Day to Night Photo Trick

aaron song February 19, 2025

I recently watched Marie Antionette and I fell in love with the cinematography. The night scenes reminded me of the photography and cinema trick to turn day time scenes and turn them into night scenes. The reasoning for this is to avoid noise and grain. I am sure you have all experienced it before where you tried to take a night photo and it is a grainy mess. The way to get around this in a large scale production film without the film quality being horrid is to shoot the scene in the day time and then in post processing to lower the exposure and apply a blue filter to emulate night. I have done this a few times in my own works but my favorite example that I have documented was Old Main at Penn State University.

This was the original image I took that day. I was at Penn State for work and it started to spontaneously snow in April. For this technique to work the scene has to have very even lighting for example on an overcast day. Any harsh shadows will look unnatural and not work well.

Exposure was dropped about 5 stops. It is best to experiment depending on photograph as you do not want to lose too much data in the shadows. I could have stopped here but I have decided to go further to add in lights to give the image more layers.

Lights are created in 3 steps.
1st mask layer is the “light bulb”. This is a tiny spot at the lamp where the light bulb is and crank that exposure to max.
2nd mask layer is the “light bulb glow”. This is a large spot layer that goes around the light bulb. only increase that exposure by 2-5 stops depending to have a gentle glow effect.
3rd mask layer is the “ambient lighting”. I would put a little oval on the sidewalk, tree, or any other ambient objects and add a similar glow that is 1-3 stops brighter.

I have installed most of the lights and now the image has layers and feels more full rather. During this entire process I kept fiddling with the blue filter and exposure to see what felt the best.

The little black shields is to show all the little masks I added all over the place to give this photograph its lighting effects.

This is the final result, This took hours of adjusting to get it feels organic to me.

The final image sells the story that this is a night scene with none of the grain or noise.

A clean night scene at Penn State.

Portland, OR

aaron song February 16, 2025

My best friend has invited me to go on vacation! We met at Portland, Oregon and had one insane line up set up. The first stop was to visit Halloweentown at St Helens, OR. The day was very rainy so not a lot of photographs was taken and it was worrying how waterlogged my Hasselblad got.

Alaska Airlines “Honor Those Who Serve” Livery - Kodak Portra 800

Halloween town was fun but it is time for the real photography to kick start. We stopped in Astoria to check out the sights and view the Astoria-Megler Bridge. We were hopping over that bridge to go to Cape Disappointment in Washington. This was my 2nd time visiting Cape Disappointment and it honestly does not Disappoint. My friend even decided to surprise me by going for an impromptu swim while fully dressed, very entertaining to watch.

The Oregon/Washington landscape split by the Columbia River - Kodak Portra 800

Dropping a Folk Album at the Astoria-Megler Bridge - Cinestill 400D

Cape Disappointment Lighthouse - Illford HP5

Cape Disappointment Cliffs - Illford HP5

Later on we drove down south from Washington going to Tillamook Head, Cannon Beach, and Hug Point.

Lewis and Clark at Seaside, OR - Cinestill 400D

Tillamook Cliffs at Seaside Beach - Cinestill 400D

Abandoned Car at our Airbnb - Cinestill 400D

This was a fun short trip. The weather was challenging on these vintage cameras but they persevered and got me some amazing shots and some memories too. I am excited for the next adventure together!

Fresno Adventure

aaron song February 14, 2025

Thanksgiving week was a lot of fun for me. My room mates invited me up to their family home in Fresno, CA. While I was up here I also made it a personal mission to visit all 3 national parks in the area. Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon.

I went to Yosemite on a Tuesday. The weather was not great but that was planned. I wanted to capture the foggy moody atmosphere of Yosemite. A different twist if you will on the famous rock faces and water falls. The other advantage on coming to Yosemite on a weekday while the weather was subpar was that no one else seemed to be around. It felt like I had the whole park to myself. The downside is due to the low fog and clouds Half dome was hidden from view, so I planned on a 2nd trip to Yosemite on a clearer day later in the week.

Yosemite Valley Chapel with Yosemite Falls in the background - Cinestill 400D

Couple gandering at El Capitan - Cinestill 400D

Reflections of Yosemite Valley over a calm Merced River - Kodak Portra 800

Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View - Kodak Portra 800

After a few days of resting and enjoying my time with his family. I have decided to trek through Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. I did not realize both of these national parks were connected with a single road. Made exploring them both very easy.

Enterance to Sequoia with the Sierra Mountains in the background - Cinestill 400D

The mountain range and valleys while entering Sequoia - Kodak TMAX 400

Sequoia Tree with a person for scale - Cinestill 400D

After a few more days of hanging out I decided the Saturday would be when I return to Yosemite for better weather and to capture Half dome on film. I brought my friend Danielle and mother in law with me as they also wanted to visit. It certainly made the hikes more fun to have company.

Yosemite Valley Chapel - Kodak Portra 800

Half Dome a hike to Mirror Lake - Kodak TMAX 400

Granite face while hiking to Ahwahnee Hotel - Kodak TMAX 400

Half Dome while heading back to the car - Kodak TMAX 400

Yosemite Valley over a calm Merced River at sunset - Kodak TMAX 400

This trip was a lot of fun. I got to knock out a bucket list of visiting these 3 national parks however just because I have visited once does not mean I am done. I hope to return to Yosemite in the spring to capture Yosemite Firefall and in the fall to capture all the trees changing colors.

Welcome Film

aaron song February 14, 2025

It has been a while. A lot has happened since I last blogged. I have left NYC went back to San Diego to work for a new company but more importantly I have started down the path of Film Photography. It has been a wild journey of learning, anxiety, and finally getting your rolls back and having this overwhelming feeling of accomplishment as you see the exposures on the roll.

This is Milky way over Mt Hood. This was the final image. “The One”. It is appropriate that this is the final send off for my Canon R5.

This was my first frame taken from my Canon A-1 (1979). This shot was all luck. Turns out if you don’t touch your film camera for over 5 years things get sticky and the mechanism fails. So how this camera took this photo while in its deteriorated state is beyond me.

Balboa Tower from SD Zoo - Kodak Ektar 100

Film tested every fiber of my being, it was relearning photography all over again. While on paper the concept of this photograph was wonderful. I did not meter this correctly and I tried my best to pull all the details but film can only be stretched so far. Digital you can almost do anything you want to it. Film is a lot stricter and this lesson is the hardest to learn that I have to be near perfect (+/-2 stops) every time because recovery is nearly impossible.

The Immaculata Catholic Church at University of San Diego - Lomography Purple

However while being tested I learned about the wonder characteristics of different film stocks and what they are best used for. “Picking the film is half of the art”. During the early stages I was getting crazy with the different films that were out there. I have only ever heard of Kodak but I was surprised when I went on a deep dive to see the plethora of choices. Lomo Purple is one of my favorites, I love its unique looks and how the foliage turns pink, making the image look out of worldly.

One of the most important lessons that film has taught me is that “the photo doesn’t have to be perfect”. With digital cameras I would look for the slightest imperfections even though the photo was compositionally very good. Film taught me slow down and really think about what you are shooting and even if there was a minor hiccup. It is okay.

Petco Park - Kodak Portra 400
Light leak on Hasselblad 500c/m at Petco Park

The other lesson is with patience and maintenance. The camera gear I am using all date back to the 50s-80s. As a result sometimes they don’t operate 100% like they should. While I was upset that the photo didn’t turn out, my mentality went from “what did I do wrong” to “I can always go back and try again”.

On a side note, there is a huge responsibility in owning these older cameras ensuring they get the maintenance they require otherwise bad days like this one will happen more frequently when maintenance is neglected.

After going through (and still going through) all those trials and tribulations. There are times like these where the planets aligned and you get one of the best images you have taken on film. I remember the process of taking this photo like it happened yesterday, it took me almost 5 minutes to get this shot between constantly checking focus, moving the frame around, and the light meter and I for the first time agreed on exposure.

New York Quiet Rush

aaron song March 20, 2020

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I took this opportunity to take photos of the abandoned City. I have never seen the city this empty before, from the Brooklyn Bridge with no pedestrians and minimal cars to Grand Central being so quiet that when I was talking to my friend, our voices echoed through the main atrium.

The First night was Monday March 16th.

Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and Valentino Pier.