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60 Beautiful Examples Of Night Photography

November 9th, 2008 in Inspiration | 144 Comments

By Andrew Gibson and Smashing Editorial Team

Low light levels make night photography a challenging yet rewarding subject. The best results require specialized equipment, like SLR cameras, tripods, cable releases and flashguns. After sunset, the everyday world is magically transformed, and city buildings, fireworks, thunderstorms and the northern lights all become popular subjects.

We present 60 amazing examples of night photography, photos, created by some hard-working and dedicated photographers. Take a look at their websites and portfolios, and you’ll find some links to how-to articles about night photography at the bottom of the post.

You may want to take a look at the following related posts:

In the City

Artificial light transforms the urban landscape into a place of magic and mystery.

Loveless Ramblings and Other Cynical Musings

Landscapes

Landscape photographers love the magical light of sunset and twilight. With long shutter speeds and a steady tripod it’s even possible to photograph the landscape lit by nothing but moonlight.

Northern Lights

The northern lights are a popular subject for photographers living in the extreme north of Canada, Alaska and Europe.

Örvar Atli Þorgeirsson

Max Waugh

Storms

Dramatic thunderstorms are captured using slow shutter speeds.

Heavenly Bodies

It’s even possible to photograph the stars and the moon with the right equipment.

Matthías Ásgeirsson

Geoff Coleman

Neil Creek

Fireworks

Another popular subject for night photographers.

Matthías Ásgeirsson

Kirk Marshall

Troy Paiva

Troy Paiva specializes in night photography and light-painting techniques. He explores America’s abandoned urban landscapes in his latest book “Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration.”

Troy Paiva

Anthony James

Anthony James has a passion for night photography. Over the years, he has amassed a unique collection of photographic images covering a variety of subjects from different parts of Asia, Europe and Australia.

“For me the joy of photography comes from the ability to capture and record a unique slice of space and time that may otherwise be lost forever. A moment perhaps only witnessed by an individual yet shared with the rest of us, albeit imbued with a unique perspective - a window on our world that may remain forever etched into our consciousness.”

Anthony James

Last Click

Anthony James

Resources

PhotoNetCast - Interview with Troy Paiva
Troy Paiva is a night photography expert and author of the book “Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration.”
Troy Paiva - Night Photography Technique
About.com - Night Photography Step by Step
Moonlight Sonata - Landscape Imaging by the Light of the Full Moon
A night photography by article by Bruce B. Clendenning.
The Nocturnes - Night photography workshops, exhibits and resources
Lots of interesting night photography articles in the resources page.
Talented Night Photographers
After Dark: Night Photography Flickr pool

You may want to take a look at the following related posts:

About the author

Andrew Gibson is a photographer and writer. He runs the Magical Places Fine Art Online Photography Magazine.

Published in Inspiration, November 9th, 2008
Tags: inspiration, night, photography

1.

Ricky.nu (November 9th, 2008, 3:07 pm)

I love the “car”-picture! Nice collection!
2.

Mehow.se (November 9th, 2008, 3:10 pm)

Hot collection! I love most of this pics!
3.

Gianni (November 9th, 2008, 3:30 pm)

Amazing!
I live outside of Toronto, Canada, and I remember last year I went out and could see the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) and I was amazed and had NO photography equipment at all; not even a camera phone! bah!
4.

Nick (November 9th, 2008, 3:42 pm)

Beautiful pictures. I’ve yet to master night shots.
5.

Couchart (November 9th, 2008, 3:47 pm)

You missed one! Link [seenew.deviantart.com]. The ones mentioned are also really good.
6.

Marc Dandoy (November 9th, 2008, 3:53 pm)

The first one is absolutely beautiful.
7.

chovy (November 9th, 2008, 4:03 pm)

Very cool. Storms are beautiful, as are the night pics.
8.

AshasJewelry (November 9th, 2008, 4:41 pm)

My favorite is Rambling Love, but they all are amazing!
9.

sandrups (November 9th, 2008, 5:30 pm)

ESPECTACULAR!!
10.

Erik Teichmann (November 9th, 2008, 5:35 pm)

These remind me of a friend of mine’s work. He’s from South Africa and takes all sorts of rad night photography - Link [rosshillier.my-expressions.com]
11.

Rachel (November 9th, 2008, 5:43 pm)

Thank you for posting these stunning photos. :)
12.

AthenaEmily (November 9th, 2008, 6:07 pm)

amazing shots!!!!!! thanks!!
glad to see some taken in Hong Kong! my home city <3
thanks again!
13.

FBrushes.com (November 9th, 2008, 6:36 pm)

Love all the photos. Great work!
14.

mikemike (November 9th, 2008, 6:37 pm)

egh… no insult, just keepin it real. I’m not to impressed by all the copied photography lists that appear as syndicated content everywhere.
15.

jadenorven (November 9th, 2008, 7:13 pm)

@mikemike

egh… no insult, but that’s only you
16.

Tom Ross (November 9th, 2008, 7:39 pm)

Absolutely fantastic collection!
17.

samhyd (November 9th, 2008, 8:27 pm)

I wonder…..
no words

Thanks for this spectacular collection,
18.

Alexandre (November 9th, 2008, 8:47 pm)

Link [www.flickr.com]
19.

Chris Luckhardt (November 9th, 2008, 8:49 pm)

I have a few night shots of my own I’d like to share:

Link [flickr.com]
Link [flickr.com]
Link [flickr.com]
Link [flickr.com]
Link [flickr.com]
Link [flickr.com]
Link [flickr.com]
20.

Muhammad Ahmad (November 9th, 2008, 8:56 pm)

love the collection
21.

Wallace Goh (November 9th, 2008, 9:32 pm)

Thanks for all nice graphics.It was cool and nice collection.
22.

dev(Www.iHaCK.ASIA) (November 9th, 2008, 9:57 pm)

Really beautiful especially the earh at night

Link [Www.iHaCK.ASIA]
23.

Bobby (November 9th, 2008, 10:15 pm)

Great pics until you click on them and they take you to flickr. Nothing more iritating than having to click on it again to get a larger view. Couldn’t you have hosted these on your own server or direct link to the larger version on flickr?
24.

srinivas (November 9th, 2008, 10:22 pm)

good pics
25.

Josh (November 9th, 2008, 10:36 pm)

@Bobby:
The Flickr license requires one to point directly (and only) to the Flickr photo page when hot-linking for compilations such as this.
26.

Vu Duy Toan (November 9th, 2008, 10:46 pm)

beautiful!
27.

ptarmigan (November 9th, 2008, 10:49 pm)

nice collection, I suggest you take a look at the Landscape and Northern lights pictures of Romko, a guy from Alaska:
Link [romko-kr.livejournal.com]
28.

Andris (November 9th, 2008, 11:28 pm)

Nice collection. Love the ALTA VISTA.
29.

Klaas van Wachteren (November 9th, 2008, 11:42 pm)

Very collection. There are some talents out there.
Good start into the new week.

Stay tuned . . .

Link [www.vinergy.org]
30.

Mjuboy (November 9th, 2008, 11:55 pm)

Great collection of beautiful photographs!
31.

W·J (November 9th, 2008, 11:55 pm)

that’s good!
32.

Hemlata (November 10th, 2008, 12:57 am)

great collections..beautiful images…
33.

ali (November 10th, 2008, 1:31 am)

very very well!

i love smashing
34.

Stijn (November 10th, 2008, 1:41 am)

I love the Alcove picture, but I doubt that it is a night picture, if you look at the sky you can see that it’s the sun en the sky is blue.
I love the way that person processed it!

great collection!
35.

Arren (November 10th, 2008, 2:17 am)

Absolutely sensational, really beautiful work
36.

Olafur (November 10th, 2008, 2:51 am)

Nice!! Really inspiring.
37.

imran (November 10th, 2008, 3:27 am)

beautiful.
38.

Mehmet Ali (November 10th, 2008, 3:40 am)

awesome
39.

Leo (November 10th, 2008, 4:51 am)

Absolutely fantastic
40.

Leo (November 10th, 2008, 4:52 am)

Reminds me how an incredible place the world can be
41.

drakul (November 10th, 2008, 4:56 am)

The ilumination of the eiffel tower at night is copyrighted, so you should be careful with those pics:

As you can read in Link [www.tour-eiffel.fr], “There are no restrictions on publishing a picture of the Tower by day. Photos taken at night when the lights are aglow are subjected to copyright laws, and fees for the right to publish must be paid to the SETE”
42.

Rune Gisladottir (November 10th, 2008, 4:58 am)

Dear Smashing
Pls take another look at the pictures you present. A quite lot were not shot at night and a very few are not photography at all but artwork. Some of the “setting a night scene from a bright daylight picture photos” are not done very well. Look at the shadows.
In Janek’s night photo only f/32 keeps us from beeing suntanned :)
43.

Helen Tran (November 10th, 2008, 6:19 am)

Unfortunately I have to echo what Rune had posted above me, some of these were not shot at night at all. Some of the photos are just terribly done technically - blurry, grainy and there’s no clear purposeful intent. There are many night photographers that are much better at their craft, perhaps you should have looked just a little bit harder.
44.

MSOnWired (November 10th, 2008, 6:58 am)

Love the Alcove photo. Great composition and color.
45.

Anjhero (November 10th, 2008, 7:06 am)

Simply awesome fotographs!!!
46.

Corey (November 10th, 2008, 8:59 am)

This kid has some great night photos.
Link [www.flickr.com]
47.

SiGa (November 10th, 2008, 9:21 am)

Always amazed by your collections!
48.

Lâm (November 10th, 2008, 9:40 am)

Here’s one of mine !

Link [www.monsieurlam.com]
49.

canute (November 10th, 2008, 10:29 am)

i would really like to add the photography of Will Govus
his night photos are amazing

Link [www.flickr.com]
50.

Phill (November 10th, 2008, 11:33 am)

Wooow!
51.

John (November 10th, 2008, 12:15 pm)

Does anyone know who is credited for the “Alcove” photo? I looked at some of his/her other work, and it is amazing. I want some prints!
52.

W3MasteR (November 10th, 2008, 3:12 pm)

oh really beautiful night photos
53.

Antonio Alday (November 10th, 2008, 5:46 pm)

Very god artist

Felicidades
54.

Saturation (November 10th, 2008, 11:16 pm)

Very nice work, but as a whole it tends to look like an exercise in cranking the saturation up to 11.
55.

Max B. (November 11th, 2008, 12:26 am)

Pretty neat!
I agree to Stijn though…
the Alcove picture is not a night shot!

edit: I did have a look at Alcove’s photos… most of them are clearly PS edited. The photo in this collection also looked way to good… though i don’t mind a slight work over, i reckon his shots show he’s good at PS rather than at photography!
56.

ardhian.satrya (November 11th, 2008, 12:56 am)

the alcove picture is not night photography, it’s not supposed to be included since the post is about night photography although it’s nice. Great post anyway, some of the photos are really stunning and inspiring.
57.

Praval Singh (November 11th, 2008, 1:04 am)

Aren’t they highly photoshop’ed?
58.

Tom (November 11th, 2008, 2:43 am)

that was my question too, can´t believe this all was done without using photoshop…
i mean some pictures made me speachless and would see hanging on my wall. really inspiring post sm, thanks alot
59.

Andoni G I (November 11th, 2008, 3:21 am)

Photo at !0:00 p.m

Link [www.flickr.com]

Link [www.flickr.com]

Link [www.flickr.com]

Link [www.flickr.com]

Link [www.flickr.com]

Link [www.flickr.com]
60.

Oliver Wu (November 11th, 2008, 6:33 am)

Thanks Andrew and Smashing Editorial Team. I am really honored to see my photo (Niagara Falls at Night) being featured here (twice). Cheers!!!

See more of my photos here:
Link [www.flickr.com]
61.

Xzdead (November 11th, 2008, 7:16 am)

Very nice Pictures, I love them but I have to say they are so…. unreal. I see a lot of PS
62.

Technologix (November 11th, 2008, 4:26 pm)

Thank you a lot !!
63.

Thomas (November 11th, 2008, 4:53 pm)

5/10 SM

Some very nice pics in here. But also some VERY photoshop heavy pics, and also a lot of the pics have a very amateur quality to them imho. The ones that did stand out to me are very beautiful.
64.

BeantownDesign.com (November 11th, 2008, 5:11 pm)

WoW! So many new desktop pics!
65.

Jumping Dog Design (November 11th, 2008, 9:36 pm)

Lovely, thanks for the photos.
66.

Wayfaring Wanderer (November 12th, 2008, 6:30 am)

There are some amazing photos in there! Very inspirational :)

WW
Link [www.wayfaringwanderer.com]
67.

creative279 (November 12th, 2008, 11:11 am)

Great photography. Good work keep it up
68.

what ever (November 12th, 2008, 8:18 pm)

hdr is lame, those images all look shopped, unoriginal, and over-saturated, unrealistic.

get a film camera, learn how to use it. put down the computer, nerds.
69.

are you kidding me? (November 12th, 2008, 8:23 pm)

These images are *horrible* examples of night photography. I agree with the person above, hdr is terrible. Anyone can take a fantasy picture with an expensive digital and some hdr software. Composition, style, and content are lacking in almost every one of these images.

Even Stieglitz would have hated this crap.
70.

chris (November 13th, 2008, 8:14 am)

Some of these are good. A lot of them are pretty boring. Stick to design articles, Smashing.
71.

rembur (November 13th, 2008, 8:47 am)

claro
72.

Oleg aka Xtraboy (November 14th, 2008, 1:41 am)

Troy Paiva is the Best! thanx for sharing! Beautiful images!
73.

EWF (November 15th, 2008, 11:35 am)

ok men!
74.

john (November 17th, 2008, 10:31 am)

Wow! Its Amazing!!!
See this site Link [www.busimonster.com]
75.

Stefan609 (November 18th, 2008, 5:36 am)

nice nice…. i like them

please check mine night shots :

Link [stefan.istan.com.pl]
76.

David Tabor (November 18th, 2008, 10:01 am)

some really nice examples of nightography displayed here - bob west, troy and toby are some of my definite faves. a few others were certainly missed however:

—-
chris drost aka n+s (Canada)

Link [www.flickr.com]
—-

Victor VonSalza (USA)
Link [www.flickr.com]
——

Andreas Reinhold (germany)
Link [www.flickr.com]
——
77.

Mohummad Omar Masood (November 19th, 2008, 7:22 am)

outstanding prortionate compositions great enthusiastic approaches towards cliking subject s wel done
78.

peterhauri (November 19th, 2008, 8:04 am)

my nightphotography inspiration for today. stunning work. keep it up.
cheers peter
79.

Vagner (November 22nd, 2008, 5:06 pm)

beautiful
80.

Rene Schmidt (November 28th, 2008, 5:14 am)

I dig the Aurora Borealis photos.
81.

kastriot (December 25th, 2008, 1:17 pm)

tung qa po ban si je aje mir