How to Shoot Night Street Photography at Christmas Time

They've put the Christmas lights up early in Rye, East Sussex, this year. Considering that it's my hometown, I realised I had no choice but to get out there with my camera and take some night street photography photos, with my new 40mm Ricoh GRIIIX.

Photographing somewhere you know is clearly the best method to take great photos because you start to realise where the best compositions will be. Therefore, you can use the fishing technique, where you wait for the right person to walk into the frame.

I kind of felt like a sharpshooter, as even though it wasn't particularly busy, there were a lot of people on the streets and whenever I saw somebody stand underneath street lights or in front of litter shop windows, I took a photo.

Waiting for people to walk under streetlights, or past a shop window is the best way to take beautifully lit photos at night time. 

Of course, you do not have to have people in your street photography images. You can simply shoot an atmospheric building or street light, which has an interesting road that you can use as a leading lines.

I used a filter on my camera’s lens. A 1/4 Black Pro Mist filter which creates a beautifully atmospheric halation around street lights and shop lights. The most important thing for me when taking photos is to create some kind of atmosphere. A certain vibe; and you can achieve this with this filter.

For my settings, I used Auto ISO, with an ISO range from 1600 to 6400. The minimum shutter speed I used was 1/100 sec, but I frequently found that there wasn't enough light and the shutter speed dropped below my minimum shutter speed. However, I fortunately found that my shots were still sharp even at 1/80 sec. The Image stabilisation on such a small camera clearly works wonders even for a fella with a disability, like me. I kept at a constant f/2.8 aperture as I needed as much light as possible to get through my lens. I simply used evaluative metering mode. This is absolutely fine for this kind of bright-lit night photography.

I love photographing people at night. There is an atmosphere that you just do not get in the daytime. I urge anyone who loves photography to give nighttime Street photography go. And as I've always said, the more you practice, the better you will get.

Go forth and create.