A very few of many sunsets

Beijing Capital International Airport

Toyama Castle in Japan

Rainbow at sunset in Quartzsite, Arizona.

My first foray into both going off of auto and night photography, came from a desire to capture the Takae Lantern Festival in Nara Japan in 2007. These were taken with my trusty old Canon A510, using ISO 400 and a walking stick mono-pod.

Stairway to a small shrine.

Fields of lanterns.

Festival go-ers in yukata (summer kimono).

Street vendors.

Elaborate lantern assembly.

Since then I’ve moved up, a bit, in both camera and skill, but I continue to use a walking stick/monopod and do not use a tripod. It just doesn’t work for me to carry one around. I am still quite challenged by dark pictures, in part because I don’t use a tripod and in part because I use a “bridge” camera, Nikon P610, which has a relatively small sensor so it wants longer shutter speeds and it gets grainy pretty fast at higher ISO settings.

I keep trying because I think night pictures often give you a better feel for the atmosphere of a place than day shots. People are off work and going about their business.

A few night street scenes in China and Japan:

Street vendor in Weifang China

Street and pedestrian traffic in Tai’an China

Beihai Lu in Weifang China.

Street scene in Takayama Japan.

Street scene in Takayama Japan.

I am often disappointed by the moon. My eye sees it bigger than my camera lens does:

The darkness of the night and motion of the boats in these pictures of cormorant fishing in Gifu, Japan, meant that all the pictures were blurry. I tried a “painterly” effect to make it seem like art instead of just a blurry picture.

I’m not a morning person so I only have sunrise pictures from far away places (where I have jet lag). Here are a few from Kenya.

Cee’s Fun Photo Challenge: Sunset to Sunrise.