Night Photography

A few weeks ago I posted about the application I made with the flickr API. This has now evolved into an entire new website, I suppose you could say I’m going in the direction of FD’s flickr tools. I’m not copying it, or trying to compete by any means! I am simply just using it as a way of learning and maybe earning a little bit to contribute to its running.

So far the site still only contains the the tool that allows you to search for free-to-use images on flickr. I am in the process of creating the second tool, which I might add is going to pretty much kick ass. Seeing as you read this far:

Flickr Tools & Toys

Possibly one of the best places I have ever been to for Night Photography has to be Fort Southwick, and I hope that we can go back there. This site visit was kindly set up as a group visit for the Portsmouth At Night group by one of the members. We had the whole underground section to our selves and we were given hours to explore the place! Amazing.

What makes Fort Southwick such an amazing place for Night Photography (or any photography come to think of it) is everything in the underground tunnels has been left un-touched since the second world war, this allows for some nice retro style photos!

Despite my lack of colored gels that night I did manage to get some usable images.

These were found in the kitchen area.

Down one of the longest tunnels we found, the area behind where this one was taken was used as a film set. Some of the film set still remains, one of these being a mounting point for a noose.

The central stair well, the majority of the tunnels meet at this spiral stair case.

More Fort Southwick photos can be seen in the flickr set.

Sadly, planning permission has been granted to renovate parts of the fort into modern accommodation or office space, this could mean some of the original elements of the Fort could soon be destroyed. I am glad we got in there when we did, and hope to do so again before anything is done to the Fort.

More information about Fort Southwick:

• Subterranea Britannica - Fort Southwick
• Portsdown Tunnels
• Wikipedia page about Fort Southwick

I don’t often do light painting in the form of light trails, I’m usually more into the colored flashgun technique. The reason for me doing these photos was actually because of a small incident involving a friends car being stuck in some stones. A long story which I really don’t want to bore you with here.

I’m going to do some more light writing and drawing in the future as I think you can be far more creative with a set of colored LEDs than you can with a flash gun and some gels(Well, maybe sometimes… not always!).

This took two people to create as to get the sky exposed perfectly and balanced with the car needed a short exposure! (This was taken at dusk)

This is meant to be fire, the smoke was created by me moving slowly in the background. It worked.. sort of!

This one speaks for its self really. I based it on this sort of thing.

More light painting / drawing can be seen in the flickr set.

Yes, this is another site I have visited twice. Much like the m275 underpass. And you know what? I am still to complete my exploration of this place, I know there is much more to see and hope to return there this summer.

This visit was quite successful and I feel the shots were well worth all the effort of gaining access to the site! Rather than mainly focusing on the amphibious vehicles like last time we decided to head over the the other side which appears to be still used to some extent. The real problem we came across on this side of the site was the large amount of lighting that the other side does not have. Not the most ideal environment for night photography!

Due to the fact this area of the site is very exposed to the road and the lighting situation explained previously it was very difficult to work with my usual auxiliary lighting so I had to just use the available light, which actually turned out in my favor. Here is a selection of images from the evening:

Obviously this shot has been modified quite extensively, it is actually made up from two separate shots. I did this because the sports center in the background has floodlights that were causing flare so I had to underexpose those.

I’m not usually into cropping photos outside of the aspect ratio my camera gives but I think it really works for this shot!

Much more from the evening can be seen in my flickr set.

First of all, this is second post about this place. I went back again with a Portsmouth At Night flickr group as last time it was just me and a friend. If you are interested in getting involved with the group introduce your self at the link above.

I actually visited this underpass again back in January. I have posted about visits after this date as they were too awesome to leave until after I had done these. I really need to get into the habit of getting these entries done soon after visiting sites. Of late I’ve been visiting a lot of sites and not really getting many great shots but hopefully this will change in the summer months with the weather getting warmer. It would help if all of my equipment functioned correctly, but I will tell you all about that in another blog post.

This visit was mainly focussed on playing with flash guns, gels and cool shadows that the structure could create. I took it a bit further by introducing a strange angle which plays with your mind a bit in a few shots. Here is my favorite shot of the evening:

The rest of the images in the set can be seen here.