My first Intermediate Photography class assignment this semester was for night exposures. It was a really easy assignment as our instructor told us exactly what aperture to use (f 4 or 5.6, I used f 5.6) and to take 8 frames of the same image with exposure times of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, and 128 seconds. Since we were exposing at night our light meters wouldn’t work so the multiple exposures gave us a very large range of negatives to choose from. This makes all the difference when you go to print a night photograph. It guarantees that at least one negative will be usable and very easy to print from. Of course, at these long exposure times a tripod and cable release was absolutely necessary.
These two photos are from a roll I took at the St. Joseph County Grange Fair in Centreville, Michigan. I took these the same day I took the previous daytime shots but obviously in the evening. The other trick to night photography is to under develop the film. I developed these 25% less than the normal processing time. Combined with the overexposure of the film, this allows for full detail in the shadows while maintaining those wonderful highlights. Nice technique that I look forward to using in the future.
