File#: 1941032 * Nikon Z7, Nikkor 24mm f/1.4, [ISO 8000, f/2.8, 25 sec (Sky)], [ISO 8000, f/2.0, 30 sec (Foreground)] --- * Let the record show, I have an interesting relationship with some of my favorite subjects. What does that mean? It only means, I enjoy the places differently that most other people. No, I don’t do anything weird or unusual with these locations, other than I shoot them so they look interesting to me. I mean, the connection I have with them, the interaction I have with them is different. What can be different with an ancient Anazai ruin location? I haven’t laid eyes on it in anything other than pitch black night. * When I was a kid, my grand parents used to live in Arizona. For a few years in the early 70’s, my sister and I used to visit them for a few weeks to a month. I recall one of the best things we did was exactly what I do now, visit Arizona’s many sites. The Wupatki National Monument just northeast of Flagstaff was one of those locations. I definitely recall visiting there more than once during one of those vacations with the grand parents. I remember walking among the ruins. I even recall me trying to imagine what the places looked like when they were occupied hundreds of years before. All that was more than 40 years ago. * Fast forward to nowadays, I am fairly periodic visitor of Flagstaff when spending the night traveling between Southern California and my home in Southern New Mexico. About two years ago when first getting into night photography, I looked at the map and noted Wupatki was just 20 miles northeast of Flagstaff--conveniently located for night shooting. * Since the whole point of night photography is not about the sunrise and sunset, I rarely try to mix sunlight photography with my night shooting. That meant, the first time I visited Wupatki since those trips in the 70’s, meant exploring the place in the pitch black. I won’t say it was intentional, but I’ve been back there two more times and each were also night photography shoots. I have yet to see these subjects in the broad daylight. * Does that matter? Probably not all that much, especially now that I’ve visited the same sites multiple times. I have a familiarity with the locations even though I haven’t laid clear eyes on them. * When making images in these conditions, there are definitely fewer elemental distractions because you literally can’t see them. Big features dominate the compositional choices. Small details are obvious and mostly dis-regarded. Basic design rules dominate instead of making subtle compromises that can only be judged in brighter conditions. The biggest features are place in the most classic compositional locations and everything else is left to fall out as an after thought. * The biggest challenges shooting in these conditions are the many exposure choices always prevalent with night photography. Wide apertures and narrow depth of fields rule the environment which is contrary to normal day-light photography. High ISO settings and associated image quality degradation has to be understood to reliably predict what images will look like at the end of post-shooting production. All these choices occupy my mind much more than trying to take advantage of subtle terrain features that might make compositions more compelling. Shooting at night makes compositions simple. You literally don’t have the distractions of too much to see and you mind is much more pre-occupied with other tasks. * I’ve had good success shooting Wupatki at night. I’m not sure if visiting it during the day will improve my results or cause me to overthink what I’m doing by trying in incorporate what I saw in the day and couldn’t see at night. In other words, I don’t feel compelled to visit the place in normal light. * This composition is comprised of 25 images captured in two separate groups five were made with exposures tuned for the night sky. The other 20 were combined into four layers used to reduce noise in post-production and with exposure values tuned for the foreground. The raw images were converted using Capture One. The pano layers were combined with PT Gui. The whole image was finished with Photoshop. * Cheers * Tom * #arizona #night #nightphotography #nikon #nikonphotography #wupatkinationalmonument
