Shortest Night

Yesterday, I joined a group of fellow photography enthusiasts for an all night photoshoot on the shortest night of the year. We met up at 17:00 in a pub near London Bridge and set off to catch the final rays of daylight before the sunset at 21:21. The sun was due to rise on the following morning at 04:43 so we had the entire night to capture the city.

This was one of the first pictures I took with a newly acquired Nikon D700. Taken from Tower Bridge at 20:24 as the sun started to set.

This was my first attempt at zoom burst photography. Taken from London Bridge at 01:34.

This is one of a series of images taken whilst walking along the Thames Path. The time was 02:26.

Another image from the Thames Path, captured at 03:08. The London Eye is one of my favourite London landmarks.

This was one  of my final images, taken from Charing Cross Bridge at 03:58 as the sun started to rise.

What have I learned?

This exercise was gruelling but thoroughly enjoyable!

My daytime photography is primarily concerned with controlling light since it's usually readily available. But in this instance, I had to think more about accessing it first and then controlling it.

I was very aware that my approach was quite different during this exercise (apart from the mandatory use of a tripod and very long shutter speeds). Night-time photography seemed to give me more creative license - I wasn't concerned about whether subjects were evenly light, in fact, the greater the contrast, the better.  Also, blown highlights were viewed as a thing of beauty!