Good Reads for 2021: 11 New Books for the Night Photographer

Interested in books about photography, night and national parks? See the National Parks at Night Bookshelf.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m a book hound. I always have my eyes open for new (or old) night photography books. Over the past year I’ve written two posts about “essential” books for night photographers (“10 Essential Books for the Night Photographer’s Library” and its sequel “10 More Books to Round Out your Night Photography Library”). Most of those are classic titles, more than a few of which are out of print and hard to find.

I hope I haven’t created an impression that all good night photography books are old. In truth, this genre of photography is not just alive and well, but is thriving. In fact, Matt Hill rightfully speaks about this being “the golden age of night photography.”

Proof of that is on the shelves, with plenty of new volumes of and about night photography being published. There have been a number of recent releases of note, with three forthcoming books due later this year that you’ll be sure to want to check out.

Below you’ll find my choice of 11 contemporary night photography books that are well worth your time and money.

Monographs

A monograph is a lifetime goal for many photographers, and a great showcase for one’s imagery. Monographs can also serve as inspiration for the rest of us. With advances in on-demand printing, small niche publishers are able to produce short runs of books with specialized interests with relatively low risk.

One such publisher is America Through Time, which caters to the urban exploration crowd, with monographs that depict the buzzing energy of vast metropolises to the places that humans have left behind. They’ve released several such books with a nocturnal theme lately, by Troy Paiva, Ken Lee and Mike Cooper.

TO:KY:OO

by Liam Wong

Liam Wong is a bit of an outsider to the night photography world, but is a young man with a powerful vision. His supersaturated cyberpunk-inspired night views of Tokyo have recently been published by Thames and Huson in TO:KY:OO.

Wong is a young Scottish video game designer and art director who brings his experience to a relatively newfound love of night photography. His highly stylized images of Tokyo at night are reminiscent of Blade Runner or other science fiction dystopian worlds.

His day job took him to Tokyo at a time when he was in the process of teaching himself photography, and he applied his design sensibilities and strong sense of color to his imagery. These are not long exposures—no star trails here! The images are all about the throbbing mass of humanity that makes up one of the world’s most interesting cities. The photos in TO:KY:OO are unlike anything else I’ve seen and are definitely worth exploring.

Junkyard Nights: Haunting NorCal’s Automotive Graveyards

by Troy Paiva

Troy Paiva is a modern legend. For more than 30 years he’s been photographing all sorts of abandoned places in California, employing a style of light painting that he developed in 1989 using Vivitar flashes and colored gels. An entire generation of night photographers have been inspired by his work, initially on Flickr, his website LostAmerica.com, and later through his books. The two recently published volumes here represent books numbers 4 and 5.

Junkyard Nights is a nocturnal love letter to the ghosts of our automotive past. The images in this book were made by the light of the full moon in two old-school junkyards in California’s agricultural heartland. The accompanying text not only conveys the essence of these desolate industrial landscapes, but it also examines the place these mid-20th century cars hold in the context of 20th century design.

Night Salvage: Haunting SoCal’s Automotive Graveyards

by Troy Paiva

Like Junkyard Nights, Night Salvage is a nocturnal love letter to automotive junkyards. The images in this volume represent three collections of junk cars lost in the deserts of Southern California. As usual, the images are accompanied by amusing anecdotes of Paiva’s nocturnal adventures, as well as by informed historical notes about the cars and the locations he photographs.

Let Paiva be your guide through these derelict graveyards filled with slowly decaying cars: a classic abandoned high desert junkyard, a TV and movie prop vehicle graveyard, and a little-known art project consisting of thousands of cars resting forgotten in a remote canyon.

Abandoned Louisiana: Under a Bayou Moon

by Mike Cooper

Abandoned Louisiana: Under a Bayou Moon is a nocturnal photographic journey through the ruins of the Bayou State. Cooper proudly acknowledges the influence of Paiva on his work, and it is clearly derivative. That’s OK, as Cooper is a quick learner and has applied his skills and passion to document ruins—both obscure gems and public eyesores throughout the state.

More than 200 images reveal a side of Louisiana that is usually either overlooked or hidden from view. If you like images of light-painted abandoned sites, and have an interest in Bayou culture, then this book ought to be right up your alley.

Abandoned Southern California: The Slowing of Time

by Ken Lee

Ken Lee is a personal friend, and we’ve long admired each other’s work. It’s been a real pleasure to watch his photography evolve and to see his success over the last several years.

The quiet, empty places shown in Lee’s images tell stories of desert dreams fueled by gold, war, optimism and wealth, only to later be abandoned and left to slowly disintegrate. Abandoned Southern California: The Slowing of Time offers a different take on all kinds of lonely and abandoned places in the Southern California desert.

Ken’s second book, Abandoned Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: California Revealed, will be released later this year.

Night on Earth: Photographs by Art Wolfe

by Art Wolfe (coming October 5, 2021)

As our friend astronomer Tyler Nordgren says, “Half the park is after dark.” He’s right, but the greater truth of the matter is that half the world is after dark, and much of what goes on in the dark is mostly unseen to the human eye. There is so much that happens while most people are sleeping, and this collection of photographs is a testament to what most of us will never see. Photographer Art Wolfe traveled to every continent to explore and document the nighttime world of animals, humans and nature.

Including twilight and low light images along with true night photos, Night on Earth’s subjects are as diverse as the hustle and bustle in Morocco’s nighttime markets, Balinese fire dancers, volcanic eruptions in Iceland, penguin colonies in pre-dawn Antarctica, star trails over the Australian Outback, and street scenes in Tokyo. Wolfe is one of the preeminent photographers of his generation, and this first collection of night images from him is sure to be a worthy addition to any photographer’s library.

How-To & Reference

Collier’s Guide to Night Photography in the Great Outdoors (second edition)

by Grant Collier

Grant Collier’s how-to night photography book is a good one. It slipped largely under the radar when the first edition was published in 2015. This second edition of Collier’s Guide to Night Photography has been revised and updated and includes 50 new images. The gear section and all weblinks have been updated, and all information on post-processing is up-to-date for use with Photoshop and Lightroom. There is also new information on Photoshop plug-ins and other software that is useful for night photography, and he covers all the bases of natural light night photography.

Night Sky Photography: From First Principles to Professional Results

by Adam Woodworth

Rather than just covering the bases, Adam Woodworth has scored a home run with his first book: Night Sky Photography: From First Principles to Professional Results. Adam gave a great presentation on Milky Way panoramas at our Night Photo Summit in February, and I had just received my copy of his book the week before. I’m impressed, and will state unequivocally that this is one of the best and most up-to-date books on astro-landscape photography available.

In clear, concise language, Woodworth walks the reader through the steps to successful astro-landscape photography. Note that it’s not a complete guide to general night photography (it doesn’t cover urban night photography, and has limited information on light painting)—it’s strictly astro-landscape. He does cover stacking and tracking, with a great section on panoramas. Highly recommended.

2021 Night Sky Almanac: A Month-by-Month Guide to North America’s Skies

by Nicole Mortillaro

The 2021 Night Sky Almanac is the ideal resource for both novice and experienced sky watchers in the United States and Canada, with all of the advice, information and data that enthusiasts need to understand and enjoy the wonders of the night sky.

This in-depth guide first introduces readers to the objects in the sky—from stars to comets to globular clusters—and then takes you through the cosmic events to look out for each month in 2021, with sky maps, moon phase charts and info about the planets.

The almanac is both a comprehensive introduction to astronomy and a quick reference book for more experienced sky watchers who don’t want to miss a thing. Its compact size means it’s perfect for taking on any night photography adventure.

Inspirational

The World at Night: Spectacular Photographs of the Night Sky

by Babak Tafreshi

Bringing together the images of over 40 photographers across 25 countries, The World at Night: Spectacular Photographs of the Night Sky is a collection of images curated by The World at Night founder Babak Tafreshi.

What makes this book unique is how the images are organized. The sections include: “One People, One Sky,” which attests to the unified nature of earth and mankind; “World Heritages,” which not surprisingly features night photographs of World Heritage Sites; “Events That Shook the World,” which is about celestial events such as comets, eclipses and unusual atmospheric phenomena; “The Fragile Beauty of Darkness,” which uses gorgeous images to show the importance of preserving dark skies; and “Dark Sky Refuges,” which showcases dark-sky parks and other astro-tourism destinations.

To Know a Starry Night

by Paul Bogard (coming October 12, 2021)

Paul Bogard gave an impassioned presentation based on his earlier book, The End of Night, at our Night Photo Summit. His newest book, scheduled for publication in October, combines his lyrical writing with the night-sky photography of Beau Rogers. To Know a Starry Night explores the powerful experience of being outside under a natural starry sky––how important it is to human life, and how so many people don’t know this experience. As the night sky increasingly becomes flooded with artificial-light pollution, this poignant work intends to help us reconnect with the natural darkness of night, an experience that now, in our time, is fading from our lives.

In Conclusion

Now that the seemingly interminable pandemic is winding down in some places, and summer has arrived here in the Northern Hemisphere, everyone is looking forward to spending more time outdoors photographing and less time behind a computer, but that doesn’t mean there’s no time for books in our lives!

Whether chillaxing by the pool, or waiting at the airport for a flight to your next night photo destination, any or all of these books will make great summer reading to inform, educate and inspire you to get back out there and to seize the night.

Lance Keimig is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He has been photographing at night for 30 years, and is the author of Night Photography and Light Painting: Finding Your Way in the Dark (Focal Press, 2015). Learn more about his images and workshops at www.thenightskye.com.

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The Next Steps: 10 More Books to Round Out your Night Photography Library

Last June I wrote a post titled “10 Essential Books for the Night Photographer’s Library,” in which I confessed my addiction to collecting photo books. Not surprisingly, the list was fairly predictable and included night photography’s greatest hits. That’s not to say I didn’t sneak in a curve ball or two––Bill Brandt’s scarce and expensive A Night In London comes to mind.

Of course, the night photography world contains more than just 10 important books, so this week I’m extending the list with 10 more. In keeping with the Apple Music theme, we’ll call this post “The Next Steps.” (Yes, there will be a “Deep Cuts” edition down the road.)

Several of these books are out of print, but most are easy enough to find on the used market, although some quite expensively, for sure. Some also can be had for just a few dollars, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth collecting. Like me, Gabe Biderman has an expansive collection of photography books, so I consulted with him when compiling this list. They are presented here in no particular order.

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Day to Night, Stephen Wilkes

I have admired Stephen Wilkes’ work for a long time. The Griffin Museum of Photography near Boston exhibited his Ellis Island photographs as 40x50-inch Cibachrome prints in 2008 and left me breathless. I haven’t picked up my own copy of Day to Night yet, but have been admiring Wilkes’ growing body of work for several years. Each panoramic image is made up of many, many (up to 2,000) photographs shot over the course of 30 hours from a single stationary camera position. The images were made in both iconic urban environments and stunning natural landscapes, and tell a great story, or more often, many intertwined stories in a single image. The results are a unique and stunning way to record the passage of time––in essence, a 24-hour time lapse in a single frame.

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The World at Night, Babak Tafreshi

Babak Tafreshi is an Iranian photographer and founder of the group The World at Night, a collaboration of photographers from 25 countries who are dedicated to capturing, preserving and sharing the night sky. Tafreshi has curated the images in The World at Night, which are divided into six groups:

1. symbols of all nations and religions embraced by the sky

2. UNESCO World Heritage Sites at night

3. the universe revealed through constellations, auroras and other wonders

4. images highlighting the beauty of dark skies away from light-polluted areas

5. celestial events, from comets to eclipses

6. astro-tourism destinations, such as ancient astronomical monuments and modern observatories

It’s an interesting book, full of powerful images. For an anthology representing 34 photographers from around the world it’s disappointing that there are no women included, and that the photo credits are in the back of the book rather than with the images. (Yes, I realize that there is only one book by a woman on this list. There are many contemporary women night photographers, but relatively few published ones.)

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Celestial Nights: Visions of an Ancient Land, Neil Folberg

Neil Folberg is the son of legendary San Francisco gallerist Joe Folberg, and when Joe died, Neil took over the gallery and moved it to Jerusalem. The images in Celestial Nights were made primarily in the Sinai desert in Israel, Egypt and Jordan. First published by Aperture in 2001, and again by Abbeville in 2008, both editions are beautiful reproductions of Folberg’s unique night photographs, which were made between 1997 and 2000. Many of the images are composites of infrared landscape images combined with sky images made with a tracking device—which is the only way to photograph star points on film.

There is a transient and mystical quality to these photographs. They are realistic and believable, yet otherworldly. They are remarkably successful, and doubly so for being film-based composites. This one is a must-have.

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Nightwatch: Painting with Light, Noel Kerns

This dense collection of work from locations across the United States covers a lot of ground with light-painted scenes that are reminiscent of but distinctly different than Troy Paiva’s Lost America style. Nightwatch is a compendium of 254 pages of night photography and light painting that encompasses subjects ranging from abandoned gas stations, motels, decommissioned military bases and decaying industrial complexes, to forgotten farmhouses and ghost towns. Noel Kerns’ work is presented with supporting commentary on the locations. It’s very reasonably priced, especially for a book of this quality and size.

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Lost America: The Abandoned Roadside West, Troy Paiva

Hopefully you caught Troy Paiva’s recent presentation at our Night Photo Summit last month. His images, collected over 30 years—presented with experiences and anecdotes from when they were created—made for an entertaining and informative hour. Think of his first book as a denser version of the first half of that career, on paper instead of on Zoom. Yes, you need to pick up a copy of Lost America, the seminal work from the guy who defined (if not invented) the genre of light-painted abandonments. There are four other collection-worth volumes of Paiva’s work in print, including the most recent titles Boneyard, Junkyard Nights and Night Salvage.

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Night/Shift, Lynn Saville

Lynn Saville has published three books of night(ish) photographs, beginning with Acquainted with the Night in 1997, followed by Night/Shift in 2009, then Dark City in 2015. The first book contains gritty, grainy, 35mm black and white images interspersed with selected poems. (The book title is from a Robert Frost work.) I’ve just ordered Dark City recently, but it appears to be a continuation of the twilight color work of the New York images in Night/Shift. It’s remarkable how Saville can find such quiet scenes in places as busy and bustling as Manhattan. Her work reminds me of a looser version of Jan Staller’s gorgeous book Frontier New York from 1988. In Arthur C. Danto’s introduction, he writes that Saville’s images remind him of Atget’s Paris: “She is his New York counterpart, the Atget of vanishing New York, prowling her city at the other end of the day, picking up pieces of the past in the present, just before it is swallowed by shadows.” High praise indeed.

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Theaters, Hiroshi Sugimoto

For almost four decades Hiroshi Sugimoto has been photographing the interiors of theaters using a large-format camera and no lighting other than the projection of the running movie. He opens the aperture when a film begins and closes it when it ends. In the resulting images, the screen becomes a reflector that subtly brings forward the rich architectural details of these spaces. Sugimoto’s minimalist black and white images draw you in to a quiet world of contemplation, be it his famous seascapes or these theater interiors that include the classic American movie palaces of the 1920s and 30s, historic theaters in Europe or disused theaters that show the ravages of time. (Tip: Theaters is quite expensive, but the French-language version can be acquired for one-third the price. It’s all about the images anyway.)

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Mont St Michel, Michael Kenna

Michael Kenna has said that he doesn’t think of himself as a night photographer, and doesn’t distinguish between daytime or nighttime image-making. Like his countryman Brandt, whose work inspired Kenna early on, Kenna’s daytime images sometimes look like night, and vice versa. No matter, his photographs are always stunning. He has published more than 30 monographs in about as many years; very few photographers have consistently produced such compelling work. Once you have acquired Night Walk and Night Work, the two books mentioned in the previous post, Mont St Michel (or the equally great titles Ratcliffe Power Station, Rouge and Venezia) should be next on your list. They all contain a significant portion of night images, and are still affordable, unlike some of Kenna’s harder to come by books.

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Secret City, Jason Langer

Jason Langer worked as Michael Kenna’s assistant from 1989 to ’95, but has very much set his own course since setting out on his own. He’s published three books of his work, with Secret City being the first, as well as my favorite. Many of his images include people, something you’ll never see in a Kenna photograph! Those photos aren’t portraits, at least not in the traditional sense. His noirish images tell anonymous stories that convey universal experiences, usually on the darker side of the emotional scale. You might describe Langer’s work as haunted, or more likely haunting––a fleeting moment that could easily be missed or overlooked, but when captured by Langer’s camera, cannot be ignored. Think Edward Hopper meets Brassai and you might just conjure up something close to a Langer photograph.

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The End of Night, Paul Bogard

Paul Bogard gave a passionate presentation based on The End of Night at the Night Photo Summit, and it made me want to go back and reread this delightful book. A warning in many ways, it foretells of the consequences of the loss of dark skies to light pollution, and how that is affecting all life on the planet. At the same time, it’s a love story to nature, to the Earth and to the night itself. The End of Night is not a photo book, but anyone and everyone who cares about the night should read it.

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Buying Books

Where can you find these titles? Aside from Amazon and eBay (the latter tends to be overpriced for books), look at AbeBooks, a used-bookseller marketplace, especially for rare and out of print titles. PhotoEye in Santa Fe is another great resource; if you find yourself in New Mexico, it should be a bucket-list stop.

I have to warn you though, photography books are addictive. I bought three more books just doing research for this article. Writing this took me several times longer than it should have because I kept getting sucked down the rabbit hole of checking out other books and adding them to my wish list.

Note: You can see these books and many more our Bookshelf page, where you can peruse volumes that the five of us love and recommend. You can also use the links above to learn more and/or to purchase them. Many are affiliate links that reward National Parks at Night with a small commission when you use them, which helps maintain this website and enables us to provide quality content at no cost to you.

Lance Keimig is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He has been photographing at night for 30 years, and is the author of Night Photography and Light Painting: Finding Your Way in the Dark (Focal Press, 2015). Learn more about his images and workshops at www.thenightskye.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Five Questions: Coast Flashlights, Lightning, Custom Menus and More

Everyone knows the answers to some questions, and below you’ll find five of the answers we know. That might sound impressive, but it took all five of us to answer these, so …

This installment of our “Five Questions” series features inquiries about Coast flashlights, lightning processing, custom menus, books and panos.

If you have any questions you would like to throw our way, please contact us anytime. Questions could be about gear, national parks and other photo locations, post-processing techniques, field etiquette, or anything else related to night photography. #SeizeTheNight!

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1: Which Coast is King?

Q: If you could have only one model of the Coast flashlight, what would it be? — Larry B.

A: If I could have only one, it would be the HP5R. It has two brightness settings, is bright but not too bright, feaures a focusing beam and sports a rechargeable battery. For another $10, I'd also get the low-powered G9 and use that for shooting in moonless astro-landscape situations and for seeing in the dark without ruining night vision. — Lance

2: Layering Lightning

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Lightning at Devils Tower National Monument. © 2019 Matt Hill. Nikon Z 6 with a Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art lens. Six stacked frames photographed at Bulb, f/8, ISO 200.

Q: There’s a photo on your website you made at Devils Tower—how did you get the lightning in the shot? Did you just stack the exposures in Photoshop then use the Lighten blend mode? Or did you use some light detector to trigger the shots? — Ed F.

A: The former. I composed, set the aperture and ISO for a good lightning strike, then let the camera run through continuous shots. I set the camera to Bulb mode, then I held the shutter open until a bolt hit, and then I closed the exposure and immediately started another.

Why did I just keep the shutter open for, say, 30 seconds each time? I didn’t want too many strikes in one frame, because that would make it harder to select specific strikes to composite later.

As for post-production, your hunch is right— it works exactly like stacking star trails. Open all the images as layers in Photoshop, select all the layers and then change the blend mode to Lighten. I then used layer masks to call out specific strikes and block out everything else. — Matt

3. Custom Menu Contents

Q: Regarding your recent post “Five Field Tips to Make Night Photography Go a Little Smoother,” could you elaborate on which menu options you include on your custom menu? — Larry B.

A: As I mentioned in the post, I set the custom menu in my camera with the settings I use most often, so I can access them quickly in the field. Here is the list of what I include in my Nikon Z 6 custom menu:

For night photography

• Long Exposure Noise Reduction

• Monitor Brightness

• Viewfinder Brightness

For general photography

• Format Memory Card

• Auto Bracketing

• Double Exposure

• Focus Peaking

• Clean Image Sensor

For comparison, here’s what Chris includes in his Nikon D5 custom menu:

• Virtual Horizon

• Monitor Brightness

• Long Exposure Noise Reduction

• Exposure Delay Mode

• Self-Timer

Remember, every camera is different, so your camera might allow you to easily access some items that I find more difficult to access on mine. You also might not use some features that I do, and vice versa. But this is all exactly why the custom menu is so powerful—it’s custom to exactly what you want! — Tim

4. The Elephant Book in the Room

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Q: Thank you for the recent awesome blog post and video on night photography books. That combined three of my favorite things: history, books and art. Another night photography-related book you may find interesting is Thirty Times a Minute by Colleen Plumb. She photographed images of captive elephants projected onto landscapes. I found it a very unique way to shoot at night, and her stories about the elephants are touching. — Vince G.

A: One look at the production and importance of Thirty Times a Minute and I had to add it to my cart! I love that the publisher added a video walk through of the book.

Not all art fits inside a book, and when you look at Colleen's projections, you have to ask how these moving images become two-dimensional stills. I love the “transparency” images, though I'm curious what it would have looked like to have the transparency of the original film placed over where it was projected—like those history books wherein you lift the transparency of what it used to look like to reveal what it looks like now.

I’m glad you like our coverage of our favorite night photography books and the Bookshelf page on our website. Books can be a universal inspiration, and this was a long-overdue project that we were excited to share and that we want to continue to grow. — Gabe

5: Full Moon Pano

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Ubehebe Crater, Death Valley National Park. © 2020 Chris Nicholson. Nikon D5 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens at 24mm. Eleven stitched frames photographed at 10 seconds, f/5.6, ISO 2500.

Q: Thank you for the many instructive and inspiring blog posts, and particularly for this one about Ubehebe Crater. Either you planned well or were lucky to be there during a full moon. Could you have gotten a good image with quarter moon? Crescent moon? No moon? — Paul B.

A: Did I plan or was I lucky? A little bit of both.

I made that pano during a workshop, which we had planned for a moonlit week. We love light painting under moonlight, and Death Valley has a lot of subject matter conducive to that strategy. But shooting at the crater on that particular date during moonlight was just a matter of using the conditions at hand in the best way possible.

In other words, while planning for a specific photo has plenty of merits, successfully shooting as a long-term endeavor can have less to do with sticking to strict guidelines about when to shoot and more to do with knowing what and how to shoot in different conditions. With the latter approach, I can be productive regardless of the situation. So, I didn’t plan to be at Ubehebe Crater during a full moon so I could shoot that pano; rather, I was at Ubehebe and knew what I could and couldn’t do under the full-moon sky I was presented with.

And yes, I definitely could have made the image under a quarter or crescent moon, when the light is even gentler. I just would have needed to shoot at a higher ISO to keep the stars sharp. Honestly, I may have preferred that, because the sky would have revealed even more stars. Next time! Because successful photography can also be about going back to re-shoot in different conditions. 😃 — Chris

Chris Nicholson is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

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10 Essential Books for the Night Photographer's Library

One of my long-time hobbies tangential to night photography is collecting photography books, and monographs by night photographers in particular. I’m not often in a position to buy original prints of photographers’ work that I enjoy, so books are a great way to have easy access to that work.

Yes, I could look at their photographs online, but it’s a very different experience to view images on paper rather than on a screen. There’s something inherently more satisfying about holding a well-printed book in your hands and settling down in a comfortable chair in good light, and just sitting with the images. No distractions.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m a student of the history of night photography, as one of my favorite topics to write about is my “Muses From the Past” series on the pioneers of the genre. Books have been my primary research tool for this project, as many of the lesser-known photographers of yore don’t have much of an internet presence!

Additionally, over the course of my years of researching the subject, I’ve accumulated quite a collection of out of print photo books by photographers both famous and obscure. I have pretty much every how-to book on night photography that’s ever been published, and a good number of biographies and autobiographies of photographers.

I have to confess that I only recently unpacked all of my photo books after having them in storage for over a year while renovating my house. I haven’t taken time to sit and look at them in quite a while. Shameful, I know––what with all of these extra months at home recently. But spend time with these old friends I have, and will again.

In this post, I’ll share some of my favorites with you, and some resources you might wish to explore should you get the chance. Here in chronological order are 10 of my favorite night photography books. Many are out of print and some are rather scarce or expensive, but some can be acquired quite reasonably.

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Paris de Nuit, by Brassai, 1932

The first book of exclusively night photographs, Paris de Nuit, was initially published in photogravure in 1932. The Hungarian painter turned photographer Brassai captured candid views of the seedy underbelly of Parisian nightlife at an extraordinary time in the city of light. The version I have was published in 1987, also as photogravure, and is much better and truer to the original than the even more recently published reprint. The next two books on this list were inspired by this one. It is a must for any night photo library.

London Night, Howard Burdekin and John Morrison, 1934

I was unaware of these two and their amazing work until a friend gave me a copy we found together at a used bookstore in San Francisco. The London Night introduction quotes the introduction to Brassai’s book, and it’s also printed in photogravure. Never reprinted, copies have recently become scarce. Another must-have.

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A Night in London, by Bill Brandt, 1938

Bill Brandt was in Paris—working as Man Ray’s assistant of all things—during the time when Brassai was photographing for Paris de Nuit. He was so inspired by Brassai’s work that he recreated one of the photographs of a Parisian streetwalker using his wife as a model. A Night in London has also never been reprinted, and copies start at about $2,000. Nope, I don’t have my own copy, but I’ve spent some time with one at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Truth be told, I prefer Burdekin and Morrison’s version of London at night.

Diesels and Dinosaurs, Steve Fitch, 1976

Perhaps the original “urban explorer,” Steve Fitch began documenting his travels in the American West at 21, but the Diesels and Dinosaurs project took root on family trips in a 1951 Buick when he was a child. Long out of print, and hard to find, this book of roadside attractions/distractions paved the way for later photographers such as Troy Paiva (Lost America).

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Photographs, Richard Misrach, 1975-1987, 1988

Richard Misrach is considered one of the most important American photographers of the second half of the 20th century, and he was one of several Bay Area photographers responsible for the explosion of the night photography scene in the 1970s and 80s. This hard-to-find paperback of his early work includes medium format black and white night images of the California desert and Stonehenge, and large format color images from Greece, Louisiana, Los Angeles and Hawaii. Photographs also marked the beginning of his decades-long “Desert Cantos” series. Misrach does not have much of an internet presence; unless you can see original prints in a gallery, books are the best way to see his work.

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Frontier New York, Jan Staller, 1988

Jan Staller’s Frontier New York collection is of night and twilight images of the industrial wastelands on the outskirts of New York, in square format images shot on color negative film in the late 1970s and early 80s. These images, along with those from the next book on the list, have influenced my own work more than anything else. I first saw both books in Steve Harper’s Night Photography class in San Francisco.

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Night Walk, Michael Kenna, 1988

The great Michael Kenna’s first book. Night Walk is one of many, making it hard to choose which one(s) to mention in a “top 10” list. Included are early 35mm images from Venice, France and his native England, especially the mills of Yorkshire and Lancashire that Brandt had photographed in the 1930s.

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Steam, Steel, and Stars, O. Winston Link, 1987, 1998

There are several books of O. Winston Link’s iconic train images made along the Norfolk and Western line from 1955-60, but Steam, Steel, and Stars concentrates on the night images, and is readily available. Originally published in 1987 and reprinted in 1998, both versions are available on the used market. I have the later version.

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Washington by Night, Volkmar Wentzel, 1992

Volkmar Wentzel’s images on Washington, D.C., were made in the late 1930s while he was working in the darkroom for National Geographic. He too had been inspired by Brassai’s Paris De Nuit, and the images in Washington by Night were originally published in a 1941 edition of National Geographic. The book wasn’t published until 1992. Affordable copies are available from online booksellers, including Amazon.

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Night Work, Michael Kenna, 2000

Kenna has published more than 30 books, but this and Night Walk are the only ones that include exclusively night photographs. Night Work is a survey of Kenna’s nocturnal images from 1978-2000, and it includes an interview with Tim Baskerville of the Nocturnes.

I could go on and on. It was difficult to exclude quite a few important works from this list. They range from personal favorites by friends and colleagues, such as Troy Paiva’s Lost America, Tom Paiva’s Industrial Night, Ken Lee’s Abandoned Southern California or William Lesch’s Expansions, as well as critically acclaimed work such as Robert Adams’ Summer Nights or Neil Folberg’s groundbreaking film/digital composites in Celestial Nights: Visions of an Ancient Land. There are so many more. Jeff Brouws’ Starlight on the Rails is a loving record of the work of many of the other mid-century train photographers aside from O. Winston Link. I covet them all.

With many of these being so rare, where can you find and buy them? Aside from Amazon and eBay (eBay tends to be overpriced for books) here are a few great stores for photography books:

• the venerable Photo Eye in Santa Fe

• Timothy Whelan Photography Fine Photographic Prints and Books in Rockport, Maine

• East Village Books in Manhattan

• Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts

• Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon

• Arcana: Books on the Arts in Culver City, California

• Green Apple Books in San Francisco (a small chain of great local bookstores where you could easily spend an afternoon)

Want to look but not buy? There are several under-appreciated but outstanding photography libraries you can visit, including:

• Photo Resource Center in Boston

• Maine Media Workshops + College in Camden

• the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin

I have to warn you though, photography books are addictive. Start with one or two of the volumes on this list, and before you know it, you’ll own most of them. When you travel to a new city, you’ll add used bookstores to the list of places you have to visit. And that’s a good thing.

Note: You can see these books and many more on a brand new page of the National Parks at Night website: our Photography Bookshelf. Here you can peruse the volumes that the five of us love and recommend. You can also find links to learn more and/or purchase all the books mentioned above.

Lance Keimig is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He has been photographing at night for 30 years, and is the author of Night Photography and Light Painting: Finding Your Way in the Dark (Focal Press, 2015). Learn more about his images and workshops at www.thenightskye.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT