Night

The thing about night photography is the absence. The missing light, the missing warmth, the missing clarity. The thing about night photography is the presence. The shadows, the contrast, the deep wells of black and the sharp stabs of neon. It’s the streetlight slashing a face in half. It’s the glow of a phone lighting up fingers like ghostly bones. It’s quiet, or it’s roaring, but it is always, always dramatic.

I am drawn to it. Often, it is the only thing available. The good daylight is stolen by the working hours, chewed up by meetings, emails, the necessities of wage and survival. By the time I am free, the sun is gone. So what’s left? 10 p.m., 11 p.m.—what can you photograph at that time?

You learn to make do. You learn to see. You take what is given: the shine of a wet pavement under a yellow lamp, the way a bus stop holds people like actors waiting for their cue, the brief flicker of an ambulance, a party spilling onto the sidewalk. It is there, if you are willing to look.

There is, of course, the technical side. The high ISO, the noise. The struggle of trying to balance a deep enough depth of field while keeping the image sharp, crisp, contrasty. The Ricoh GR, my beloved Ricoh, fails me here. It stinks in low light. It is beautiful in the day, but at night, it falls apart. The high ISO turns to mush, the details smudge, the files refuse to clean up even with modern noise reduction. Leica files, Canon files, even Fuji files—those, I can salvage. But the Ricoh? No. So, what then?

A fast lens, a wide aperture. Maybe a Fuji X100 with its built-in flash. Maybe a Leica with a 35mm f/1.4. Maybe a Canon with a 24mm to let in every bit of light I can grab. Maybe a flash—harsh, direct, like a punch to the face. The New York street shooters knew. The Tokyo photographers knew. Flash freezes a moment like glass breaking in the dark.

But is that the right approach? Or should I lean into the slowness, let the light bleed and stretch? A tripod? A long exposure? There is no single answer. Night is mercurial. Some nights you want the grit and the slap of direct light. Some nights you want the smear of headlights and the long hush of a street at rest.

And then there’s the question of place. Night photography is often associated with cities that shine—Tokyo, New York, Soho’s neon reflections in puddles. But what about here? What about the coast, where the night is black and the lights are few? How do you photograph the absence, the stillness, the kind of quiet that hums beneath the wind?

And what about indoors? A different kind of night photography, staged, considered. A photographer friend of mine showed me a new series he’s working on—someone reading the Daily Express, a table with an ashtray, the lighting just so. A planned scene, deliberate storytelling. It isn’t just about the streets. It’s about understanding that night is a world of its own, whether it’s outside or in.

I am drawn to it. I return to it. I finish at the gym late, camera in my bag, walking home with my eyes tuned to the dark. The limitations force a kind of clarity. There is less to work with, so you work with it better. A face caught in the headlights of a passing car. A lone figure outside a shop. A moment, gone before you have time to second-guess it.

Night first. The city, the coast, the rooms and streets, the people, the spaces. All of it. Always looking. Always chasing the light.