Night Photography!

So, last weekend, as I told you all, I went to Santa Cruz to visit my fantastic boyfriend. While there I had a photo assignment that was to take 50 night photos! To complete this assignment Nick, his roommate, Adam, and I piled in the car with the baby and high chair (Camera and tri-pod) and went to the beach at the Santa Cruz Beach and Boardwalk. Below are some of my favorite shots.

Nick and Adam making cool shapes. First try at the flashlight style.

He didn't realize he'd have to write his name backwards and also ran out of time. However, it's still pretty cool.

Adam's ice cream cone.

Thanks to Adam for photographing us and thanks to Nick for having long enough arms to make the heart!

Favorite of Nick

Adam being a badass with the flashlight.

All of these are completely un-edited. In case you are like me, and haven't been enlightened on how to make these awesome night photos I'd love to share a little step by step guide.

*Any digital camera will do. I'm certain you could use film but it would probably be really difficult.

1. Set your camera to it's Manual mode. 

2. Set your shutter speed pretty slow. 

(Depending on how advanced your camera is the incriments will be different but most digital point and shoots should let you set it around 5-8 seconds which will be good for writing with flash lights.
3. Make certain you use a tri-pod as the camera will be super sensitive to motion with that slow of a shutter speed.
4. You will also want to use the 2-second timer as the mere motion of pushing the button can mess up the camera.
5. To get people in the photo use the flash, to not get people and just get the lights leave the flash off.
6. Find willing participants to act like fools in front of your camera!

Sorry if this is a terrible tutorial, I hope it helps someone!