night scene in the digital era c 2007
Toronto. Today we take the amazing speed of our media – sensors – for granted, but for much of the pre-digital era, media was far too slow for night scenes unless a tripod was used, subjects were motionless (or followed a known path), or artificial lighting was used.
And in movies, aside from film noir titles (which always manage to be dark and gloomy) night scenes were always a challenge. The major problem was film speed. Many movies seemed to use daylight darkened by filter or aperture and fake lights etc. while avoiding bright skies to give the illusion of night.
Stills demanded tripods and some form of artificial lighting or a tripod and very long exposures. Your collection may well include night shots taken with great skill and patience on a media that was far too slow for such scenes if fast or unpredictable motion existed. In fact street scenes in the early days of photography seemed to be devoid of people or transport – such ‘things’ were there, but hidden by motion and not captured.
Visit our 2025 events to add that special item to your collection. Next moth we host our famous fall fair on October 19th. See details here in our July 2025 newsletter.
This post was brought to light by memory of “Midnight at the Oasis” as sung by Maria Muldaur.
