“I love this!,” said Janna Evans as she was posing for a night time photo shoot. “I could do this all the time!,” she said.

As easy as it was for Janna to pose and make lots of quick movements, it was not as easy for me, the photographer, at night.

Nighttime photography is rather difficult, but can produce the most dramatic pictures. There are many elements I had to consider before shooting. One of the elements was the location. Because I wouldn’t be using flash, I had to make sure the location had a good bit of lighting. There were few places in Lakeland, Florida that could provide lighting as well as scenery at 11 o’clock at night, but thankfully we got both when I chose Lake Mirror in the downtown area.

“This is such a beautiful place,” said Janna as I took her to the different locations around Lake Mirror. She wore a black and white strapless Marc and Cleo dress that was trimmed with black lace at the empire waist line. The bottom of the dress flowed freely against the backdrops I chose, with the wind blowing in all directions. It was perfect conditions.

Many of the pictures I took were close to the lake’s lights. I did this because I was not using flash and we needed a good amount of lighting. The lighting from the lights worked well as long as I was not more that five or six feet from Janna.

A recommendation I have with nighttime photography is to bring a tripod! It is a must! Pictures can get blurry if you decide to take them “free hand”, even with a high ISO setting. A tripod helps you balance the camera completely still and allows the exposure to take without movement. This will make the picture clear and concise.

“But…I want the pictures to look different,” said Janna, spring break visitor to Florida and model for the nighttime shoot. Defining the “different” was what I set out to do. The first few shots we did were casual. As I began to learn her style of posing, I learned the type of pictures she was looking for: something dramatic and fierce.

From that point on, I was able to tell her exactly how to pose and where to go to get the effects she was going for. Because she was looking for a dramatic style of photography, nighttime was perfect!

I changed the ISO settings and contrasted the colors immensely, as you can see in the picture directly left. I posed Janna so the light from the lake light would fall directly on her. This caused a black out in the picture and made for a great shot!

“I feel so pretty!,”said Janna as I was letting her review some of the shots we got. “They are all so different! How do you do it?” she said.

We captured many different styles in this nighttime photography shoot. Janna walked away with the type of pictures she was looking for and I walked away with a better understanding of nighttime photography.

One great thing about photography is there are always new techniques and new things to learn, whether it is about a camera, a style of photography, or the time you do photography, which in this case, was nighttime.

Below I have included a list of quick tips!

1. If there is not enough lighting, make your ISO higher. For this shoot I chose 800.

2. Bring a tripod! This allows for the picture to develop completely without you shaking the camera.

3. Know your location. Working at nighttime can be challenging enough, so it is important to pick a  place you have scoped out.