Levi Wedel

Levi Wedel has some interesting night photography on his website. I really like the series These City Lights. Levi is an MFA candidate at the University of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada.

(Photo by Levi Wedel)

Levi has another interesting Invisible City which features front-on night photographs of large store-front windows. It's another example of how night photography can make something as boring as a day time store-front window look so interesting once the photographer makes the effort to return and work the scene under nightfall.

Seen on Conscientious blog.

Photographing the Aurora

With a peak in the sunspot cycle (and, consequently, the predicted aurora cycle) coming up in the next two years, some photographers' thoughts turn towards the aurora. The Luminous Landscape has a very informative article by Ben Hattenbach and Henry Throop titled Hunting the Great Alaskan Aurora. They include a wealth of information including the best airport to fly into, the best time of year to go, and the best roads to drive searching for dark skies.

(Sweeping Down From Space, by either Ben Hattenbach or Henry Throop)

I used to think that once you've seen a few good aurora photos, you've seen them all. But, maybe not. Along with some important technical information, there are also some very good aurora photos.

The Open Source Photo Guide Project

November 15th was the annual lighting ceremony at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse which is located near Pascadero, CA. Every year on the Saturday closest to November 15th, the U.S. Coast Guard turns off the lighthouse's modern air beacon for two hours, and turns on the original Fresnel lens. Since most people have never seen a lighthouse with a Fresnel lens, this event has become very popular with visitors, especially photographers.

A few of the twenty four beams of light can be seen in this shot, which was taken this year in very clear weather.

(Pigeon Point Lighthouse, 2008, by Andy Frazer)

Compare the density of the beams with this shot, which I took two years ago in heavy mist.

(Pigeon Point Lighthouse, 2006, by Andy Frazer)

While we're on the subject of Pigeon Point, last NovemberI became part of a project called the Open Source Photo Guide project. Initiated by Brent Pearson, the OSPG is a collection of photo guides to locations all over the world. The guides are written by volunteers who have visited each location and written the guide using a standard template. The guides are then collated based on different regions across the world. Here is our map of represented countries from the whole world. Here is the map of guides for California, USA (I am the administrator for Californi, as well as Hawaii).

And, getting back to Pigeon Point, last week I contributed the photo guide for Pigeon Point. If you want to know how to get to Pigeon Point, or what to expect once you get there, please check out my guide. The OSPG project is always looking for new volunteers to contribute new guides, or even administer and new region. For example, just yesterday night photographer Brian Chapman volunteered to administer the photo guides for Washington, USA. Don't be shy about signing up. It only requires minimal computer skills, and the ability to follow Brent's well-written directions.

Ted Croner

I was reading an old issue of Black & White Magazine and came across an article about Ted Croner. Ted was a member of the "New York School" and was known for his black-and-white night photographs of, you guessed it, New York City. According the New York Times columnist Magarette Loke, Croner's is know as the best example of this movement.

(Taxi, New York, by Ted Croner)

Croner's most famous image, Taxi, New York, was used as the cover of Bob Dylan's 2006 album Modern Times. Unfortunately, I couldn't find much of his work on the internet. There's a short article on Wikipedia, as well as a very comprehensive obituary in The Guardian (sadly, Croner died in 2005 at the age of 82). The best collection of his work that I'm aware of is the December, 2003 issue of Black & White Magazine.

Nocturnes Workshop at Rush Ranch

Next week (Thursday, May 7) The Nocturnes offer a special one-night night photography workshop at the 2,070 acre Rush Ranch Open Space, out by Grizzly Island on the Suisun Marsh in Solano County, California. This is a benefit for the Rush Ranch Educational Council - read more about Rush Ranch and the Solano Land Trust here, and The Nocturnes Full Moon Night Photography Workshop here.


There are still a few spots open for the 'shop!

Note: this blog post was scooped, lifted, plagiarized (or whatever you want to call it) in full from The Nocturnes Night Photography Blog. I don't usually stoop to such low tactics, but under I'm under a bit of time crunch here at the office.

Jurgen Nefzger

Jurgen Nefzger's Nocturnes project "provides a journey that explores the hidden side of daily space in the uncertainty and pleasure of discoverty". With a witty description like that, the photographs must be worth taking a look at.

(Photo by Jurgen Nefzger)

Thanks to The Nocturnes Blog for pointing us to this one.