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Last night I had an opportunity to shoot after dark at the Preston Castle, in Ione, CA.This building was formerly a reform school, and operated from 1894 until 1960. The building is now in a state of disrepair, but it is fortunately being slowed refurbished by a group of dedicated volunteers.

As a night photographer, the thrill of photographing a location like Preston Castle comes from both the chance to photograph a stunning, historical location, but also to be able to photograph it before it undergoes a major renovation. It is currently not open to the public. But the Preston Castle Foundation is working hard to raise enough money to make it safe for public tours.

Four of my shots can be seen here.

Many photographers, especially night photographers, feel they are unfairly harassed by security guards when trying to photograph "public" locations. This happened to Thomas Hawk last week while trying to photograph an office building in San Francisco while standing on a public sidewalk.  His supporters rallied to his aid and organized a flash mob to gather as many photographers as possible to show up at One Bush St yesterday, and all begin photographing the building at the same time.

Sadly, living forty miles away from San Francisco, I was not able to attend. But I support him in spirit.

If you enjoyed Brooks Jensen's article arguing against limited edition photographs, then you should really enjoy these two: "How the Gallery System is Failing Photography" and "An Alternative to the Gallery System"

Brooks Jensen, the editor of LensWork magazine, has a fascinating opinion of the art market for photography. In this article he makes a compelling argument against trying to sell your photographs in limited editions.

Rolfe Horn is an established b/w night photographer from northern California. He has some new work on-line, including this great midnight image of Anchor Bay, CA:

Although this is not directly related to night photography, Worksongs has many great photographs of urban archeology. Most of the abandoned buildings are from Buffalo, Niagra and Toronto.  The guy has a pretty good eye for photography, too.

KQED radio had an interview with Eric Maisel, an "artistic coach" who discussed some of his techniques to help reluctant artists carve out time in the lives to work on their art, and how artists can motivate themselves to produce better art. Although it may sound a bit hokey, he actually had some interesting things to say. You can listen to the entire interview via streaming audio at the KQED website.

Photo-Eye has a gallery of photographs from an amazing Bulgarian photographer named Pentti Sammallahti. You may never want to visit Russia the winter after seeing his work, but you can't help be touched by the dreariness and coldness of his images.

Recently, Susanne Friedrich, a night photographer from San Francisco, got me interested in reading photographers' blogs. Today, one of the blogs that she recommended (or one that she recommended lead to this one, I can't remember), had a great story about the the release party of a new book called "Looking at Los Angeles". Apparently, the panel featured book editor and actor, Ben Stiller, and 94 year-old architectural photography legend Julius Schulman. When it came Julius' turn to speak, the first words out of his mouth were, "This book is crap." Next, things got really interesting...

But I won't spoil it for you.  Read the whole eye-witness account by Celia.

One of the few photography websites that I check every day is Micheal Reichmann's Luminous Landscape.  One of the LL's regular contributors is Mike Johnston, former editor-in-chief of Photo Techniques magazine. A few years ago he published a list of books that he calls Readings for the Practicing Photographer. I've already read two of the books from his list ("Zen and the Art of Archery" and "On Being a Photographer"). This week I began reading "Art and Fear". It's a very easy read. And, as soon as I'm done reading it, I'm going to go back and read it again. I highly recommend it (and the other two books) for anyone who feels as though they know how to take photographs, but are beginning to ponder why they should be taking photographs, and what they should be photographing.

Although not related to night photography, I really enjoy reading Charles Benton's site on Kite Aerial Photography. Night photography may seem strange to some people, but this guy hangs his camera from a kite, and takes low-altitude aerial photographs by remote control. Now, that's strange. As a night photographer, I wish I could get access to some of the locations that he's able to fly over, especially Altamont Pass

Last night I made my third night trip out to Alameda Point, the former Alameda Naval Air Station. The sodium vapor light out there is overwhelming, and the place really lends itself well to shooting black-and-white.  It's amazing how much great military-style architecture is out there. And it's very accessible (you can't go inside the buildings), and so far it seems relatively safe.

The city of Alameda has big plans for this location. So it's important to get as many photographers out there to document it before the renovation begins. When I look back at how my nearby-home town of San Jose has undergone redevelopment in the past twenty years, I only wish I had taken more time to photograph it back then when I had the chance.

Last month I ordered some B/W digital prints from a new printing service called Mpix.  Although I've used, tested, and written about the "Big Three" (Ofoto, Shutteryfly, Snapfish) in the past, I was interested in Mpix because they offer true B/W printing (no color cast) on a true B/W paper.  I was very pleased with the results (for $0.29 per print). Today, I decided to try their color printing service.

Maybe Mpix is suffering from their new-found popularity because their website was unbelievably slow. I literally spent a total of three and one-half hours selecting quantities and cropping images through their website. And if the two-to-three minute response time wasn't bad enough, the ordering website is so confusing that it's very difficult to figure out how to back up and change the quantity or cropping of an image that's already in your shopping cart.

So, Mpix gets bad marks for their website design and website response time. Let's see if they address this problem in the near future. If these color prints from Mpix turn out to be really nice, then I've got a real dilemma: do I suffer their painful website in order to get better prints???

Like many other photographers, I'm looking for an effective method to scan in many of my old negatives (35mm and 120) and transparencies (35mm). So far, I've only found two sets of commercial alternatives. 

First, is the economical approach. Many local photography stores will scan 35mm negatives and slides for $1.99 each.  I've tried a few local outfits, and so far I've only found one store that produces acceptable results: Keeble & Schuccat in Palo Alto. Today I picked up some 4"x6" prints made from some scans that they did from a B/W 35mm negative and two 35mm color slides.  The print of the B/W negative was extremely good, especially for $1.99! I'm sending that scanned file off to Mpix for a 12"x18" enlargement to see how good it really is.  The prints from the color slides were better than any of the other local stores that I had tried, but it's hard to tell how good they were because one of them was shot on Kodak T160 film (which is very grainy), and the other one was a very difficult print to scan/print in the first place. So, the jury is still out on the $1.99 scan of a color slide.

The second approach is to pay big bucks (min $30) and go with a drum scan.  I've decided to try this for the above photograph from Manahattan, MT.  I'll let you know what happens.

What I really need someone in the Bay Area (that's Northern California) who can offer high-quality scans for about $10. I'd expect better quality than a $1.99 scan, but I wouldn't expect it to be as good as a drum scan. Can anyone help?

Last weekend I began experimenting taking long exposures (1-2 minutes) during the daylight with a 13-stop neutral density filter.  I figured that if I could create the same effect as shooting without a filter under a full moon, I could free up some of my precious night-shooting time to shoot subjects that are only available at night.

I started on Saturday at the Nocturne-infamous Sutro Baths in San Francisco, and on Sunday I continued at the Sunnyvale Baylands Park closer to home. I found something very interesting...

It seems that with my particular camera, the Canon EOS D60, exposing for one-minute through a neutral density filter leads to a loss of contrast of about 1/2 of an f-stop (i.e., a 4-1/2 stop daylight scene is rendered through the ND filter in 4 stops).  That might have given Ansel Adams a shock, but I can live with it. When I re-expanded the contrast range in PhotoShop, it looked pretty good. But, when I stopped down and exposed for two minutes through the ND filter, the images came out so muddy they were unsalvageable in PhotoShop.  I've contacted a few Canon D60 and Nikon D100 users, and I believe they're seeing a similar problem (although the D100 examples that I saw were only taken up to 30-seconds, but they appeared to show some contrast compression).

If anyone knows anything about this phenomenon, please let me know.

This past year has been lousy for full-moon photograph in Northern California.  Most of the full moon weekends have had lousy weather.  The one exception was in April, when the weatherMun predicted rain. At the last minute, the clouds cleared, and it as a beautiful full moon. But by then we had cancelled all of our plans for shooting, and it was too late to reorganize everyone at the last minute.

Last Saturday was a welcome exception. Not only was it clear skies and balmy temperatures, but it was even clear at the ocean, which is unusual this time of year in Northern California. A group of us met at a new location, Muir Beach, about twenty miles north of San Francisco in Marin County. The beach turned out to be beautiful for night photography. But, unfortunately, as soon as it got dark a ranger came through and warned us that the parking lot, and the beach, were closing. He chased us, and about twenty or thirty other beach-goers, off the beach and told us that there was a $150 fine for being on the beach after dark.

Sadly, this is the state of The State. From a night photography point of view, California beaches on city property and federal land still seem to be accessible 24/7. County beaches have always been the worst for access after dark (although it's easy to sneak in, if you want to take the risk), and state beaches are becoming just as bad.

If anyone has any experience with nighttime beach access outside of California, please email me.

A few weeks ago I received some digital black-and-white prints that I had ordered from Mpix (www.mpix.com). Mpix is an on-line printing service, similar to Shutterfly, Ofoto and Snapfish. One of Mpix's claims to fame is that they offer a special printing paper for black-and-white prints.  Although you can't combine an order of black-and-white prints with an order of color prints (you can, however, order them separately), this is a very nice, inexpensive service for black-and-white photographers. Another advantage of Mpix is that they package your prints much better than Ofoto, Shutterfly and Snapfish. The prints are packaged in glassine envelopes (instead of glossy paper), and then entire order is shipped in a solid cardboard box for $5 (including shipping).

I have not tried their color printing service, yet.  But I'm looking forward to trying it, soon.

Night photography is one of those things that every photographer tries once or twice. Consequently, many new night photography websites appear each month. But only a few photographers jump over to the dark side and really focus their life's work on night photography. And most of those new websites never get updated after their first release, and we never hear from those photographers again. But once in a while a real gem of night photographs bubbles up to the top of the internet.

Today, Mike Quinn, a night photographer from San Francisco, told me about the website of Diane Cook and Len Jenshel. Diane and Len have done some really beautiful work photographing exotic gardens at night.  Definitely worth a look!

Ofoto, Shutterfly & Snapfish

Although most of my photography is digital, I do not own a color printer. At this point in my life, I have no interest in getting one, either. I'd rather leave the printing to the experts. The problem is trying to find an expert. I've probably sent a few thousand 4"x6" photographs to each of Ofoto and Shutterfly. Recently, I've also tried Snapfish. This week I recently learned about a new company called Mpix. They claim to print b/w digital images on special b/w paper, which is something that neither Ofoto, Shutterfly nor Snapfish (from now on referred to as "O.S.S.") do not do.

I've published my opinions of O.S.S, and I explain why I think Snapfish is the best of the three. In the next few weeks, I'll add my opinion of Mpix.com after I get some sample prints back from them.

By the way, I only use O.S.S. (soon to be O.S.S.M... or maybe I'll call them M.O.S.S.) for 4"x6" proofs. I use Pictopia for enlargements, and I'm very happy with them. They do great work, their machines are color profiled (you can download their ICC profiles from their website), and their prices are very reasonable.

Point Alameda (formerly the Alameda Naval Air Station).

Two years ago, I had dinner with some friends in Alameda, CA. They knew I was interested in night photography so, after dinner, they drove me through Point Alameda, formerly the Alameda Naval Air Station. A few years ago the Navy decommissioned the air base and turned the land over to the city of Alameda. Although it retains most of the charm that you would expect from a decommissioned Naval air station, it is open to the public. Surprisingly, it seems relatively safe and crime-free. Even though the public is allowed to come and go as they please, there are no midnight drag racers, drug dealers or gangs hanging out there. In fact, the former movie theater, gymnasium and one of the warehouses have been converted to commercial businesses. You can walk right up to the USS Hornet aircraft carrier, which is docked along with half a dozen large cargo ships. There's unlimited parking and even regular bus service through the base.

Although it has great military charm, it seems to lack the creepiness that most night photographers hope for. Although there are some great views of San Francisco and the Bay Bridge, the water is disappointingly as smooth as mirror. Still, it's a great photo resource that most photographers (and most people in the Bay Area) have not taken advantage of.

To get there from San Francisco, take 880 South into Oakland. Take the Union St exit; turn right onto 7th St; then right into the Webster St Tube. When you come out of the tunnel, stay to the right and follow Webster St to the first traffic light (Atlantic Ave). There's a Starbuck's in the little shopping center to the left of the intersection. Otherwise, turn right onto Atlantic Ave (now called Ralph Appezzato Parkway), and follow it all the way to one of the entrances to Point Alameda. Instead of passing through the entrance at Atlantic and Main, you can also turn right on Main St and follow it up to the north entrance to base. On the way you'll pass some spectacular views of the Port of Oakland on your right.

I've always thought that blogs were meant for celebrities and teen-age web surfers.  But, once again, I'm mad at the Bay Area weather people for making us cancel our monthly night photography trip. They were wrong (again). The skies were beautiful last night, and the full moon was perfectly clear. This seems like as good a place as any to vent on them.

I also get a lot of emails from people who visit my site and ask about particular locations where I've been shooting. I thought a blog would be a good place to maintain descriptions of these locations and refer people with questions.

So, here goes the story about the weather people.  I typically plan a night photography trip with a few other local night photographers at least once a month, usually close to the full moon. If the weather report calls for rain, we cancel the trip. At least once a year the weather reports predict rain, we cancel the trip, and it turns out that it doesn't rain, there are no clouds, and the full moon is crystal clear. This happened again last night.  I was planning on shooting in a new location in Marin, a few miles north of San Francisco. I was really looking forward to this trip because I missed the March full moon because I was out of town, and it rained during both of the February trips to Yerba Buena Gardens (San Francisco) and Point Alameda (Alameda). The weather reports yesterday called for "showers" all weekend. By 5pm on Saturday, the clouds began to clear and I knew that canceling our  trip had been a mistake. I stayed home and watched Sam Peckenham's 1969 western "The Wild Bunch". When the movie was over, I stepped outside at 10pm and saw my back yard lit up by clear moonlight. Every time this happens I swore I'd never cancel another night photography trip due to a weather report.  And every time they predict rain, I give them one more chance to prove themselves right, and to ruin another night shooting opportunity.

Andy Frazer's Blog