was a one picture trip.

more night photos from the gallery

I’m attracted to the neon signs because it reminds of the work of Thomas Hawk, he has an extensive collection of neon signs on Flickr. However, this being Universal Studios it is a little more contrived. Tom’s work is authentic Americana along the highways and thoroughfares of the country. In any case, if it wasn’t for his work, I might not have thought to take this. The influence I get from photographers like Thomas Hawk is essential to me.

May 18, 2018

Round of Applause

I cannot help that I love to take pictures at the beach. Living where I do it’s unavoidable. As problems go, it’s not a bad one to have. In this image, I’ve lingered after the sunset when the clouds were just right. This specific time is my favorite because the light is somewhat rare. The color creates a glow that beckons to something beyond.

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On this evening, after the sun had set, a group of a dozen people sitting together gave a round of applause. That’s not as uncommon as you may think. It seems odd, but after you’ve seen it enough times, it’s not.

other beach images from the gallery

People begin walking home, and I like to capture them walking along the shoreline. While the colors and scenery are beautiful, I believe that adding people helps us project ourselves into the scene. I can easily imagine walking along the shore at dusk or just sitting there looking out to sea. And if you see me clapping, maybe you’ll understand why.

March 28, 2018

Stars Above Terra Ceia

This is a minimalist view of Terra Ceia Bay which is a short distance from my home in Palmetto. There was no breeze, so the water was like glass. I made several stops and each picture I took featured reflections in the water.

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Stars Above Terra Ceia — The view of Terra Ceia Bay on a calm morning

Yesterday I mentioned the topic of light pollution and if you’re interested I found a link to an online map. This shows the levels of artificial light on the ground at places all over the earth. Even though this image of Terra Ceia was taken about an hour before dawn, the band of light on the horizon is the tell-tale sign of a city. Sadly, it seems there are not many dark skies on the eastern half of the North American continent, at least not where I live in the United States.

more night photos
Nonetheless, we still have stars and every evening when I walk my dog I look up at them. I think that in decades to come space travel will become common, and we’ll have the luxury of seeing the stars unobstructed by atmosphere. Until that time, at least now I have a map to find the darkest skies.

March 27, 2018

Impossible View

This view of Vancouver is from the convention center. The photo is a composite with the stars added to the sky for effect. I’ve taken this same shot a number of times, so I decided to get a little creative. This view is not possible in the real world.

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Impossible View — An imagined view of Vancouver with bright stars.

Photos of stars get overpowered by light pollution from cities. Even though I don’t live in a large city, I run into the same problem back home. Almost everywhere people live, light from the ground interferes with starlight. Fortunately, with image processing tools we can clean up most of it. But there’s no substitute for going somewhere remote and seeing bright stars at night.

more Vancouver photos

Most of the pictures that the astronauts take from the ISS are pointed back at Earth. Personally, I wonder what it is like looking in the other direction. My guess/hope is that there are more stars than can be seen on earth and that the galactic core of the Milky Way is easily visible. I guess the only way to know for sure is to ask an astronaut or, book a flight and see for myself. I’m adding that to the list now.

March 16, 2018

Lands End Lookout

This is from a section of the trail known as Lands End Lookout. As the name implies, it’s on the coast and above the ocean at the entrance to San Francisco Bay. I had a wonderful time here one afternoon and evening and took pictures until long after sunset.

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For my money, golden hour is the best time to be here but any time of day is good. From this point, you can look down and see whales going by and large ships coming in and out of the bay. Maybe you can see little red and green dots on the ocean, those are navigation buoys marking the entrance to the bay.