Mission Peak Sunset, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. On Thursday evening Steven, Eric, and I took the “steep trail” up the flanks of Mission Peak (above Fremont, California). Steven’s goal was to set his camera up to take continuous 30 second star exposures over night. He planned to retrieve his gear the [...]

Star Trails over Drakes Bay, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. I made this image as a demonstration of star stacking for a recent night photography workshop I gave on Point Reyes. Before I explain how I made this image, you might be interested in some general information about star stacking, my workshop [...]

San Francisco Moonrise, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. I learned from my friend Steven Christenson that the full moon would rise shortly after sunset, in theory lined up from Battery Yates on Fort Baker directly behind the Transamerica building in downtown San Francisco. Steven posted a note to the same effect with [...]

Van Ness Avenue, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Standing on the median strip of Van Ness Avenue in front of San Francisco’s City Hall, I used a longish exposure—in the seconds but not the minutes– to capture moving car lights. I find an exposure time of between two and ten seconds often [...]

Lines and Shadows, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. In a monochrome, life is about edges, lines, and dark (black) or light (white) masses of shapes. The interplay of these elements will make or break your composition without color to beguile. Shadows thus become extremely important. In a color photo, most of the [...]

Point Bonita by Moonlight, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. By the strong light of a waxing gibbous moon I photographed the outer Marin Headlands coast, looking south towards the Point Bonita Lighthouse, the Golden Gate straits, and the lights of San Francisco’s outer sunset district. The final image is a composite combined in [...]

Guiding Light, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. The Point Reyes Lighthouse is one of my favorite night photography subjects. This was shot during a recent workshop I gave with Point Reyes Field Seminars. I’m lucky that each of my night photo workshops has been allowed down the steps to the lighthouse, although [...]

Night Cliff, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Facing the beach I turned around. The night cliffs were lit by moonlight. Sometimes there’s a story behind one, if only one looks. Exposure data: Nikon D300, 18mm, 4 minutes at f/5.0 and ISO 200, tripod mounted.

Bixby Bridge 3, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Here’s the Big Sur coast of California and Bixby Bridge by moon and starlight. The faint colors of sunset linger, even though this is a thirty second, wide-open exposure. If you look closely, you can see the shadow of cliffs in the water cast [...]

Pfeiffer Big Sur Beach, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Pfeiffer Beach in Big Sur is a pleasure to vist anytime. It was particularly majestic on this moonlit night, as you can see in this two minute exposure that shows star trails and surf coming through the famous hole in the sea stack. Exposure [...]

Dark Shore, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. In the dense fog and gathering night, the turbulent ocean definitely seemed a force to be reckoned with. Alone at the base of a cliff along the Big Sur coast, I felt puny in comparison. With this 30 second exposure, I attempted to capture the white [...]

First Light, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Briefly noted: This is a re-cropped (and slightly re-processed) version of Upper Yosemite Falls. (See the original story for info about making the image.) I enlarged this portion of the photo to focus on what matters: the first light of dawn on the cliffs and [...]

It was a dark and stormy night. Actually, it was a San Francisco fogbound night. I was out shooting with a guest from Finland. The fear was that the low ceiling would make photography unrealistic, but sometimes the apparently worst weather produces interesting imagery, so we heeded the siren call of the Golden Gate. I stopped [...]

I’ve given my Digital Night website a face lift. The upgrade includes a fancy slide show, links to my free night photography technique webinars, and some of the night imagery I’ve created recently. (It’s been more than a year since I added imagery to the site.) Please visit, and let me know what you think!

I’m pleased that two of my images, Blue Velvet Sunset (above) and Winter Sea (below), were chosen for Blue Nocturne, the online exhibit of night photography marking the twentieth anniversary of The Nocturnes.

Moonset over San Francisco, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. The view of San Francisco Bay out to the west from Indian Rock in Berkeley was a bit hazy. But the setting crescent moon and nearby Jupiter and Venus were very special. I spent a little more than an hour photographing the descent [...]

Pigeon Point, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Ever year on a Saturday in November, they turn on the bright light behind the fresnel lens on the old Pigeon Point Lighthouse. The San Mateo coast is beautiful anyhow, and on a summer-like Saturday the scene turns into a circus with literally hundreds of [...]

Half Dome by Moonlight, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. This is a roughly twenty minute exposure during most of which Half Dome was lit by light from the setting moon. I took the photo from Glacier Point, and the foreground landscape beneath Half Dome is deep in moon shadow. Later, after the moon [...]

Edge of Night, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. “Holy Stacking Star Trails, Batman!”…As many of you know, I’ve been shooting and then stacking star trails lately. The idea is to take numerous “shorter” exposures that include the night sky, rather than one longer exposure. The shorter exposures are then composited together (they [...]

We Are Not Alone, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Mark and I climbed to the top of a hill in Tiburon. There was a clear view north towards the Richmond Bridge. At this time of year, the sun sets early, and soon it was getting darker and colder. Fog was coming in [...]