In the Dark
Photography for night owls

By Robert Winkler
About the Author

fter he moved to Paris in 1923, Gyula Halasz became a nocturnal being, no less a creature of the night than an owl—"going to bed at sunrise, getting up at sunset," he said, "wandering about the city from Montparnasse to Montmartre." Armed with only a camera, he would prowl the streets, bars and bordellos. Like the streetwalkers, toughs and other night people who were his frequent subjects, he was driven by some dark urge. He came to photography not out of love for it, admitting that "even though I had always ignored and even disliked photography before, I was inspired to become a photographer by my desire to translate all the things that enchanted me in the nocturnal Paris I was experiencing."

Halasz, better known as Brassai—a name he derived from his Hungarian birthplace of Brasso, Transylvania (which is now in Romania)—died in 1984 at 84. Apart from their excellence, his pictures and his words amount to a master class in the art of night photography. They are interwoven in his most comprehensive collection of night photographs and reminiscences, The Secret Paris of the Thirties.

Although Brassai probably is best remembered for the sinister Paris underground he disclosed—which he described as a "world of pleasure, of love, vice, crime, drugs"—he did not restrict himself to it. In The Secret Paris, he described the larger and more familiar world through which he also roamed:

"Just as night birds and nocturnal animals bring a forest to life when its daytime fauna fall silent and go to ground, so night in a large city brings out of its den an entire population that lives its life completely under cover of darkness."



The nocturnal Paris to which Brassai was drawn included streetcar track repairers with their acetylene torches, lamplighters, porters and others in the "army of workers" who became most active at night. He recorded nighttime street fairs, fireworks celebrations, darkened streets and shadowy figures. On a cold November night, Brassai bribed the concierge of Notre Dame, and then climbed to the top of the cathedral. Later, he rhapsodized about the "luminous and somber shapes," the "ageless, bodiless" Paris where "present and past, history and legend, intermingled." His photographs prove that this vision was no illusion.

Even as Brassai photographed Paris nightlife, some of its most colorful aspects were starting to disappear, but we have gained as much as we've lost with the passage of time: faster film, lighter equipment that is simpler to operate, and brighter public lighting make the night photographer's job easier. Gaslight and wrought-iron lampposts have largely given way to broad floodlights and aluminum poles, but today's lighting configurations are more varied, cities have grown and become increasingly dominated by skyscrapers with their countless lighted windows and nightlife is as vibrant as ever. Of course, the moon and stars, and the country landscape at twilight, are unchanged.

Night photography requires no special additions to a 35-mm single-lens reflex camera outfit, except for a penlight. Beginners might first try to photograph fireworks, which happen to be one of the easiest nighttime subjects. Light meter readings are unnecessary with fireworks, since good pictures can result from a wide range of exposures. Mount your camera on a tripod, set the shutter on B (for bulb, a setting common on older cameras) or T (for time), and, with a cable release, hold the shutter open for several bursts of light. With fast film (rated at a speed of 400 or higher), use your lens's smaller lens openings, or apertures (f/8, f/11, f/16); with slow film (100 or lower), use larger apertures (f/4, f/5.6). Whichever type of film you use, try various aperture settings.

A smaller aperture will make the streaks of light appear narrower and dimmer; larger apertures produce broader and lighter streaks. A zoom or telephoto lens lets you close in on distant fireworks. Try composing some shots with foreground subjects silhouetted against the display. Use these same techniques for pictures of lightning, taking care not to shoot from under a tree, which can attract lightning, or in the open, where lightning could strike you or your tripod. It's usually safe to photograph distant lightning through an open window of a building protected by a lightning rod.

Bright Lights, Big City

The street lighting in many town and city centers is so bright that you may be able to dispense with a tripod if your film has a speed of 800 or higher. Some films can be "push-processed" well beyond their stated speeds, allowing blur-free candid pictures of dimly lighted subjects such as faces around a campfire—unthinkable in Brassai's day. You'll still need slow films, however, to create some of night photography's most arresting images: cityscapes where cars exists only as streaks of light; where strollers become lengthened, transparent ghosts; where sky, lights and objects undergo a color shift, often taking on pleasing violet tones. These magical effects occur only with long exposures, which require film that is relatively insensitive to light, or slow (rated at a speed of 100 or less).

To take a time exposure with slow film, place your camera on a tripod and attach a cable release. If there is a breeze, remove the camera strap, because it may catch the wind and shake the camera. Exposure measurement will be relatively simple if your camera is one of the newer models. The meters in older cameras are usually sensitive enough only to the limits of handheld photography (about 1/30 of a second), but the latest cameras are capable of measuring light in minutes—enough sensitivity for most night photography situations.

If you have an older camera with a built-in meter that doesn't function with slow film in such low levels of light, you'll gain all the light sensitivity you need with a handheld meter. The most sensitive of this meter type measures light so low that it might require hours to reach the point of full exposure. A decent handheld meter costs about $50 to $100; among the major manufacturers are Gossen, Minolta, Sekonic, Spectra and Weston.

There are many different models, with varying features—look for one that measures incident as well as reflected light. The meters built into cameras are of the reflected-light type, which measures light reflecting from the subject. An incident meter, however, measures light falling on the subject. Either type of meter can be used in night photography, but there are other photographic situations, such as portraiture, in which you may find an incident meter more useful.

A handheld meter isn't crucial, even if you own an older camera. Instead, you can "bracket" extensively. Supplement your initial shot with varying degrees of under- and overexposure, erring on the side of overexposure. Bracketing is good insurance against miscalculating proper exposure, and it's a good practice even if your meter is highly sensitive. At especially long (and especially short) exposures, film reacts to light differently than it does at normal shutter speeds. Halving a normal shutter speed, such as 1/125 of a second, will expose your film to double the amount of light, and you can therefore expect your pictures to be that much lighter. But at very slow shutter speeds, this rule breaks down—halving a shutter speed of one second (or opening up the aperture by one f-stop) doubles the amount of light entering the camera, but you might need yet more exposure to realize an increase of equal proportion on the film. This is known as failure of the law of reciprocity.

Reciprocity failure begins occurring at shutter speeds of one second and longer. The slower the shutter speed, the greater the proportion of additional exposure required. This does not mean you can't rely on meter readings for time exposures; it simply means they are subject to adjustment. If your meter indicates that the correct exposure for a night scene is five seconds, expose the film for that period but also bracket with a shutter speed of one second on the side of underexposure, and shutter speeds of 10, 15, 20 and 30 seconds on the side of overexposure. You can also bracket by changing the f-stop setting, but this method will affect depth of field—the zone that is in sharp focus.

Taking so many shots of one scene may seem like overkill, but in low light, doubling and even tripling the shutter speed often makes little apparent difference. If a car comes by while you're making time exposures, shield your lens from its headlights with a black card.

Since subjects are hard to see in the dark, focus on a light source close to the most important part of the scene, adjusting the lens until the light appears most like a point. Use a small aperture or the extensive depth of field of a wide-angle lens to get the rest of the scene in focus, and of course increase your shutter speed in the former instance.

Don't overlook electronic flash for outdoor night photography—this is one of the few instances in which a bare flash, with its strong shadows and bright highlights, looks quite natural, and flash frees you from using a tripod. Of course, a flash's range is limited (you can't use one to light a cityscape or a football stadium). I find flash best for nighttime portraits, subjects that Brassai often lighted artificially. Outdoors, there may be no wall or other close background to reflect light back into the flash's automatic exposure sensor, so try one stop of underexposure. Otherwise, your outdoor night portraits may come out too light.

Twilight, which lasts for about a half hour after the sun sets and before it rises, is a fine time for photography, because enough natural light exists to see details of the scene, yet the suggestion of night is definite. You can sometimes include the moon in such pictures, though you might need a telephoto lens to make it appear large enough. In the country, away from street and house lights, you can photograph star trails by keeping the shutter open (with a locking cable release) for about 15 minutes. A wide-angle lens will take in more stars and let you include some of the darkened landscape.

Although many photographers are loath to use anything but color film, black-and-white film is well-suited to night photography, especially late at night or where it is very dark, instances in which colors fade into blackness anyway. Night, after all, is when the extremes of light and dark are most evident, and black-and-white film renders such contrasts in their purest terms. It is hard to imagine Brassai's best photographs in color. His black-and-white pictures show the "fringe world" that he felt was Paris "at its least cosmopolitan, at its most alive, its most authentic," and, we would be justified in adding, at its most colorful.

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A message from Robert Winkler

Jeff Brush/Connecticut Post (used with permission)

If you enjoyed this article, I know you'll enjoy my critically acclaimed book, Going Wild: Adventures with Birds in the Suburban Wilderness (National Geographic), which expands on many of the short pieces I've posted here. Why do I write about birds? Because they represent the wild in all its glory. They're numerous, diverse, intelligent, talkative, and beautiful; their power of flight never ceases to amaze; and they're the most conspicuous class of wild animal—even in the suburb, they're just about everywhere. Whether you're a beginning or advanced birder, a fan of nature writing, a curious suburbanite, or a reader in search of that rare bird known as a good book, Going Wild could very well change how you view your world. So get your copy now, or buy one for your favorite birder or nature lover. Best deal on the Web: brand new, perfect copies $5 each (69% off) at National Geographic Books.

"Prostitute at Angle of Rue de la Reynie and Rue Quincampoix" by Brassai (c. 1933)
"Pont Neuf, Paris" by Brassai (1949)
Brassai photographing the Parisian night on Boulevard Saint-Jacques with his 6 x 9 Voigtlander (c. 1931)
Text Copyright © 2002 Robert Winkler

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