The Project 

Artificial Light 

Gone are the flashing lights and neon signs of the 80’s, today many businesses are much more energy conscious, trying to cut down on the cost of electricity by using LED lights or by only using a certain amount of light when they are open. In this project I shall be looking at the amount of artificial light being used when they are open and how much they use when they are shut.

I call this the before and after midnight project, where I visit  businesses premises when they are open at night time before midnight and then visit the same premises when they are shut after midnight. During the evening and up to midnight These businesses are lit up to try and attract customers into their shops and advertise just who they are and what they are selling but once midnight has past, they shut down and the staff go home  leaving only necessary lighting on.

Some businesses are now open 24 hours like McDonalds but even here they scale down their operations to just a drive by service hatch and keep minimal lighting on in their eating area for security only.

Many other businesses also scale down their use of lighting so that theirs also becomes security lighting.

Then some places like motorway services and main trunk road services have their lighting on for a 24 hour period, but as you will see they even reduce the amount of artificial light they use through the night.

For my project

I intend to go too these businesses to see how they cope with the use of artificial lighting and by using my camera photograph them before midnight usually when they are open and operating and then come back after midnight when they are shut to see just how much lighting they switch off when no one is there.

This will give viewers an idea as to just how much they have become energy conscious over the years not just for the environment but just how much they realise they can save money by cutting down on  how much lighting they leave on.

As a retired electrician I have for over forty years worked on the electrics for industry and small business and have seen that these companies now realise how to save money by changing the lighting to low wattage lighting or LED’s which burn hardly any energy at all. Many wholesale electrical companies have now redesigned their equipment to take these low wattage lamps so that they can be installed with minimum fuss or alteration to the original equipment.

Many councils for instance have changed all their street lighting and road signs to LED’s and although they seem to be the same street lamps all of the internal wiring has been charged to accept the internal lights. It will be interesting to see just how much artificial lighting is still being used before and after midnight.

My original intention for this project was to do just long exposure of these sites with just the before midnight images being taken but on discussion with our group in class it was decided that I needed to change this and make it into more interesting a project so I decided to go for the before and after midnight part of it.

This is a contact sheet from my first shoot which involved an area from Raglan Monmouth and Whitchurch areas on the 29 09 2021 I had intended to just photography pubs but on photographing both the Clyro arms and the Hardwick inn near Raglan it became very clear that there was not enough light produced by their external lighting to give a very good image at all, in fact the Hardwick Arms its self  was barely visible.

My equipment was a Sony 7R III a 28mm – 70 mm Sony lens and a Manfrotto carbon tripod, I use this type of tripod because its is a lot lighter than the metal one and the fact that I suffer from white finger and over the years found that holding a metal tripod in the cold brought about this problem so I decided to sell it move over to using the carbon fibre tripod.

Contact sheet 1

contact sheet 2 

The image below is taken at the Hardwick arms and shows just how little light there was taken at 22 .15 pm  20 09 2021 I had put a 10 stop ND filter to give a longer exposure to show more saturated colours but used for some unknown reason an ISO of 5000 at 1/30 sec. but it’s obvious is a no go image.

Below the image is from the Clyro arms 29 09 2021 at ½ sec with a strange high ISO of 5000 perhaps I forgot to bring it down as I may have been taking some earlier shot hand held

Again, we see that the light is very limited, and this is where I found out that they switch of the lights when it shuts and the whole place goes into total darkness

This is an earlier image taken at 21.42 of Monmouth shell petrol station with a 5oo ISO using as tripod and 10 stop ND filter F7.1 for depth of field and ¼ shutter at 24 mm.

Here is the first location which is on the A40 just above Monmouth at Whitchurch and is a service station I again used a high ISO and 1/8 sec shutter at f7.1

In all this night I feel was just a test night to see how the images would look and although I liked both the Monmouth shell garage because of the bright colours and the service station because of its rectangular shapes I was very disappointed over the Public house images because of the low light that I realised that I would waste my time shooting these.

All in all, this was the first shoot I had undertook and although it gave me a good idea of places to shoot and how to shoot standing in a place of safety with a High Vis Vest and  where I could park I decided to comeback at a later date,

When I got home I decided to do a couple of test shots at the local Tesco’s so I took these 2 one of the store and one of the garage to see what they looked like and also to see as they were on Private land if I got a security guard trying to chase me away.

Both of these shots were also high ISO to shorten the time taken to get the image.

This was my next shoot which was of a pub called the Coach and Horses at Llangynidr which is fairly local so with my Sony 7RIII and 24mm – 70mm I set out to take photos of it before midnight 19.48pm . I arrived there and found a place to park and then set up my camera and wearing a High Vis Vest set up my tripod and started to take photos.

I struggled to take them, I over exposed and under exposed and as I still had a 10stop ND filter on I could only take up to 30 sec long shot. I was unable to get it into Bulb mode so that I could Extend the shutter time. I hadf manages to get one good shot of this public house and went home to try and find out why there was no buld mode

The first shot is overexposed taken at f22 a 20 secs again I was applying a high ISO 6400 for some strange reason maybe to shorten shutter time.

Underexposed at F22 Iso 100 and 8 secs and at least I ditched the high ISO at 40 mm.

30 second exposure at f11 ISO 100   using the 40 mm range of my ZOOM.

In this shoot I learnt I did not know how to get Bulb Mode and was lucky to get a correct exposure by extending the shutter time or decreasing it. I liked how I took the images trying two positions from this position and from the top end but this position works better for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-X_d2DqLTY

How to shoot in bulb mode Youtube video

On watching this video, I realised that because I had been using the electronic shutter on my camera that was the reason why I could not get this mode. I always use the electronic shutter on my Sony as there is an inherent fault on the mechanical and it may only last for 10,000 before it needs replacing. Sony know about it but refuse to accept it because it costs £500 to replace the shutter, all new Sony’s have a different shutter in them.

05/10/2021

05/10/2021

My first real exposure shoot using bulb and a remote shutter cable with a tripod and my Sony7RIII with 24 -70 mm lens.the A40 Whitchurch services revisited. F14 Iso 100 @51secs exposure 51mm lens range.

I also took photos of the Clyro Arms and The crown at Whitchurch and I can now see what types of buildings I will have to use in this module. The public houses are much to dark the garages are much better and I do like them, so I will need to find more like this. After I took this shot the Landlord shut shop and switched the lights completely off leaving both the pub and me in complete darkness. 21.55 pm Sony 84 secs f11 ISO 100

This is the Beaufort Arms in Raglan I like the light trails but others in the group don’t at 21.32 pm 130 secs f11 ISO 100

This again was a visit to a commercial park on the outskirts of Abergavenny where there are several businesses like Premier Inn Costa McDonalds and Brewers Fayre. This visit gave me several subjects to photograph, and I liked the results that I got.

 Exposure for them is a little hit and miss but on average the time averages out to around 2 mins exposure if the scene is a little brighter, I can cut it down to around 90 secs and make it longer if it’s a little darker. I have thrown out the use of a 10 stop ND filter and also the theory of setting it on ISO 6400 and then seeing how many secs exposure then setting the camera on 100 ISO and making those seconds minutes. Use of tripod remote control shutter cable Sony Camera and 24-70mm lens

In the contact sheet I took photos of McDonalds Premier Inn car park A BP garage on Brecon road Abergavenny and the Brewers Fayre 

Mcdonalds Abergavenny 10/10/2021 f11 182 secs shutter ISO 100 

Brecon road garage Abergavenny 119 secs f11 ISO 100 

In these images I like the light trails although not everyone’s cup of tea I find that it gives a little surrealism to my images and I like the use of Long shutter speeds.

I will be using some of these in the final sort out and am quite pleased the way they have come out. I am now getting a good understanding of long exposures and find them simple and easy to do.

21 / 10 2021

Contact sheet from a shoot at Newbridge Garage on the A467

Images from this shoot on the 21^st October 2021

1^st image f13 iso 250 130sec exposure the higher Iso is there to make the image taking process faster

2^nd F11 80 secs exposure ISO 250.

3^rd image is a photoshop exposure of the first image

4 image ISO 250 F13 60 secs exposure

Over exposed images of this filling station  while the other two are exposed better a little underexposed but the way I took the images was from across the road on the pavement cars are coming past giving light trails and in the last image a little surrealism is made by a half a car.

02/11/2021

This was a shoot in my local area before midnight and it took in Coleg Gwent. The Leisure centre Parkway train station and the foot ball pitch at the leisure centre.

I decided I must look for local buildings and in all my cases It has been looking at Goggle maps to find Industrial estates leisure centres and other building that may be of interest. I found it was no good looking for photographers who did this kind of work because they don’t and the closest, I could find were people doing night photography. So, it down to looking for buildings of interest when driving around in the night

Looking at these local shots I realise that I must dismiss both the railway station and football pitch as this lighting is only used for a short period like the football pitch and again even shorter for the railway station. I took both of these as I was looking for different types of buildings and regarded them as an option

 The football pitch was taken on a 5 second exposure at F 4 Iso 100 with a tripod  and the train station 86 secs using my tripod and Sony 7RIII with 24 -70 mm lens and once I had reviewed them, I realised they did not fit the bill.

Coleg Gwent was taken at around 8pm so there was still a lot of activity going on so it was well lit up at this time of evening and a pssing bus gave quite a high light trail.

91sec exposure Iso 400 F13