Living the Low Light: The Thrill of Not Knowing
The Hungarian–French photographer Brassaï was the first master of low-light photography. His famous book Paris de Nuit (Paris by Night) perfectly captured the city's nocturnal world, and within its shadows and darkness, Brassaï found just enough light to create his art.
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My early days of night-time photography were all on film and the beauty for me was not knowing how much light I’d managed to capture – would it be enough to create a recognisable image? Something grainy and abstract, but with enough focus and clarity to call a photograph.
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Leaning on lamp posts and the corners of walls, I dragged my photographic day well past its bedtime and into the twilight hours where the magic happened: low-lit buildings became Dickensian and low shutter speeds helped ghost-like figures move across my lens.
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With the arrival of digital photography and its ability to capture the slightest of light and immediately show you the results, the nights grew even longer and the results more plentiful, but the wonder of ‘not knowing’ what I had captured was left behind along with rolls of unused films in the cupboards of disused darkrooms.
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