Workshop with Aaron Hobson

Aaron Hobson has been producing some wonderful panoramic, self-portrait narratives in upstate New York. His work spans both daytime and night photography, always with amazing results. Fortunately, for admirers of his work, Aaron will be leading a 3-day workshop dedicated to narrative, or mise-en-scene, photography where, "every element of the scene contributes to it's meaning". The workshop will be held in upstate New York surrounded by forests, mountains and abandoned buildings, including the remains of an iron ore mill once owned by Benedict Arnold.

(64 Mercury, by Aaron Hobson)

One great aspect of the workshop is that the event concludes with a show of the attendees' work at a local art space, complete with an opening reception, press releases and all of the excitement that goes with an art show. The workshop runs August 13-15. For more information, check out the Barkeaterphotography web page.

Two New Night Photography Books!

In the past few weeks, I've learned about not one, but two, new books relating to night photography. One is a how-to guide, and the second is an introspective look into one photographer's spiritual journey through the night.

First, Australian photographer Brent Pearson (who goes by Brentbat on Flickr) has self-published "Night Photography and Light Painting", which is available as an e-book from his website. The book features over 80 pages of Brent's light painting tricks and techniques, each illustrated with numerous photographs and easy-to-understand screenshots of his PhotoShop techniques. Although his tricks were used in Australia, I'm sure they'll work equally well in the Northern Hemisphere.

(Book cover by Brent Pearson)

Second, Arizona-based night photographer Stu Jenks has self-published "Flame Spirals: Journeys through Nocturnal Photography", which is described as part night photography, part memoir of his nocturnal adventures. If you've ever followed Stu's spiritual blog, you'll understand what that means.

(Book cover by Stu Jenks)

These books come on the heels of 2008's two big night photography releases: Jill Waterman's Night and Low-Light Photography (which included half a dozen of my night photographs) and Troy Paiva's Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration. If that's not enough to keep your personal library full, I expect there will be more comprehensive books on night photography within the next year.

Andy Martin

Andy Martin has a huge website of night photography from the Sunderland region of the north-east U.K. His site is conveniently divided in Shipyards, Industry, The Coast, etc. I found his site especially interesting because I'm originally from the U.K., and many of Andy's exterior shots remind me of how I remember the more "interesting" parts of London.

Plan on spending a bit of time browsing through all of the photographs.

(Photo by Andy Martin)

Scott Haefner

For readers from the San Francisco Bay Area, Scott Haefner will be hosting a slide show and lecture of both his night photography and kite aerial photography next Monday night (April 20th) in Los Gatos, CA. He will also be demonstrating his kite aerial photography equipment. I saw Scott's rig in action up at Mare Island a few months ago. I think this will be a very interesting evening for anyone interested in alternate forms of photography.



Date: April 20th
Time: 7:30-9:00pm
Host: Los Gatos - Saratoga Camera Club
Where: Los Gatos Elks Lodge #1857 (meeting room is upstairs)
105 Newell Ave, Los Gatos, CA

Alejandro Chaskielberg

I really like Alejandro Chaskielberg's Nocturama portfolio. You can see some influence of Gregory Crewdson's work, but Chaskielberg's photographs seem to have more action and movement in them. Chaskielberg is a graduate of the National Film Institute, and was selected by PDN Magazine as one of the thirty most influential emerging photographers. His background as a film director is evident in his still photographs.

Take your time browsing through his portfolio. There's a lot of very interesting work in there.

(Moon Walking, by Alejandro Chaskielberg)

More Nocturnes at MINSY

Earlier this month, The Nocturnes hosted another night shoot-out on the decommissioned Mare Island Naval Shipyard (MINSY). Although this is my eighth time shooting the MINSY at night, I enjoy the challenge of returning to the same place (but not too often) because it forces me to work harder to look for new things to photograph. There's also a fascinating documentary aspect to photographing Mare Island because the development engine continues moving forward, and I can easily see the changes every six months. Because of the state of the economy, most of those changes involve tearing buildings down, as opposed to putting up new buildings. And every time I see a few more buildings demolished, I wish that I had photographed them instead of shooting something that's still standing.

(Periscope Building by Andy Frazer)

One interesting aspect of military bases is the sheer scale of the structures. Naval bases also have large things such as dry docks, or cranes:

(Photo by Andy Frazer)

You can see more night photographs taken at Mare Island earlier this month by many other photographers. Just search the Flickr tag nocturnes090307.