Tips & Tricks

The Pleasures of Red

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Red is a wonderful colour. For the Chinese it’s the colour of good luck and for others it’s the colour of passion. Too much of it is said to cause people to become agitated and lose their temper; too little leads to lethargy, caution and lack of vitality.

Street photographers in search of red usually have to rely on finding someone wearing a red dress or standing against a red background. It’s rare to find an entire collection of subjects and settings composed primarily of red or even vaguely reddish colours. In fact, at the risk of being overly cautious the street photographer may choose to avoid red altogether. It’s not the easiest colour to incorporate into a picture.

Personally, I love red — and orange and yellow — and I find them uplifting in comparison to the pervasive greys and browns of the typical city street. Any image composed primarily in red will be eye-catching. If you can offset this intense colour with some deep black, so much the better. You may have to wait for Chinese New Year before this combination comes along, but the wait will be worthwhile.

My featured image (above) was taken during Chinese New Year when workers were bringing extra lanterns for a street festival in Phuket Town. It was the Year of the Snake — or “little dragon” — so the twisting cables of the crane on the truck are significant. It’s best to represent the snake symbolically as it doesn’t like people seeing its body — or so the Chinese believe.

As you can see, the photo is not exclusively a composition in red. It contains orange (the side of the truck) and yellow (the worker’s tee-shirt and the lanterns’ tassles and inscriptions). There’s hardly any green or blue in the image. Do we miss them? Not really, although the picture may seem unusual because of its restricted palette.

Fortunately, anything unusual tends to go down well in street photography. Street scenes are all too familiar to most people, so you have to find ways of showing them in a new light. Hence, “unusual” equates to “good” in the street photographer’s lexicon.

When a Red Scene is Ready Made
The best source of red is undoubtedly red paint. It’s not always welcome, especially in the more conservative parts of London. There was, for example, the notorious case of the woman who painted her house in vertical, candy-coloured red and white stripes, taking revenge on her neighbours who’d prevented her from demolishing the house and adding an underground swimming pool to its replacement.

Red is often seen to be too “forward,” too provocative — as though it were being worn by a particularly aggressive Parisienne prostitute. That seemed to be the case in Kensington, where the adjoining houses now look unusually drab in the dull light of a typical London day. Nobody of class wants to look like a prostitute (or live next to one) but neither does anyone wish to seem dull and uninteresting. Neighbours! Don’t you just love them?

Red is not inappropriate on the facade of a public house (a London “pub”). Here it is (below) on The Coach and Horses in Soho. The paintwork is imaginative and bold, with white highlights and black window frames to alleviate the pervasive red — which seems to step forward towards us.

For the photo, all I needed was a man using a red phone (he was already in position when I walked past). This time there’s no yellow or orange, although the red itself has an orange tendency. The only jarring note is the blue bin on the right, but even that is counterbalanced by the vertical blue strip on the left.

Incidentally, this is the pub made famous by the patronage of the late Jeffrey Bernard — immortalised in the play “Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell” in which Peter O’Toole returned to the London stage to take the part of the hard drinking journalist beset by various ailments.

The lone, male figure in my photo may trigger some people’s memories of the journalist, the play, the actor, and the legendary performances that followed.

When Red is Over the Top
The residents of London can breathe a sigh of relief that no artist has painted a mural as overwhelmingly red as the one (below) in Bangkok. This work, by the Japanese artist Motomichi Nakamura, is one of the most startling — and gigantic — murals I’ve ever seen.

Of course, the mural doesn’t lend itself to street photography, because what else can you do except reproduce it? Any live action in the street will always be completely smothered by the tormented expressions of the red creatures on the wall. Here I’ve done my best, cutting off most of the mural while capturing a glimpse of the street alongside it.

In a curious way, the photograph works because the hugh graffiti-like mural — for all its jumble of alien forms — is actually better organised than anything on the street. The real world seems to be a mess compared to the jolly gathering of ghostly life-forms with their impassive stares and rictus grins.

Motomichi is a philosopher and scientist when he speaks of the colour red. As he says on his website: “(It) increases the pulse and heart rate, and raises your blood pressure. Red also has the smallest refractive index and visually it appears closer than reality.” By using it together with black and white, he makes his creatures — what he calls his “cryptozoological monsters” — look larger than life.

The Tendencies of Red
As pure colour, without being darkened by black or lightened by white, red can tend either towards yellow or blue. Red with a yellow tendency can be called “tomato red” (Coach and Horses) while red with a blue tendency is a kind of “berry red” (Motomichi).

It good to be aware that red has as much variety as any other colour, not only in appearance but also in meaning. Stock market prices are dropping if they’re shown in red in New York or London — but red figures in East Asia denote a rise in value.

Whether it means plus or minus, “passion” or “danger,” red in the street photo is impossible to miss. I never leave home without it.

Finding Great Compositions in Unpromising Subjects

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If you were to ask me what I like most about street photography I’d have say it’s this: looking at an unpromising scene then somehow finding a composition that pleases me.

The sensation gives me a real buzz. It’s like winning a bet on the horses. You’re hoping your horse will come in, but you don’t really expect it. When your horse actually wins you feel you’ve cheated the odds, because the odds are nearly always against you.

For the street photographer, an unexpected winnings in an unpromising situation is “something for nothing.” It’s catching a bird with your empty hand. It’s manna from heaven.

On a Quiet Day
Recently I was taking shots in London’s Camden Market on a morning when most of the day’s visitors had still not arrived. It was early in the tourist season. Only a few people were walking around the food stalls which were just beginning to get ready for lunch.

I didn’t expect to find a single composition in the lunch area and was thinking of moving elsewhere. At that point, several things came together at once. Three chefs in a shabby kitchen started rummaging around in an interesting manner. A girl wearing a lovely stripey jumper walked into the scene, then a man paused in front of me holding a blue coat (see the featured image at the top).

With luck or judgement (I don’t know which) I managed to get each of the foreground figures so their profiles appear clearly against the background. Given the jumble and complexity of the background this was a definite bonus. If the man had moved a few inches forward the shot would have been ruined.

Getting Technical
Fortunately I was fully prepared for this kind of shot, although I didn’t expect to get it. With the camera in Aperture Priority mode I’d stopped down my 40mm lens from f/2.8 to f/5.6, giving 1/1000th sec. in the bright sunlight. I usually “expose to the right” (i.e., ensure that the shadows get enough exposure) but the mixture of white shirts and black stalls made me avoid setting any exposure bias.

Now, you may or may not think this is a good shot. It depends on how you look at it. All I can say is: it’s the sort of shot I really like — whether taken by me or someone else. There are plenty of diagonals in it to give a sense of dynamic movement. By contrast there are static items piled up in makeshift fashion behind the stall.

However, it’s not just the many diagonal lines that lead the eye to the centre of the photo, there’s also the gaze of the two visitors. These two potential customers don’t seem to know what to make of it all. The stall may be a bit too exotic for them — like the hot-air balloon tattoo on the back of the chef’s leg. You, the viewer of the photo, are invited to see the stall through the eyes of these two people with their respective — and clearly different — reactions of amusement and cool evaluation.

Forcing the Composition to Work
Later in the day I’d moved back to Covent Garden which was intensely crowded on a Friday afternoon. After taking shots of multiple people I began to look for isolated figures, just for a change of tempo.

Two men sprawled in awkward positions on the pavement beneath a colonnade do not make a promising subject, especially when their heads are bent down over their mobile phones. My first thought was to walk past and find a different subject. I prefer the challenge of photographing people who are moving around rather than lying down in “sitting duck” mode.

Then it occurred to me: why not give equal emphasis to the column and the cobbled street? By the simple expedient of squatting down, unnoticed, in front of the two men, I took the shot you see below.

I don’t really like to force a composition to work, but in this case I think it’s successful. The two working men are resting during their lunch break. Their extremely casual positions are in sharp contrast to the formality of their surroundings. Gravity seems to be pulling them towards the ground, almost matching pound-for-pound the weight of the stones and the column. Behind them are feminine fripperies in the shop windows (including the season’s “must have” handbags) so different from the building and the sort of men who built it.

Find One Subject, Wait for Another

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All experienced street photographers know about the technique of finding a good, well-lit background, then waiting for a passer-by to walk in front of it. The result can be a great, original shot — or a terrible cliché, depending on the background and the passing subject.

You can take this technique further by finding a subject — one that may well, on its own, satisfy the average travel photographer — and try to complete the picture by waiting for another subject to move into frame.

I say “complete the picture” because, so often, a subject on its own does not constitute an effective street photo. Take my featured image (above), for example. I came across this woman selling rabbits in Bangkok. She’s a one-girl pet shop, sitting on the pavement with a stock of baby rabbits in small cages. I looked at her and wondered whether or not to take a photo.

You Need More than Rabbits
To be frank, I was reluctant to bother with it. I’d taken shots previously — I guess everyone has — of street sellers, street performers, street artists — and not one of them satisfies me as a genuine street photo. I remembered a Chinese man selling orangeade who smiled sweetly at the camera, another guy making insect sculptures out of straw, a woman making garlands. When I was a travel photographer looking for “local colour” they all seemed to be great subjects, but no longer. Now I need more than rabbits to make my day.

I had to admit, the old lady made a colourful image, so I thought I’d wait for a pretty girl to walk past. Freezing the action would also add some life to an otherwise static image. In the event I was fortunate to have the photo completed by a girl whose youth and femininity make her seem as vulnerable as the patient rabbits in their cages, if a whole lot freer.

For this technique to work effectively you need to find a subject that’s reasonably static and likely to be joined by another, possibly unrelated subject, in the immediate future. In the example of the rabbits I knew there was a busy clothes market just a few yards behind me, so there was a good chance of a pretty girl walking past. I needed to linger only a minute or so before getting the shot.

Early Beginnings
I started using the “find one subject, wait for another” technique a few years ago, building on “find a background, wait for a passer-by” which I learned from photographer and fellow student Paddy Summerfield at art school but had never put into practice until taking up digital photography. Here’s the image for which I first used it.

There’s busy road outside Bangkok’s Pantip Plaza, a shopping mall dedicated to selling computers where you could buy a hacked copy of Photoshop for less than ten dollars (no, Adobe, I didn’t!). On emerging from this place I blinked in the sun and noticed the curiously carved hedge, one of the better examples of topiary adorning the main thoroughfares. A motorcycle drew up alongside it. I almost had everything I needed for a picture, except for the blank space on the left.

On this occasion I waited for two or three minutes. Traffic lights can be slow to change in Bangkok, which I find very frustrating if I’m in a car, but this time it worked to my advantage. Eventually, two young woman walked past and I managed to freeze the action at the right moment.

I’ve always had some affection for this image, not just because it was my first experiment with a new technique, but because of the curiously human appearance of the hedge. Thailand’s state symbol is the “Garuda” (or “Krut” in Thai) a mythical half-man/half-bird from Hindu mythology, supposedly the winged mount of Vishnu. In Thailand you can see depictions of the Garuda everywhere, but few as startlingly humanoid as this one. I think the gardeners were trying to encourage the growth of a beak, but without much luck.

Worst Case Scenario
What happens when no one comes along to complete the picture? That’s a good question, if a little pessimistic. Nearly always, someone does indeed move into the frame, into the precise place where you hoped they’d go. The trouble is: nine times out of ten it’s the wrong person.

In street photography you need to be able to deploy an entire armoury of weapons at the same time. If one technique doesn’t work, perhaps another one will.

Take heart from the legend of the Garuda who, while on a quest to free his mother from servitude, received the gift of immortality from Vishnu. The Garuda’s magical descendants are able to change their form, build cities, and even have romances with human women if they so desire.

Magic is only ever half a step away and you can sometimes feel its presence on the street.

Can You Reduce Street Photography to a Few Rules of Thumb?

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Everybody loves a “rule of thumb” that turns a difficult task into an easy one. There are lots of rules of thumb in photography, some good, most of them awful.

An example of a good rule of thumb is the old “Sunny f/16” rule. While it’s rarely used today, on account of in-camera metering, it was very helpful to film photographers who’d forgotten to bring a light meter. To know that you needed to set your camera to f/16 on a sunny day with a shutter speed of 1/ISO (eg. 1/100 second at ISO 100; 1/200 second at ISO 200) was a life-saver, especially as you couldn’t check the result on a digital screen. Even then, it only worked for frontlit subjects.

If a rule of thumb can encapsulate a piece of good advice in such a way that we can easily recall it when we need it: that’s fine. The trouble with rules of thumb — and with all rules in general — is that there are lots of provisos and exceptions which reduce their value. The old maxim: “Learn the rules before you break them” is itself a contentious rule of thumb and certainly one which should not be applied universally.

Here are my 10 Rules of Thumb for Street Photography

1. Shoot in good light
2. Go where the people are
3. Be patient
4. Use multiple strategies
5. Avoid zooming
6. Use standard/wide angle primes
7. Control the depth of field
8. Be discreet
9. Travel light
10. Fish in the right pool

Are these good rules of thumb – or are they contentious?

Let’s look at them one at a time.

1. Shoot in good light
Light is the basis of all photography. Saying “shoot in good light” is a bit like advising someone to “eat nutritious food.” It’s pretty obvious. Some years ago I took to heart the contents of the “Light and Film” volume in the Time/Life Photography series and I’ve found nothing in digital photography to contradict the information.

However, in practical terms, it’s not always possible to find good light when you’re out on the street. The solution is to work around its absence, making compositions that work in poor light.

I should add that by “poor light” I don’t necessarily mean weak light, because digital cameras have very sensitive sensors that work very effectively at low levels of illumination. I mean light such as you get with the overhead noon-day sun, top-lighting the subject, creating hot-spots in the image and draining the subject of its subtle tones.

You can make a virtue out of poor light if you don’t feel inclined to wait (see rule of thumb no.3). Hard, intense, overhead light may even be appropriate to your style. So this rule of thumb does not hold true for everyone.

2. Go where the people are
A photograph without people is not street photography it’s just a photograph of a street. You need to go where people gather, move, meet each other, argue and gesticulate. In such places you’ll get more good photographs than if you stand on a quiet street where only the occasional passer-by is a potential target.

Garry Winogrand advised young street photographers to go where the people are — advice that seems somewhat redundant in his native New York City where it’s quite hard to get away from people. (When I lived in NYC the only time I found it empty was when I encountered a shooter on East 43rd Street. Everyone else had fled.)

Yet you only need find a single figure in the right place at the right time to make a terrific street photo. If you always obey this rule of thumb you’ll never get that sort of picture.

3. Be patient
German street photographer Andreas Ott describes walking past a window in Voorburg (Netherlands) every day and admiring the light shining through it. He thought it would be great if someone appeared in it. He writes: “Almost half a year later, I got my shot. What should I say, patience in Street Photography pays off!”

I’m not a patient person. Sometimes I find a great background on a busy street, then suddenly everyone seems to disappear. I wait. Nothing. I go somewhere else. This is the Way of the Street Photographer.

4. Use multiple strategies
In street photography you need to improvise constantly, sometimes moving around, at other times anchoring yourself to a single position. If you always shoot with a 35mm lens, try using 50mm or 28mm for a change. Look for different patterns, gatherings, groupings of people. Let yourself be drawn to certain subjects without quite understanding why. Or set yourself a goal by looking for something specific: people using their cellphones (shouldn’t be too hard to find!) or girls on bicycles (easy in a college town).

Only by using multiple strategies can you hope to make best use of the time available. Remember what the economists say: you need to bear in mind the concept of “opportunity cost,”  the loss of potential gain from possible alternative choices.

At any moment the aforementioned “patterns, gatherings, groupings” are happening all over the city, so you don’t want to be wasting your time pursuing the wrong strategies for finding them.

The downside — as with all these rules of thumb there’s a downside — is the tendency to chop and change, never developing a coherent and distinctive style.

5. Avoid zooming
I include this for two reasons: first, because high-quality zoom lenses tend to be large, heavy and bulky. They’re a real pain to carry around and they tend to attract attention, which is the last thing you need.

The second reason — the impracticality of zooming — I shall be discussing elsewhere (in “What’s the Best Lens for Street Photography?”). I guarantee you’ll lose many opportunities to get a great shot if you have to zoom, focus, click.

On the other hand, if all you have is a zoom lens, you’ll still be able to get great shots, but it’s not the ideal lens for the job.

6. Use standard/wide angle primes
Don’t got too long or too wide. Among experienced street photographers the most popular lenses are 28mm, 35mm and 50mm.

If you go too long you’ll get camera shake. Street photography is all about taking hand-held photos, except on those delightful occasions when you can jam the camera against a lamp post or rest your elbow on a mailbox.

If you go too wide you’ll distort vertical lines at the edges of the frame. The subject will often be too small. Figures near the sides of the image will be stretched unnaturally.

Can you get a great street shot with a 16mm lens or a 100mm lens? Yes, of course. But I wouldn’t try to make it a habit.

7. Control the depth of field
Don’t let depth of field take care of itself. You really need to know which parts of the image will be in focus and which are not in focus. This is good photographic practice and not limited to street photography.

Depth of field is the effective focus range: the distance between the nearest and farthest objects where everything will appear acceptably sharp in the final image.

I control depth of field by shooting consistently in Aperture Priority mode. It allows me to choose the aperture and let the shutter speed change automatically to the right setting. However, you need to keep a close eye on your settings to make sure the shutter speed is fast enough to freeze action (if that’s your intention). If it’s not, raise the ISO.

Personally I think this rule of thumb is the exception that proves the rule. Unlike the others it’s totally true!

8. Be discreet
To avoid unnecessary confrontations it’s sensible to be discreet when you take street photographs. You’ll also get better pictures if people don’t stare at you with eyes like deer caught in the headlamps of a car.

Today, street photographers are an integral part of urban life, going about their work in much the same way as all the other occupants of the city. If we start to become a nuisance the other workers will make our job more difficult than it is already.

Is there a place for cheeky, flash-gun wielding street photographers who chat to their subjects and make a spectacle of themselves? Yes, as long as they’re nowhere near me.

9. Travel light
On fine days, all you need for street photography is a lightweight camera and lens, a bottle of water, sensible clothes and comfortable shoes. Anything more (apart from a spare battery or two) is probably unnecessary and will hinder your ability to move around and react to the changing scenes of the city. On rainy days, hook an umbrella over one arm and take weather protection for the camera.

I feel sorry for landscape photographers with their huge back-packs laden with heavy lenses, filters, tripods, and the like. If you’re carrying all that superfluous equipment, don’t even think of taking a street photo on your way to the waterfall. You’re not dressed for the occasion.

10. Fish in the right pool
I think it’s important to take street photos in places where you stand a good chance of getting decent shots — but also where you feel reasonably at ease. If you’re lurking awkwardly outside a terrorist target with a policemen glaring in your direction there’s every chance you’ll fluff your lines.

Yet it’s also good to move out of your comfort zone into the unknown, exploring parts of the city you’ve never visited before. I like to take the SkyTrain in Bangkok and jump out at stations I’ve never previously used into neighbourhoods utterly unfamiliar to me.

So there are my ten “Rules of Thumb.” I’ve left out other frequently mentioned “rules,” like “move in close,” because they’re too prescriptive.

As Pablo Picasso probably didn’t say (there’s no citation for it): “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”

Street Photography. Is It Too Tough for Seniors?

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Deliveroo

The Japanese are discussing whether or not to raise the threshold of “elderly” from sixty-five to seventy-five. It will be a drastic leap but a highly popular one in a country where 7.3 million seniors are still in work.

Although I won’t qualify to be called “senior” under the new, eagerly-awaited Japanese definition, I cannot imagine giving up work even when I do actually cross the threshold into old age. I hope to find something to keep me fit and mentally alert, other than pumping iron and doing crossword puzzles.

Street photography springs to mind! I’ve done this part-time for many years (alongside other work) and I expect to continue well into the future.

On Friday last week I decided to test myself to see whether the demands of street photography would be too great in later life. Rather than stroll out in the afternoon, like the typical “flaneur,” I got up at six o’clock in the morning with the intention of taking an early train to London (50 minutes away) and spending the entire day on the street, followed by a brief visit to a photographic trade show.

Throwing open the curtains I couldn’t help but notice the first snow storm of the year, conveniently timed to arrive a few weeks after Christmas on the very day of my experiment.

Well, there’s no wussification over here, Mr. Rendell! (I refer to “The Wussification of America” by Ed Rendell, the former governor of Pennsylvania, who lamented the cancellation of an NFL football match merely because of heavy snowfall).

By mid-morning I was busily tramping the streets of a damp and windswept Covent Garden, getting pictures of people huddled against the below-zero (centigrade) cold. For some reason unknown, they seemed to be more inclined than usual to accept a photographer in their midst. Maybe freezing cold sleet and snow have the effect of condemning everyone alike to a common discomfiture. I don’t know. It was different, and, I have to admit, rather enjoyable.

However, I didn’t get any good pictures until the light improved later in the day. The entire mood of the city changed. People who’d been in bed until late morning suddenly emerged to go shopping. Workers relaxed for a break and I attempted to pay for lunch in a fast-food café, only to find that my right hand had become a frozen claw with only the forefinger (the one that presses the camera button) still working.

Do young people freeze? Yes, much more frequently — walking to school, on the sports field, messing around in the snow. It’s just a combination of experience and common sense that normally prevents older people from getting chilled to the bone.

Trying to manipulate camera settings while wearing gloves (even thin leather ones) is very frustrating. You really need one or two bare fingers to feel the position of each wheel and button. So if you’re thinking of taking street photos in very cold weather, I recommend using warm gloves with a finger-tip or two missing.

I took an umbrella because I’d seen the weather forecast and I knew it would get warmer later in the day. When snow turns to rain the camera gets wet. What’s more: it’s good to shoot from the cover of an umbrella. It makes you less conspicuous and helps protect the lens from the glare of the sky, enabling you to remove the lens hood.

By the time I was ready to grace the Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers with my presence (I’m not actually a member, but I like their show) I’d taken a hundred shots, some of which I’ll show you over the coming weeks.

One of the better shots you see above. I walked past a couple of Deliveroo men loading up their trikes with pizzas, turned round, and took this shot in which the real subject is the guy in the middle. Sorry, Deliveroo. You became the supporting cast. That’s what what can happen in street photography.

Back home after a long day I had just enough remaining energy to watch an episode of “Hello, My Twenties,” a brilliant Korean drama series also called “Age of Youth” in some countries.

Did I prove that street photography under strenuous conditions is within the grasp of so-called “seniors”? I guess it all depends on the individual’s general health and levels of fitness and determination. You don’t need to be in peak condition but neither can you dodder or fumble your way to success.

If you’re in doubt, go for it! In Japan, “great old age” is being postponed to ninety-five. In Canada, Olga Kotelko took up athletics at seventy-seven (and has since won 750 gold medals). Even in the UK, one in five people are expected to live to see their 100th birthday. In fact, more people are living longer and remaining active than ever before.

I just hope they don’t all want to take up street photography.

10 Insights from One Hour’s Street Photography at Night

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I love looking at other people’s night photos but I rarely take them myself. The night does not fit the style of photography I’ve been using for the past few years.

However, if you bear with me, I think I can still shed some light on street photography at night. It’s not rocket science. Apart from the darkness it’s essentially the same as street photography during the day.

The idea for this one-hour project came to me suddenly. Yesterday, I was drinking a cup of coffee when I noticed the rain had stopped. I’d been writing for most of the day and suddenly felt in the mood to go out and get some shots. But darkness was falling and I am ill equipped for night photography.

The High Street of this ancient town is only three hundred yards away from my house, so getting there was no problem. The Christmas lights were still on and there were plenty of people on the street. I wondered, could I really get any decent shots with my relatively slow (f/2.8) lens in the single hour at my disposal before dinner-time?

Before I left home I set the camera to ISO 1000, which I think is as high as I care to go on my system without encountering too much noise. So that’s my first tip:

Insight One: Set the ISO as high as your camera can cope.

If I were to take up night photography in earnest I’d buy a suitable camera system for the purpose. My Canon 5D3 and 40mm lens are far from ideal for night shooting. At the end of 2016 (the time of writing) the best option would be the Sony a7SII with a Batis 25mm, although there are many other cameras and lenses that would be better than what I’m using.

Insight Two: If you can, use the right gear!

My first subject (above) is the composition I had in mind when I set out. I’d noticed that buses sometimes have a light in the driver’s cab when people get on board. If I could combine this with one or two passengers, a foreground object, the Town Hall in the background and some people walking towards me on the right of the frame then I’d have a good shot.

Yes, it would have been easier to get this shot with a Leica Q or the above-mentioned Sony, but I did my best — squatting down and resting my elbows on my knees to eliminate camera movement.

Insight Three: If possible, rest the camera on something steady.

I couldn’t avoid blowing a highlight in the Town Hall clock (it’s just been cleaned!) but I’m not entirely unhappy with the photo. I’m glad I caught the last vestiges of daylight disappearing in the western sky.

Insight Four: Shoot at dusk, don’t wait for full darkness.

Finding other subjects was more of a challenge. It was getting darker and there were fewer illuminations in the back streets of town.

I waited for these three young women to step into the small area lit by a shop window before pressing the shutter button.

Insight Five: Use all available lights, especially shop windows which tend to have the brightest side-lighting.

Looking at the image I’m now struck by the fact that at night-time the digital camera sees much more clearly than the photographer. I was only dimly aware of the gesture made by the person on the left. Was she telling her friends: “I think we’re being photographed?” They didn’t seem to mind if they were.

Insight Six: The photographer needs to get accustomed to working in deep shadow. It’s harder to see moving subjects.

As night progresses, colours all but disappear from the shadows, leaving the street photographer with colour only in pools of light from windows or directly from neon lighting. Because my town is not particularly well lit, owing to the council’s reluctance to spend tax-payers’ money (which it prefers to squander elsewhere) I had trouble finding places where I could use colour, without which I’m somewhat lost. I don’t see the world in black-and-white.

Rebelling against the lack of colour I sneaked a shot through the window of a “party store” where the proprietor seemed to be preparing for an onslaught of five-year-old artists. There were so many stickers on the window I had difficulty in taking a (fairly) clean shot, but I quite like the crazy effect of: “This is all getting on top of me.”

Insight Seven: If you want colour at night, you can still find it! (Note: this is not a serious photo. I’m just illustrating the point!)

I took much the same approach with this photo of a Turkish barber’s shop. Yes, I know many heads of the customers and the barbers are partially hidden — but my intention was to allow them their privacy rather than wait for them to show their faces.

Insight Eight: Brilliantly lit shops can offer glowing colours with good white balance; but be respectful. Shooting into shop windows is more intrusive at night.

In some ways I prefer this shot to the last one I’m showing, which is in black and white out of necessity rather than choice. I hasten to add that none of the shots, except possibly the first, would be ones that I’d normally place in an online gallery. I’m just using them as illustrations for this article.

Outside the closed Apple store I found a man selling hamburgers from a stall. The subject has little intrinsic interest, but one customer was turning her face in my direction without looking directly at the camera and so I took I took the shot.

It’s a curious composition, along a diagonal line from the little girl with the defiant stance on the left, through the face of the central figure to the stall-holder who is looking back in that direction. Unfortunately, there’s no corresponding diagonal from top left to bottom right, but at least the image has a little bit of coherence in black and white. It doesn’t work at all in colour.

Insight Nine: Night photography is tailor-made for black-and-white. Patches of light and deep shadow cry out for monochrome treatment.

So how can I summarise my one-hour experience of night shooting? In a word: enlightening! I think I gained enough insights (some of which I’ve shared with you) to take me further in this style of shooting.

Big cities, where I normally take street photos, are so intensely illuminated I don’t often encounter all the difficulties of shooting in semi-darkness. Coping with a new set of challenges was fun. With this in mind, here’s my final insight:

Insight Ten: Even if you’re happy with the style you’re gradually evolving, don’t be afraid to step away from it now and again. The experience may surprise you.