Outdoor Photography How To

Whether you’re shooting landscapes, street photos, or cityscapes, something magical happens when the sun dips below the horizon. Colorful lights abound, and less appealing components of a scene tend to fade into obscurity.

In this eye-opening tutorial, you’ll find several simple tips for shooting at night—both indoors and out. These techniques will help you capture great images of a variety of scenes, including silhouettes on wet streets, wildlife in your backyard, a family member asleep, starlit skies, and more.

Award-winning photographer and instructor Mike Browne offers a bunch of tips that are easy to emulate, and after watching the video below you’ll no longer stow your gear at night. He explains that this episode isn’t about sunrises or sunsets, but rather simple techniques for solving the challenges that result once light drains from the sky.

Browne demonstrates how to render beautiful qualities of light, compose dark scenes properly, and convincingly capture the theme of nighttime photography. As you’ll see, many scenes that appear boring during the day having a completely different mood after dark, and Browne begins the tutorial with some helpful framing techniques.

Another thing to look for is contrasting white balance tones, like warm window light emanating from a dim building against a dark sky at blue hour. Nighttime is also a great time to experiment with slow shutter speeds to convey a sense of movement while photographing passing cars, or, in Browne’s example, colorfully clad dancers on the street.

Browne demonstrates how you can often shoot hand-held, rather than using a tripod if you use a bit of ingenuity. One of his favorite nighttime subjects is architecture, and he explains his techniques for capturing great shots. There’s a lot more to see and learn in this 12-minute video, so take a look and give these tips a try.

You can find more great instructional videos on Browne’s YouTube channel, so be sure and take a look.