Night Photography and Pictures of the Moon Through a Telescope

I love taking night-shots. Some of the most memorable moments of my life have been under a clear and starry sky. One of the best was when I sat in the Sahara under a full moon, I was alone yet even in the silence, there was so much noise. Unfortunately the only photo I have of the area that is legible was in the daytime:

Ever since this moment, I've tried to recreate such a moment in my photography. I think that the best thing about night-shots is their deceit as due to long exposure times, the images that you get from a DSLR show a stillness that can rarely be found throughout the day. This stillness doesn't even exist at night. The moment I had in the Sahara was far from silent but it certainly could be described as tranquil... the camels and wild dogs could be heard for miles and even those talking in the communities twenty miles away could be heard through the silence of the desert.

I admire those that climb up mountains into the wilderness to capture this stillness throughout the day and from time to time I also try to do the same. The stars are so vast that they watch over all of this deafening silence... I'm not sure if it is a spiritual moment yet the connections between all life on the planet (the universe, infinity and beyond :) ) seem so much closer when you can hear it all from an image.

I have taken a number of photos that try and recreate this magic that you can see in my FlickR portfolio. Maybe it is because my day job is as a video editor that I find it so inspirational and also that I understand that there is always so much more to things that meets the eye. In a world where we are more used to quick editing and what could be described as imagery lies, I like to capture the same moments of natural chaos. Those of us that watch films and television, listen to the radio or consume any media may be wise to understand that good editors ensure you don't see those clumsy moments and micro-expressions that show our weaker characteristics. Media images come across so strong that when we hear such remarks as 'the camera never lies' we believe this to be true.

Finding a natural beauty and these moments of tranquility has changed my way of thinking. I used to think that the camera could lie and that edited media lied to me all of the time. In a way it does but my eagerness to travel has shown how very few people share the same ideologies or can they without an identical experience. Super HD, 3D, mainstream and independent are all the same when you accept that they are merely showing it from their eyes and their perspective regardless of the number of pixels or the size of the screen.

This sign on a mountainside in the North of Cyprus reads that,

"The scenery is the same at the top of the mountain; it does not matter whichever way you use to reach" 

- untrue and possibly written with other ideologies behind it as it is also written in Turkish but not Greek; a whole other story about occupation and war

The view is never the same at the top of the mountain and the only reason that I now agree that the camera never lies is actually because it lies all of the time just like the chaos of the universe and everything within it. I always attempt to edit my media in as true a way as possible but to understand truth is a philosophical argument that suggests I have no better description than the next person. There is a certain amount of self-preservation when I show my understanding of truth as a responsible media producer yet there are so many ways to understand it semantically. The mainstream media give us a popular truth, one that we can accept or argue with generally if we are in the minority or undernourished but then this opens debate about media power and it is in my opinion that this is nothing more than a marketing ploy. This is to say, that as an audience/consumer, we get given what we ask for and not the other way around. Logic suggests that if it was the other way around mainstream media wouldn't exist with the strength that it has today. If you are an inquisitive person seeking the level of truth - the karma in the chaos; I do not believe you will ever find your answer but you can possibly find it somewhere between what team A tell you and what team Z tell you. Because of this, when watching the news and before I edit something together, I try and find out both sides of the story - as much as I am told anyway.

I never expect to get any good photographs but appreciate it when people tell me that they like them because as a perfectionist, I'll never be entirely happy with anything that I produce. I can only find satisfaction that my level of perfectionism is greater than what is required in most circumstances for people to enjoy my images and the rest of my work. At the moment I have been considering the best way to watermark images and if it is actually necessary. I have been using a program called GraphicConverter which after making a PNG in photoshop actually seems to do a good job... also after I have investigated some of the other options suggested to me and tidied up the current watermark, I plan to write another blog about my findings (subscribe to this blog if you are interested).

As for the moon video, it was taken through a telescope in a valley in Almeria and not with a crazy telescopic lens. The camera was on tripod and there was very little light disturbance. Almeria is actually home to the Calar Alto Observatory and I expect this is because it is one of the best places to see the stars in the whole of Europe.

Calar Alto Observatory, Spain

The sky always looks further away and more vast the closer you get to the tropic of Cancer, the horizon seems much wider giving more of those moments of connected tranquility. When I visited the observatory I had to go through clouds on a mountain about 2000m high.

So all this talk just about some night photographs... all I hope is that they inspire you but I want you to know that the environment that these were taken in were far from still. You can see this from some of the images here. Further moon shots are on my Facebook page. This unedited photograph above shows what appears to be a daytime photograph but it was at night without and was without a nightvision camera. You can see another taken on the same evening on my FlickR as well; you will recognise the waterfall in the image that just goes to show that the environment could not possibly have been as silent as the surreal imagery suggests.

* The moon was so bright here that without putting it out of shot, it glared far too much in the haze despite other settings (and believe me I tried)

For more information on my work, please visit www.knightvisionsproductions.com