The first Friday of every month is the Downtown Art Walk where local business and galleries host art show openings, vendors line the streets, and a small section of road just off Central is shutdown for a block party. As someone who enjoys photographing people in downtown Albuquerque the event always promises unique evening scenes to photograph. The first few times I tried photographing at night I was less than impressed with the results. The photos were noisy, the different color temperatures of the street lights made for ugly colors, and I missed the more pronounced shadows I got from the late afternoon sun. The issue, I soon learned, was trying to bring my daytime photography techniques into the night. I needed to adjust how I sought out at a nighttime scene in order to take advantage of the creative possibilities the night had to offer. This meant paying more attention to artificial light, slowing down and holding the camera steadier when taking a shot, and embracing the lack of light. After a few more trips into the night I had better developed my method for photographing the streets at night, and used the lack of light for some more creative images.
I spent a lot of time just standing in front of this closed shop and letting people pass in and out of the scene. I was initially drawn to the shop as the half illuminated store provided an eerie source of light. After about ten minutes of standing there these two people entered the scene and sat on the pedestal in front of the shop which usually displays a 5ft tall pink dinosaur.
A few of the other photos I got while standing in front of the ominous shop
I was initially trying to photograph the “TAKE ME” neon sign in the window when these two showed up. Shot this one form the hip, but was happy with how the framing turned out.
I was just bringing the camera down from my face after taking a pervious photo when this woman appeared beside me practically drowning in fabric. I assumed she was in the process of transporting some sort of art piece and luckily got this shot as she passed me.