The Oxford English Dictionary defines community as: “a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests and goals.”
“Tribe,” “family,” “cohort,” “sisterhood,” “brotherhood,” “collective,” “fellowship” and even “gang” are all words that describe community in one sense or another. A group of people who collectively support each other for a common purpose.
There are communities dedicated to protecting the climate or endangered species, to fighting diseases, or to rallying around a politician or other public figure. There are communities of flat-earthers, bubble tea drinkers, those who like to explore abandoned mental hospitals, and even for people obsessed with identifying animal scat. If you can imagine it, there probably is a community for it.
Never has there been more need for community than in the last year. Our physical isolation—and the limited circles of people we spend time with face to face—has increased the need to connect with our communities. It’s something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit recently: the different communities I belong to, have connected with, and have drifted away from.
Anyone who is even an occasional reader of this blog, or who has attended a National Parks at Night event, will know that we place a lot of emphasis on community. Heck, unless you randomly stumbled upon this article, you are probably already a part of our community. (And to you random stumbler, come join the party!)
That said, National Parks at Night is certainly not the first community of night photographers. We’re only 6 years old, but there have been communities of night photographers dating as far back as the beginning of the 20th century.
Some years ago while researching the early history of night photography, I came across an article in the February 1910 issue of American Photographer by Alfred H. Blake, who identified himself as the founder of the Society of Night Photographers of England. In the article, Blake was sharing the findings of his organization’s members on how to deal with some of the many technical challenges faced by early night photographers. He wrote that a key tenant of the society was to “pursue the subject as far as possible apart from all faking and double-exposing.”
It seems that because night photographs were so difficult to create successfully, there were all manner of techniques––day for night, double exposing, hand retouching—that were commonly employed to achieve the look of night photographs without actually doing the work at night. The society was formed in part to promote true night images above the fakes, but more importantly to share information and discoveries that led to better night photographs for anyone interested in the pursuit.
Despite the reputation of night photographers being solitary, introverted loners, we’ve always shared a communal camaraderie that has offered support, encouragement and appreciation of one another’s craft. My own first forays were solo ventures, but at that time, night photography was far more obscure, and there was no internet to exchange images and information. I thought that I was the only one photographing after dark, and that notion was regularly reinforced by the late night security guards and dog walkers who would question my intentions whenever I was discovered in the field.
When I found a class offered on night photography in San Francisco in 1988, I enrolled in the school and moved across the country, as it appeared to be the only class of its kind at that time. It was a fortuitous decision as it set the course of my career, and became the model for my own classes and workshops when I began teaching night photography a decade later.
The course was taught by Steve Harper, who became my mentor––as he was also to a generation of Bay Area photographers in the 1980s and 90s. In all of my other classes we were given assignments, and we went off to complete them independently. Steve’s night photography courses were different. The students went out together to shoot on location, and in between classes smaller groups would connect and go out shooting together.
Steve Harper’s students shooting together in Yosemite National Park in 1984.
Many of us became obsessed with shooting at night, some to the point of not wanting to do anything but night work. Students would enroll in Steve’s class repeatedly, even though credit could be earned only once, until Steve eventually developed an advanced course.
The critiques were different from other classes as well. Students quickly overcame any shyness or concerns that their images might not be good enough, and we worked together to improve our techniques, watched each other’s backs in dodgy areas of South San Francisco, and celebrated one another’s images when they magically appeared in the darkroom tray.
Steve soon introduced me to Tim Baskerville, who had studied with him some years earlier, and who had caught the night photography bug himself. Tim was curating an exhibit of night photographs, and he generously included my images and those of my classmate Tom Paiva. The show was held at The Gallery Sanchez in San Francisco’s Noe Valley neighborhood, and was titled “The Nocturnes.”
A few years later that exhibit morphed into a website and became what we believe to be the world’s first online night photography community. Tim began to get emails from around the world from excited people who had previously believed that they were the only ones crazy enough to stand out in the cold and darkness with their cameras night after night. That was 30 years ago, and Tim still hosts semi-annual gatherings of honorary Nocturnes for image-sharing and -making at his studio in Mare Island, California.
Our group from the Night Photography Conference, presented by the Nocturnes and Mono Lake Workshops in August 2006.
Today, with the proliferation of the internet and social media, there are so many opportunities for sharing images and ideas that were completely unfathomable just a few short years ago. Sites like Flickr and 500px have long since yielded in popularity to Instagram and Facebook, and the next generation has moved on to TikTok and Twitch, but all are ways to connect and share. I for one long for a time when we can reconnect with our communities face to face, to hug and to shake hands, and to look over a friend’s shoulder at her or his laptop without a care other than whether or not I have garlic breath.
Still, we are truly fortunate to live in a time with so many ways to connect and to relate to our fellow humans, whichever tribe or tribes we belong to––be it bubble tea aficionados or night photographers. It’s easy to hibernate in our home-cocoons, and to attempt to ride out the storm alone, but even in quarantine, or semi-quarantine, remember that there is a thriving community of night photographers at the ready to encourage, inspire or nudge you along, and others who may need the same from you.
Just a few of the National Parks at Night workshop groups—a great community of night photographers 6 years and 500-plus members strong. Many stay in touch (and share photos, arrange night photography shoots, etc.) via a private group on Facebook.
It seems fitting that National Parks at Night is holding our first Night Photography Summit in the year that marks the 30th anniversary of the Nocturnes. That show was a seminal moment for me, and I know that it was for Tom and especially Tim as well.
For me personally it is a confirmation, a justification, an assertion that what we do is important, has meaning, and brings people together to share a common love of the magic that happens when a shutter clicks in the dark.
