Shooting at night is always a challenge. First off, the low light means long exposures and additional equipment. (tripod, cable release, flashlight etc.) I've always enjoyed shooting in low light, showing motion and in general the technical challenges of creating images in the dark. In addition to my photography addiction, I also have an "Indiana Jones" complex at times. Those two coupled together led me to Bagan in Myanmar (aka Burma) to photograph the 1100 year-old temples by moonlight. It just sounded like an interesting trip. The complete story of that adventure will come in a future post, but for now I'll share one of the simplest shots from that expedition.
The above shot is a 40 minute exposure of some of the temple ruins just outside the town of Nyaung Oo. Shooting in the dark is always an experiment. In most shooting situations I'm pretty confident in the camera meter's ability to determine a proper exposure. However, in a night scene like this with virtually no light, I'm confident that the camera's meter has no clue. So what do you do? Go manual, guess and take notes.
Other issues with shooting in the dark are: capturing focus, composing the scene, patience and luck. All of which are fundamental to any great photograph. If there were ever a time to get creative, now is it.
Composing the scene comes down to an educated guess. What you see in the photograph isn't necessarily what you can see while you are standing there; in the dark. Obviously, I set up on a tripod to keep the camera steady for the long exposure. Also, I wanted the stars to spiral one direction so I aimed in a north northwest direction. The north star is out frame on the bottom right. This would work aiming south too. If I were to aim east or west though, I would see the outer edges of the star trails spiraling away from each other. I then composed the frame by the dark shapes and a bubble level to at least get the horizon level.
Next, forget auto focus. It won't work in the dark where there isn't enough light or contrast. So I used a flash light (torch) to illuminate the focus point while I looked through the viewfinder and manually focused. I kept this light usage to an absolute minimum because I was trying to get through the shoot without anyone knowing I was there.
For the exposure, on Provia 100 slide film, I made a somewhat educated guess and decided that 40 minutes at F4 would be good. I used a locking cable release on an old Nikon FM body with a Nikon 20mm lens and a stopwatch. This is the part where patience comes in. 40 minutes of doubting, boredom and anxiety.
At this point, two days after the full moon, the moon hadn't risen yet and so it was very dark and the stars were bright. But in the last 10 minutes of the exposure the moon began to rise (camera right) and gently painted the tops of the stupas from that nice low angle. This is where the luck came in. This additional directional light made the shot.
Gear: Nikon FM (full manual body) / Nikon 20mm 2.8 lens / locking cable release / Bogen tripod with ballhead / Mini Maglite /
Exposure: Fuji Provia Side Film 100 ISO / F 4 / 40 minutes
As always, click any image for the larger version. TR
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