Shooting night shots anywhere is always a challenge and lots of fun, and shooting where bright streetlights are present can present even bigger challenges. Perhaps this is why it appeals to me. I also happen to like the contrast of the black night with the bright white lights and all of the subtle shades of grey that fall in between these extremes. I love the effect this creates in black-and-white images.

When shooting night scenes, you will need a sturdy tripod. The shutter speeds that you will be using are rather slow and any movement will blur your image. Thus the importance of a solid tripod cannot be overemphasized.

If you are still shooting film, I’d suggest as a minimum that you use a film with an ISO rating of 400 or higher. If you are shooting digital, I’d suggest starting with your camera set at ISO 400. The nice thing about digital is that you can change the ISO setting from frame to frame.

Unfortunately, you are not able to do this with film. While there are ways to compensate, they are beyond the scope of this article (hint: Google “Zone System”).

I suggest taking your camera off the automatic setting, as it will try to give you an average exposure based on what it “thinks” it sees. Our eyes have a much wider contrast range than our camera and, as such, we have to tell the camera what to see. Here is where having a digital SLR camera can be a real benefit. With digital, you can experiment and check your work and see if you are getting what you want and then make adjustments accordingly.

What do you shoot at night? Lots of stuff. Illuminated buildings are always popular. Pack Square Park has a lot of potential. Shooting the park’s fountain as it cycles through its program is also fun.

Look at the lights and look for patterns that interact with the various water jets. Zoom in and isolate interesting areas. Zoom out and capture the grand scheme. Experiment with different exposures to try and stop the motion of the water, or adjust it so that the water has a more ethereal feel to it.

Look for interesting scenes. Remember that people moving through your scene will probably blur. Use this to your advantage and create scenes with ghost-like people walking through your pictures. Also, moving lights at night can be a very interesting subject. Just remember that you will need a small aperture and a long shutter speed and a tripod.

While I also use a film camera, all images presented here were shot with a digital camera. The photos were sized in adobe Photoshop Lightroom, then converted to black-and-white white using NIK software SilverEfx Pro.

John Newton is a retired civilian employee of the U.S. Coast Guard. You can see more of his work at fotographixs.com. He is a member of the f/32 Photography Group, an organization that meets the second Wednesday of each month at the Reuters Center on the UNCA campus at 6:30 p.m. The diverse individuals of Western North Carolina who are members of the group known as f/32 are young and old, professionals and amateurs. The common bond is a mutual love of photography and what it can show us about our world. Find out more at f32nc.com.