I am not a fan of shooting city scenes once the skies turn black. In fact, about 25 minutes after sunset you will see me packing up my camera bag and heading home. As I discuss in How to Capture Stunning Color in Landscapes and Cityscapes a black sky rarely provides the necessary contrast between buildings and sky. On the other hand, you will find me working feverishly during the 10-minute window of dusky blue sky that occurs just after sundown, as I did on this particular evening in New York City. (The 10 minutes right after sunrise also present prime shooting time.)

I set up this shot of Jill Sipkins, one of the instructors at ppsop.com, from a hotel room overlooking 34th Street. What looks like a complicated exposure was actually quite easy thanks to the use of a simple flashlight. To be clear, we did not light 34th Street with a flashlight but rather used the flashlight to light Jill as she sat in a chair in a corner of the room.

I set up my composition to include the view of 34th Street on the left and the soon-to-be “painted” Jill on my right. With my camera and 16–35mm lens on a tripod, I aimed my camera so that the frame included only the window and the scene outside and took a meter reading, setting my exposure to f/11 for 8 seconds. I then recomposed to frame the scene you see here and tripped the shutter. As Jill sat in the darkened room, she held perfectly still as I began painting her with an ordinary flashlight. I moved the illuminated flashlight in an up-and-down, side-to-side fashion, making certain to light only those areas of Jill that I wished to record during my exposure. As you can see, both Jill and the city street below recorded as a correct exposure because I exposed for the outside scene and then “painted” in Jill with the help of a flashlight and a long exposure.

Many of my students would ask, why not just use your electronic flash to light up Jill? A flash would not only light up Jill, but also the entire room, changing the mood of the image from mysterious to stark and jarring.

16–35mm lens, f/11 for 8 seconds

In a small wooded area near Christchurch, New Zealand, I picked up a feather off the forest floor and placed it between an opening in the bark of a large fir tree, as you can see in the first photo. I then placed a 2- to 8-stop ND filter on my macro lens. After rotating the filter to achieve the maximum density, I stopped down the lens to f/22 and plugged in an ISO of 100. These settings gave me the correct values for an 8-second exposure.

Tripping the shutter, I slowly moved my flashlight up and down across the feather, producing the glow you see in the second image. It’s important to note that I chose to shoot this feather with my white balance on Cloudy. This created a much warmer, golden light on the feather.

The first, standard shot.
105mm lens, f/16 for 4 seconds with 2- to 8-stop ND filter

After “painting” the feather with a flashlight.
105mm lens, f/22 for 8 seconds with 2- to 8-stop ND filter

During a workshop in New Zealand, a willing student posed for us against the remnants of an impressive sunset that had taken place 15 minutes earlier. With my aperture set to the smallest opening, f/22, I metered off of the sky behind my model and adjusted my shutter speed until 15 seconds indicated a correct exposure.

While the model stood still with his arms outstretched, I quickly made an outline of his body with two flashlights, one covered with a blue gel and the other with a red gel. Then, with a third flashlight covered in a yellow gel, I made a swirling motion with my hand as I walked out of the frame during the final 2 seconds.

12–24mm lens, f/22 for 15 seconds

Rear-curtain sync with your flash is a really simple idea to understand. It goes like this: When you use your flash on its default setting, the flash fires at the beginning of the exposure. When the flash is in rear-curtain sync mode, it fires at the end of the exposure.

Want to see a fun, creative exposure that you can achieve with rear-curtain sync? It’s time to get enlightened (pun intended)!

I chose to stage this shot at dusk, on the terrace of our apartment against the backdrop of Old Lyon, France. With my tripod-mounted camera set for ISO ISO and my 17–55mm lens set to f/11, I took a meter reading from the dusky blue sky and adjusted my shutter speed until 4 seconds indicated a correct exposure. I estimated that the time I would need to paint the area around Chloë with sparklers would be about 8 seconds, so I stopped the lens down to f/16, which increased my exposure time from 4 to 8 seconds.

With my single Alien Bees monolight mounted on a stand to my right, inside a softbox and pointed straight at Chloë, I fired off several test flashes. I held a flash meter in front of her during these tests and adjusted the flash head until the meter indicated an aperture of f/16. I now had my flash output requiring the same exposure as the ambient light, and all that remained was to set my camera to rear-curtain sync.

I had Chloë grab her guitar, stand on the terrace, and hold still while making a screaming rocker expression. Then I tripped the shutter and “painted” the area around her with a sparkler for about 7 seconds before quickly jumping out the way as the flash fired at the end of the 8-second exposure. The result is Chloë’s first album cover.

17–55mm lens, f/16 for 8 seconds, monolight inside softbox set to rear-curtain sync