Night Photography Class

A discussion about shooting in the morning may seem out of place on a site about night photography. However, you can capture photos in the pre-dawn light that look like they were taken in the evening. The “blue hour” does exist in the early morning but it tends to be shorter than its evening counterpart. The quality of light is also a bit different. Early morning light is “cooler” than it is in the evening. The difference is often subtle but it can provide you with something different to work with.

Shooting in the early morning isn’t any different than shooting at night. The same rules and techniques that apply to night work can be applied to morning work. The best time to shoot is at first light but you need to be quick because it doesn’t take long for too much light to enter the sky.

Even if you’re not a morning person, if often pays to get out early because photographic opportunities exist in the morning that aren’t always available at night. Sometimes the early bird gets the photographic worm.

Often, the best photographic opportunities are the ones you happen upon by chance. I was heading to a meeting early one morning when the lights of this power plant caught my eye. Although it was morning, the dense fog made it look more like night and created this “light bubble” around the plant. This is a 6 second exposure at f/4 and ISO 100.

Here’s another example of an early morning shot. The “fog” is actually dust created by this a crushing plant. During the day this plant isn’t very pretty but on this particular morning it appeared magical and mysterious. This is a 1.6 second exposure at f/6.3 and ISO 100.

Written by Andy on October 18, 2009 under Shooting in the Morning.

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