What makes a great nightime street picture?

As the darker evenings begin to draw-in, our thoughts should be turning towards what we can do with our street photography once the sun's gone down. Autumn and winter, with their darker evenings, are some of my favourite times of year for street photography. Times in which we don't have to think so much about the weather or rely on the sun shining to deliver us some good regular light. The trusty street lights will be switching on much earlier over the next few weeks and we can look forward to plenty of creative hours on the streets beneath them, looking for pictures.

But what are we looking for when we venture out into the urban environment with our cameras at night? What kinds of pictures do we want to be taking and how can we find the pictures we are looking for?

A word about gear. Travel light is my recommendation and use a simple set-up. A small camera with a fast, prime lens is the go-to option for me, I use either the Fuji XF27mm with my XT30 or the Panasonic 20mm pancake with my old Olympus EM5. Perhaps combining whatever your choice of prime lens is, with a small zoom, is also a good option.

I tend to shoot in aperture-priority mode, just as I do during the daytime. I generally meter for the brightest part of the scene and pre-focus on a specific area once I've settled on my composition and framing. This way, all I'm left with is the task of waiting for the right moment to arrive to hit the shutter. You may find that manual focusing is easier when shooting at night as some lenses will struggle to latch onto something in the low light conditions.

My only other significant advice is to wear some good rain protection and wrap up well! If you’re anything like me, you’ll probably be out and about for an extended period and will lose all concept of time.

Silhouettes
Photographing at night means that your pictures will be different from those you shoot during the day for many reasons, but the two main ones are the quality of the available light and the amount of detail you can capture as a result. Including people in your shots is made that much more difficult. Therefore, a great place to start is with silhouettes as they are one of the easiest ways to photograph the human form at night.

Shooting them against a well lit background is the way to go and capturing them in as animated a pose as you can well help to add interest to the picture. I like the abstract feel that you get from shooting silhouettes at night. Metering for the brightest part of the background, or the area behind your subject, will result in an underexposure of the shadow areas in the rest of the scene.

This will force these parts to appear darker in the image, ensuring that your main subject will be solid enough to form an effective silhouette. Setting your camera’s shutter to continuous mode will reduce the chances of you missing the shot and it will greatly increase the odds of you capturing a moving subject in an interesting or more dynamic pose.

Ambience
Night photography is all about the ambience and finding the right mood in which to capture your images. Some of the best places to look are off the beaten track, away from the hustle and bustle of the main streets and pedestrian areas. Passages, alleyways and backstreets should be on everyone’s list of regular hunting grounds for pictures that have a certain element of mystery to them.

It’s in these more obscure locations that you are likely to find lighting situations that can be used far more creatively, as the ratio between the dark and light areas is more subtle and the light more characterful than that found in better lit places.

Negative space, the use of large areas of empty space in an image, can also have a dramatic effect when composing for this kind of scene. When framing, consider how you might be able to exploit this kind of space which can be very effective in drawing attention to your main subject.

People
For many photographers, taking pictures of people in the street can prove quite difficult and they will shy away from it as the fear of potential confrontation will be too much for them. It does take a certain amount of courage and application to take someone’s picture without their consent. Approaching the problem at night is perhaps one way of building confidence whilst learning how to work around the issue.

As with shooting during the daytime, it still pays to be as discreet as you can when moving around with your camera. Keeping it as concealed when not actually using it, is always a good idea, this way you are not immediately attracting attention to yourself.

If you have identified a potential target and you are going for the candid approach, the first thing to think about is how you can get into a good position without drawing any attention to yourself. Look for objects you can stand behind or things that might help to obscure your presence just long enough for you to frame and shoot. Often, your subject will be distracted enough to not notice you and if you are quick enough you may be able to simply point and shoot to grab the frame.

However, if you want them to feature in a more natural way, then catching them as they go about their business will likely yield better results. Each situation is different and you must decide on the spot how you most want to play it.

The available light will determine the mood you are likely to get from a scene and suggest the kind of shot that might be most successful. As well as using a main light source for illumination, think about how you might be able to use the ambient or reflective light to highlight someone as they walk near or underneath it. With careful timing you might be able to capture a person as they are suddenly revealed within a space as a result of the light catching them as they walk through it.

By watching how the light affects people’s appearance at night and exploring how the light can be used creatively to capture them, will lead to street pictures that really stand out.

Thanks for reading!

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