Outdoors at Night

  The aim of this exercise is to take a series of photographs at night to show the variety of effects available.

  This was one of the suggestions made in the instructions for the exercise, this exposure shows the light trails in isolation, it does not show the surroundings, so there is no context to show what they are. So I increased the exposure time so that the twilight sky showed itself.

Light Trails Longer Exposure

 Now that you can see the horizon it gives you some idea of what you are looking at.Also whilst on the subject of roads, on a long drive back from Bristol I experimented with the lights of the cars through the windscreen, needless to say my wife was driving, I used a high ISO to freeze the movement and used multi exposure to overlay the lights and make some more abstract images.

Traffic on the M25, Five Exposures

  For the image above I kept the camera on one plane so that the diagonal strings of lights as the cars negotiate the bend draw your eye across the picture.For the second of these images I took both vertical and horizontal frames.

Traffic on the M25, Five Exposures

  This picture is my own personal favourite of the two, I like the way the strong vertical lines draws your eye up the picture to the bold cross light. Overall it has quite a painterly effect and is most obviously influenced by the multi exposure images of New York at night taken by Ernst Haas.

China Palace

  Next I took my camera out onto the streets, and using a high ISO again I tried to see what I could find hand held. This is my local Chinese takeaway, which is a subject I have often thought of photographing before because of the mirrored counter front and strong geometric pattern made by the black and white tiles.

China Palace