After Hours Photography
Just because the sun has gone down, does not mean that you have to put your camera down as well, in fact the night time is a great time to get some atmospheric self portraits...
Ahhh the night time, when all is quiet, all is still, aside from those lot falling out of the pub at 2am, sloshed on alcopops no doubt.
But when the night does settle down, its a great time to go out with your camera for some really unique looking self portraits.
Where I live, the town practically dies around midnight on a week day, though weekends are obviously much busier, in the week the only people you will encounter are those going to and from work, or those up to no good. Those up to no good tend to keep themselves to themselves for obvious reasons, though a word of caution here.
If you are going to head out, make sure you take someone with you, if that is not possible, then please, please be very careful when out and about at night.
Of course, there are also police, around at night also, and they can either be your friend or otherwise, so don't be a twerp, if they come over to you, just explain what your doing and maybe show them an image or two, hell, why not make them part of your image if you can?
The most important thing to do, above everything else, is to explore your home town after hours, because believe me, it looks a lot different than it does in daylight.
Of course street lighting will play a vital part in all of this, as well as light from brightly lit windows.
And don't fret if it is raining, because rain makes everything look better at night, it reflects light beautifully, creating these cool textures on streets and buildings which look even better when out of focus.
Talking of out of focus subjects, we must mention bokeh. Bokeh means the out of focus parts of an image, and at night, points of lights become pretty little bokeh balls when used as the back drop to portraits, those out of focus areas can really enhance a portrait, focusing attention to the subject while also providing eye candy elsewhere in the frame.
Again, and I cannot stress this enough, keep your wits about you, be aware of everything around you, those usually up to no good at night generally go about by pushbike, and you can hear these coming, so pay attention and be safe!
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