Tag: night photography

October 25th – Although it was lightly raining, it was warm, and with the wind behind me I took the back way back to Brownhills, down the Lichfield Road and up over Springhill at Barracks Lane. 

I had a play with long exposure shots at Sandhills, and was quite pleased with the result, but puzzled too, when I looked at the images on the computer. In both, a wavy, oscillating thin trace of light is present above the main vehicle trails, which are very straight. I thought about these thin, curling traces for almost an hour, then I worked them out. 

They’re the light trail created by the reflection of street lights off the car windscreen, hence the curve and double back as the car enters the dominance of another lighting column. It’s quite mathematical, and I think it could be modelled with fairly basic locus mathematics.

I could be wrong, though…

October 12th – It’s quite hard to take photos on such a rainy day. You find all the good pictures are facing the rainfall, and because the light is poor, you need long exposures, usually resulting in the lens gathering raindrops. I stopped on the Pier Street Bridge to check out the golden streetlight on the canal surface, and managed to keep the lens dry enough to capture the narrowboats in their moorings. Spinning round and interested in the combination of light, wet surface and steelwork, I didn’t realise I had gathered the raindrops. But they worked out quite well, really.

October 10th – Back in Walsall, I realised I was wrong; there is something awfully special about Walsall at night, too, but for deferent reasons. In Birmingham, It’s about the rush dying down, about the custom changing, about the shift from daytime economy to night time. In Walsall, it’s about empty, stone empty urban space. Places that in the daylight one doesn’t notice, or care about, but in the sodium light make a different, slightly threatening world.

October 10th – In Birmingham late, and the autumn has brought the night back, actually with some shock to me at the time. I emerged from a function to find the city at its very best; light, hard surfaces, wet paving and exaggerated perspective. I only had minutes until my train left, and grabbed quick shots around the Cathedral area. My train turned out to be late, so taking my life in my hands, I took some on the platforms of a darkened New Street Station, where a combination of ongoing construction and desertion make the environment fascinating.

I love playing with photography at night, and there’s no better place than at the city sliding into its own wonderful nocturne.

September 22nd – I cycled down the spot path in near darkness, and total solitude. As the path opened out near the bend, I realised how eerie this was, and decided to take a picture. I then found I wasn’t alone at all. Just as this long exposure ended, a large male fox wandered out of the scrub on the left, turned to look at me for the briefest of moments, then walked off over the meadow to the canal.

Clearly, even in the quiet dusk of a Clayhanger Common Sunday night, there is important fox business to be done, if only the humans would mind their own bloody business…

September 22nd – It’s not been a great weekend, really. I seem to have contracted a cold, which left me feeling hungover on Saturday and just plain horrid today. It was with a sinus-generated migraine that I finally got it together and headed out at dusk. I found the dark soothing, and it made the visual disturbance less apparent. It was very still, and the sunset was gorgeous. Any other weekend I’d have been over the hills and far away, but today, my energy was sapped just doing a small loop on the canal around Clayhanger.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be better.

September 11th – It was raining as I cycled home from Walsall, but for once, I didn’t mind. The wind was behind me, the air felt warm and the bike was moving easily. The events of the day were taking their toll and to my shame, I dismounted and pushed up the Black Cock Bridge. On the adjacent pedestrian bridge I liked the combination of rain, sodium light and metalwork.

The day was long, mentally I’d had a close call, but a weight was off my mind, and the promise of another day lightened my heart.

There’s tomorrow. There will always be a tomorrow.

July 20th – Out all day, and back home late I slipped out for a takeaway. Circling Brownhills in the dark, I had a play with the settings on the camera. Tilt-shift long exposure at night is an interesting effect – not sure it worked too well, but I think it bears further exploration.

In the summer, it’s a surprise to remember how dramatic even the most mundane bits of Brownhills can be at night.

June 20th – Out for a beer in Walsall with some very good pals, I found myself coming home in heavy, sweet, warm rain. The bike was fast and the roads slick, and I must confess I enjoyed the ride hugely. It was a great sensory experience – the dark, the sound, the smell of wet greenery, the sweep of passing traffic, the taste of fresh, clean rain on my tongue. Green Lane in Walsall Wood remains the only place I feel uneasy after dark, but the deer and badger I startled here were worth the journey alone, but also endearing were the frogs and snails, out enjoying the downpour on the pub patio as I unlocked my bike.

I’d swear that wee frog is grinning.

Bad weather isn’t all bad at all.

June 3rd – Escaping from a day of tedious paperwork, I broke out at sunset and tore around Brownhills, letting of steam. The air was still and clear, the light excellent, and the town just sunk slowly, and beutifully into evening.

People will tell you this place is ugly, that it is worthless and is a hole. It’s none of these things. It’s gorgeous at times, and it’s home. This evening, with the air coursing through my shirt and power in my legs, I couldn’t have been anywhere finer.