Shanghai

A night-time view of a small part of Shanghai's skyline. The city has quite a lot of smog, which leads to all of the light bleeding from the various signs and other lights, with light pollution much higher than what I'm used to. If memory serves correctly, this was taken about a year ago from a balcony at this building.

Fire

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

~ Robert Frost

Stockholm at midnight

This is as dark as it gets in Stockholm, Sweden, in the beginning of July. The photo was taken around midnight, perhaps half an hour past. This is towards the old town. The light is just crazy - it has much more color than our eyes can see. As it gets darker, our eyes tend to see less and less color, essentially sacrificing color rendition for (still poor) night vision. Cameras don't do this, which is why photos taken at night tend to be more colorful then we expect.

Moonlight Rainbow

Yes, it's noisy and yes it's quite a bad one, but the rainbow in the moonlight yesterday was magnificent. I never saw the clouds so thin and transparent! The noise gives it a little more "nebula" look :) And with some imagination it actually looks like a photo of some galaxy.

Cracks in the dark

The view from Šmarna Gora. This one is from the times when I used to walk up there alone in late hours. Scary some times, especialy in windy days :)

Watch tower

A lonely watchtower, trying in vain to keep the night away.

We already have a few different photos of Ljubljana's castle on this blog, but then, it is quite photogenic. Here are three examples: click click click. On this one here, I really like the bright clock face and the dark purple of the sky. I had already written the line above as part of this comment, but I liked it so much, I decided it needed space of its own.

Time is the master

A Clock shop in Rome, taken at night while passing the streets. Taken at f2.0, that's why the sharpness is not the prime quality of the picture and vignetting is also visible. Actually it looks cool at this dark clock photo.

The brightest star and the comet

Actually the brightest star is the moon and the comet is a plane, but a nice one anyway I think.

Midnight fastfood

A hamburger stand in Ljubljana, which (as far as I know) only works during the summer. Taken sometime late at night. Notice how many photos here are taken early in the morning and how many late at night? Yes, Žiga and I are both night-people, not morning-people. A bit like Batman :)

Elegance

Another storefront window, late at night.

Dark streets

Ljubljana is a beautiful city which we usually take for granted. The streets above are part of the old town of Ljubljana, I just love the old buildings (most of which have been renovated and look very nice indeed). I caught these two walking what I presume to be home sometime late at night - nothing more than nameless silhouettes.

Ford Mustang

For some reason I can't quite fathom, our post with the Chevy Nova SS is one of our most popular posts (at least with regards to Google hits). Well, I've recently started seeing another classic muscle car in Ljubljana, this beautiful Ford Mustang Coupe (hardtop). It is a first-generation Mustang, though I don't know from which year. According to Wikipedia, the lights would suggest it's from at least 1969, but the placing of the emblem in the center of the grill, the square mirrors and the emblem on the sides would lead one to believe it is from 1966 (possibly also 1967 or 1968). I took the photo at night with my camera on a tripod.

Flowers in the window

I took this just a few hours ago, during a walk around Ljubljana's center. It was already dark, but I got a couple of nice shots. These plants (I've no clue what kind they are) were in the window sill of a flower shop, very nicely illuminated.

Smaug?

One of the dragons on Ljubljana's Dragon bridge. Not Smaug (the dragon from Tolkien's book The Hobbit), but one of the typical Ljubljana dragons.

Unrelated, but I'm in Costa de Caparica, just south of Lisbon, Portugal. I'm at a friends house having some beer - we'll be going to the beach later.

Darkness falls

Late evening, sometime last summer, a crescent moon over Ljubljana's Castle. Those dots below the castle are lights put up around the castle hill.

Smooth as silk

Taken late one evening at the small plateau of Rakitna, to the south of Ljubljana.

Parlament photographer

Photography at night is usually more about trial and error than about light meters and such. Usually, the best way to go about it is to take a few test shots (with a digital camera) and find settings that are as close as possible to what you want to achieve. This was taken from a tripod in front of the Slovenian Parlament, that's Žiga on the left trying to sit still for the few seconds which I needed for this shot. Taken with one of my old Konicas with black and white film.

The Boxer

In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains

This is Žiga. Yes, both of them are Žiga, and again, no Photoshop. This is done with two flashes, much like the photo directly below or this photo from a while ago. The lyrics above just fit the photo, you can figure out the song on your own :-) Oh, and the photo was taken on Rožnik, the hill above Ljubljana's Tivoli park (on a completely unrelated note - I can't believe Wikipedia has a page on Rožnik).

A work in progress

Ljubljana's castle is probably its most known landmark. But, as we've already shown in one photograph, it's undergoing reconstruction. This shot was taken from my sister's apartment, which is in the very center of town, with my old Konica. As with most of my night photos, I used film and a sturdy tripod. The sky behind the castle is as bright as it is because of light polution, the magenta colour of the castle is from floodlights which light it up every night. They are actually never magenta, but change colours - in this case, the camera caught both red and blue and put them together :-)

Pollution is beautiful

The picture speaks for itself, I really like the colourful dirty buildings in the night, especially at longer exposures, when the smoke becomes so flat and blurry. The photograph was taken with a compact Canon G9, which has a problem, that the shutter can only stay open for 15 seconds. But I still like this picture of Belinka factory.