Night and low light photography

What is the course about?

This course uses practical work on location in London to teach you the essential skills of successful night-time and dusk photography, including the optimum times to shoot, how to maximise light, using long exposures, photographing buildings against dark skies, your rights to shoot in public, and downloading files and basic colour correcting in Photoshop. With expert guidance you'll familiarise yourself with the city at night, and learn to work safely and effectively in challenging lighting conditions to achieve dramatic results.

What will we cover?

- Using long exposure times to produce light trails
- Optimum time of evening for night photography
- Shooting in the dark
- Photographers’ rights when shooting in public
- Basic colour correction of images in Photoshop.

What will I achieve?
By the end of this course you should be able to...

- recognise what exposure is necessary top achieve different lighting effects
- use long exposures to produce images with light trails
- demonstrate ability to paint an object with light
- identify when to photograph buildings at night so that building shape is not lost in the dark sky
- develop a strategy for night photograph that recognises the changing lighting conditions
- set up a tripod safely and demonstrate safe working practice in public
- understand photographers’ rights when shooting in public.

What level is the course and do I need any particular skills?

Ideal for those who have completed our Photography for Beginners course, but open to anyone with a basic understanding of ISO, aperture, shutter speed, white balance and how to change these on your digital SLR or bridge camera (i.e. not a point-and-shoot camera). You must have manual functions on your camera (i.e. be able to change the aperture and shutter speed settings).

You should be able to follow simple written and verbal instructions, demonstrations, hand-outs and health and safety information, and be prepared to take part in group discussion. You should be happy using numbers and able to do simple measurements and calculations.

How will I be taught, and will there be any work outside the class?

Through a structured programme of practical work on location, short talks, demonstrations, practical exercises and image-based discussions. Each student will have their own Apple Mac computer to work on. You are encouraged to work on assignments outside of class. The course also uses Google Classroom (an online teaching resource) for you to share comments with your class, download course material and upload images for group crits.


Students should be computer literate at a basic level. Please note that we will be using Apple Mac computers, although all the software used on this course is cross-platform. If you have never used a computer before, you might find our course ‘An introduction to Apple computers’ useful; they run each term.
Google classroom login help.

Are there any other costs? Is there anything I need to bring?

You may wish to bring your own digital camera, and a tripod for the long exposures. A notebook and pen would be useful as you are encouraged to take notes. City Lit has cameras, lenses and tripods you may borrow during lesson time.

When I've finished, what course can I do next?

If you wish to pursue an interest in photography, you may want to look at some of the other City Lit photography courses focusing on particular photographic skills, such as portraiture, lighting techniques or Documentary. Browse the the website for inspiration.

You can download a PDF of all the Photography courses on offer at: http://www.citylit.ac.uk/courses/Photography, search on the web site or request a printed prospectus from the home page.