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Creative Night: Digital Photography Tips and Techniques
Take a well-timed shot in the dark with this invaluable guide to night photography
Shooting in low light and at night is challenging, but it can result in stunning images, so don't put that digital camera away after the sun goes down! Start capturing eerie and intriguing photographs at all levels of light with this information-packed guide from renowned photographer and author Harold Davis.
He provides pages of field-tested techniques to help you find the proper exposures, including the best settings for ISO, aperture, and shutter. Don't miss the intriguing examples of his own work, including cityscapes, landscapes, and more.Walks readers through the intricacies of night and low light photography Explores the fundamental rules of exposure, including creative settings for ISO, aperture, and shutter speedsInforms and inspires with the author's own breathtaking examples of night photography, including cityscapes, landscapes, exciting night events, and other photos that illustrate the concepts
Capture the visually exciting world after the sun goes down with this essential guide to night photography.
Shooting in low light and at night is challenging, but it can result in stunning images, so don't put that digital camera away after the sun goes down! Start capturing eerie and intriguing photographs at all levels of light with this information-packed guide from renowned photographer and author Harold Davis.
He provides pages of field-tested techniques to help you find the proper exposures, including the best settings for ISO, aperture, and shutter. Don't miss the intriguing examples of his own work, including cityscapes, landscapes, and more.Walks readers through the intricacies of night and low light photography Explores the fundamental rules of exposure, including creative settings for ISO, aperture, and shutter speedsInforms and inspires with the author's own breathtaking examples of night photography, including cityscapes, landscapes, exciting night events, and other photos that illustrate the concepts
Capture the visually exciting world after the sun goes down with this essential guide to night photography.
- GenresPhotographyNonfiction
239 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
3 people are currently reading
45 people want to read
About the author
Harold Davis
147Ìýbooks14ÌýfollowersHarold Davis is widely recognized as a leading contemporary photographer and artist. He is also the author of more than 30 books, including Creating HDR Photos: The Complete Guide to High Dynamic Range Photography from Amphoto/Random House and Photographing Flowers: Exploring Macro Worlds with Harold Davis which is published by Focal Press, and has been called "one of the most beautiful books ever created."
Harold Davis believes that advances in the technology and craft of digital photography have created an entirely new art form. Trained as a classical photographer and painter, his photographic images are made using special HDR (High Dynamic Range) capture techniques that extend the range of visual information beyond what the eye can normally see.
Davis creates and processes his images using wide-gamut and alternative digital methods that he has invented. His techniques combine the craft of photography with the skills of a painter.
Photographic adventures and assignments have taken him across the Brooks Range, the northernmost mountains in Alaska. He has photographed the World Trade Towers, hanging out of a small plane, followed in the footsteps of Seneca Ray Stoddard, a 19th-century photographer of the Adirondacks, and created human interest photo stories about the residents of Love Canal, an environmental disaster area.
Harold is well-known for his night photography and experimental ultra-long exposure techniques, use of vibrant, saturated colors in landscape compositions, and beautiful creative floral imagery.
He makes his over-sized original prints on unusual substrates such as pearlized metallic and washi rice papers. Davis states, "I believe that nothing like my prints has ever been seen before. They simply could not have been created until recently. I've been able to innovate in a domain where many techniques and crafts have come together for the first time. My prints are made meticulously, and have a 200-year archival rating for ink and paper if they are handled properly.
Harold Davis believes that advances in the technology and craft of digital photography have created an entirely new art form. Trained as a classical photographer and painter, his photographic images are made using special HDR (High Dynamic Range) capture techniques that extend the range of visual information beyond what the eye can normally see.
Davis creates and processes his images using wide-gamut and alternative digital methods that he has invented. His techniques combine the craft of photography with the skills of a painter.
Photographic adventures and assignments have taken him across the Brooks Range, the northernmost mountains in Alaska. He has photographed the World Trade Towers, hanging out of a small plane, followed in the footsteps of Seneca Ray Stoddard, a 19th-century photographer of the Adirondacks, and created human interest photo stories about the residents of Love Canal, an environmental disaster area.
Harold is well-known for his night photography and experimental ultra-long exposure techniques, use of vibrant, saturated colors in landscape compositions, and beautiful creative floral imagery.
He makes his over-sized original prints on unusual substrates such as pearlized metallic and washi rice papers. Davis states, "I believe that nothing like my prints has ever been seen before. They simply could not have been created until recently. I've been able to innovate in a domain where many techniques and crafts have come together for the first time. My prints are made meticulously, and have a 200-year archival rating for ink and paper if they are handled properly.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 7, 2010
I'm an experienced night photographer, workshop instructor, and college level Photoshop teacher. I've been reviewing various night photography books to find one to recommend to my students. The author of this book obviously shares the joy of night photography, and has made some very nice night landscape images in the Bay Area, and Sierras. Those interested in landscape photography could find this work inspiring. The book shows some breadth of night photography subject matter, hard won images, and plenty of enthusiasm.
Unfortunately, quite a few of the images suffer from insufficient sharpness or depth of field (poor choice of aperture), blatant purple sensor burn (failure to understand CCD sensor limitations vs. CMOS), strange white balances (especially overly magenta skies), images with massive amounts of chroma and luminance noise, and poor technical advice (shooting at f/22 and f/29, which causes loss of sharpness due to diffraction).
This may sound like I'm coming out of left field with all of the glowing reviews on Amazon, but as an avid night photographer, I felt like someone had to speak up for image quality and proper technique. Fundamental concepts such as high ISO testing calculations, color temperature settings, and camera setup advice are either glossed over, or ignored. Light painting tools and techniques are not explained, and the use of gels to modify light color & color temperature is sorely lacking. Jill Waterman's book Night and Low-Light Photography, while not perfect, has better coverage of the fundamental techniques of digital night photography, and is recommended as an alternative.
Unfortunately, quite a few of the images suffer from insufficient sharpness or depth of field (poor choice of aperture), blatant purple sensor burn (failure to understand CCD sensor limitations vs. CMOS), strange white balances (especially overly magenta skies), images with massive amounts of chroma and luminance noise, and poor technical advice (shooting at f/22 and f/29, which causes loss of sharpness due to diffraction).
This may sound like I'm coming out of left field with all of the glowing reviews on Amazon, but as an avid night photographer, I felt like someone had to speak up for image quality and proper technique. Fundamental concepts such as high ISO testing calculations, color temperature settings, and camera setup advice are either glossed over, or ignored. Light painting tools and techniques are not explained, and the use of gels to modify light color & color temperature is sorely lacking. Jill Waterman's book Night and Low-Light Photography, while not perfect, has better coverage of the fundamental techniques of digital night photography, and is recommended as an alternative.
July 20, 2012
Edit: I've changed this review since my initial writing. It didn't get better. More or less I condensed.
I have several problems with this book:
The first being a problem with the title itself. It's misleading. This guy isn't doing 'creative' night photography; he's doing regular night photography that is featured in every other book on the subject. His title indicates a departure from standards, a new approach, and a certain expectation comes with it. Needless to say, I don't feel the book lives up to it's title at all. This is a problem with the author's other books, too, I'm afraid; his 'creative' composition book, and his 'creative' portrait books are fairly UNcreative as well.
This guy has created a series of books to represent everything that is already present in other more general books.
If each book were better, and actually gave examples of very radical creative techniques and not just the standard fair, it would be a worthwhile investment for anyone that has been shooting longer than a year in any particular area; unfortunately, that isn't the case.
The book is anemic in a lot of ways: An example would be how short each section in this book are, when it comes to various things. Night time HDR deserves more than one or two pages, surely. Light painting does too. There is a lot of information missing entirely.
The guy is a poor writer, for the most part; the structure of the book is weak. The greater sin is that he isn't a good teacher, though.
I feel like this guy, along with a lot of other photographic "teachers," "gurus," and authors just build up a massive amount of photos over the years and in an effort to monetize their back catalog, put out a book using the images they have laying around that don't sell.
So, as other reviewers point out, the problem with this book is that the examples aren't even that great. There are perhaps 10 photos in the book that I would consider stellar, but the bulk aren't even photos that I would publish on a professional level. A lot of the photos suffer heavy noise, purple fringing, off color casts, improper white balance, chromatic issues, etc.
I'm a night photographer of only a few years experience and my images consistently turn out better than those featured in this book.
Part of the problem with his photos is that he doesn't follow what I think is the two golden rules of night photography:
1.) Patience, and
2.) Re-shoot until perfect. Making changes and re-shooting in an iteration-to-perfection plan is the secret to good, and even great night photography. Above all other things, this will make great images happen.
And: As an editorial process, part of the work is to only let your best work out the door, right?
Part of me wonders if this book weren't a by-product of publisher pressure or the beg of a needed paycheck. Who knows.
I also suspect that some of the reviews of this book may be planted by the publisher. In revisiting this review, I checked GoodReads for the reviews of this book, and the average reviews were 3/5 there. The criticisms are harsher in greater volumes on that site. Something I've noticed in the past is that publishers tend to only pay for reviews to be planted on purchase sites, and not generally on third-party sites.
What I wanted when I purchased this book, was a book that was entirely about night photography, was very detailed when it came to the subject and would teach me a lot that I didn't already know from my general photographic experience and understanding, what I'd read from blogs, other books, and learned from other shooters. I will plainly say that I did not get anything I wanted from this book.
The bottom line is that this guy isn't a night photographer, and night photography is a special art. The nuance of it requires a lot of explanation that isn't present int his book.
I also bought "Creative Portraits" and I also feel it is sub-par.
On this review, the author himself has posted a reply to my review wherein he offered to buy back the book and cover shipping. I don't even know how to feel about this offer. On the one-hand, I'd love to take advantage of this to get my money back. On the other hand, it almost feels like he is attempting to buy his way out of bad reviews.
Recommendations on photographic education:
Basic Photography: Understanding Exposure, 3rd Edition
Furthered Basic Photography: Understanding Shutter Speed:
Night Photography: Night Photography: Finding your way in the dark
Night Photography: Finding your way in the dark, by Lance Keimig is by far the best book on the subject of Night Photography I've read.
I have several problems with this book:
The first being a problem with the title itself. It's misleading. This guy isn't doing 'creative' night photography; he's doing regular night photography that is featured in every other book on the subject. His title indicates a departure from standards, a new approach, and a certain expectation comes with it. Needless to say, I don't feel the book lives up to it's title at all. This is a problem with the author's other books, too, I'm afraid; his 'creative' composition book, and his 'creative' portrait books are fairly UNcreative as well.
This guy has created a series of books to represent everything that is already present in other more general books.
If each book were better, and actually gave examples of very radical creative techniques and not just the standard fair, it would be a worthwhile investment for anyone that has been shooting longer than a year in any particular area; unfortunately, that isn't the case.
The book is anemic in a lot of ways: An example would be how short each section in this book are, when it comes to various things. Night time HDR deserves more than one or two pages, surely. Light painting does too. There is a lot of information missing entirely.
The guy is a poor writer, for the most part; the structure of the book is weak. The greater sin is that he isn't a good teacher, though.
I feel like this guy, along with a lot of other photographic "teachers," "gurus," and authors just build up a massive amount of photos over the years and in an effort to monetize their back catalog, put out a book using the images they have laying around that don't sell.
So, as other reviewers point out, the problem with this book is that the examples aren't even that great. There are perhaps 10 photos in the book that I would consider stellar, but the bulk aren't even photos that I would publish on a professional level. A lot of the photos suffer heavy noise, purple fringing, off color casts, improper white balance, chromatic issues, etc.
I'm a night photographer of only a few years experience and my images consistently turn out better than those featured in this book.
Part of the problem with his photos is that he doesn't follow what I think is the two golden rules of night photography:
1.) Patience, and
2.) Re-shoot until perfect. Making changes and re-shooting in an iteration-to-perfection plan is the secret to good, and even great night photography. Above all other things, this will make great images happen.
And: As an editorial process, part of the work is to only let your best work out the door, right?
Part of me wonders if this book weren't a by-product of publisher pressure or the beg of a needed paycheck. Who knows.
I also suspect that some of the reviews of this book may be planted by the publisher. In revisiting this review, I checked GoodReads for the reviews of this book, and the average reviews were 3/5 there. The criticisms are harsher in greater volumes on that site. Something I've noticed in the past is that publishers tend to only pay for reviews to be planted on purchase sites, and not generally on third-party sites.
What I wanted when I purchased this book, was a book that was entirely about night photography, was very detailed when it came to the subject and would teach me a lot that I didn't already know from my general photographic experience and understanding, what I'd read from blogs, other books, and learned from other shooters. I will plainly say that I did not get anything I wanted from this book.
The bottom line is that this guy isn't a night photographer, and night photography is a special art. The nuance of it requires a lot of explanation that isn't present int his book.
I also bought "Creative Portraits" and I also feel it is sub-par.
On this review, the author himself has posted a reply to my review wherein he offered to buy back the book and cover shipping. I don't even know how to feel about this offer. On the one-hand, I'd love to take advantage of this to get my money back. On the other hand, it almost feels like he is attempting to buy his way out of bad reviews.
Recommendations on photographic education:
Basic Photography: Understanding Exposure, 3rd Edition
Furthered Basic Photography: Understanding Shutter Speed:
Night Photography: Night Photography: Finding your way in the dark
Night Photography: Finding your way in the dark, by Lance Keimig is by far the best book on the subject of Night Photography I've read.
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