The Showcase: Jarrett Murphy

“The Showcase” is a publication featuring a photographer that has caught our eye here at The F STOP. I’ve asked Jarrett Murphy to answer a few questions about his nighttime photography.

What makes for a great nighttime photograph?

I shoot at night because I have control over the lighting like a studio, so my first concern is any strong lighting in the area. Bright lights make it almost impossible to shoot, especially if they’re sodium vapor lights. I get as far from traffic as I can so their headlights don’t bleed into the shot, and so my equipment and I don’t get hit if a driver is distracted by my lighting. Once I’m away from ambient light that can ruin the foreground, if the background is far away (anything more than a quarter mile), I need ambient light to fill in the background. Usually the moon is good for that when it’s full enough, because it’s a color temperature that’s pretty easy to correct in camera. And, if I have a choice, an area with a nice police department, because the more jaded police can be rather hostile to some guy fooling around with lights in the middle of the night.

How do you create these images?

I’ll start by saying it’s considerably easier in the winter, as the first step is scouting. To find an interesting formation or subject matter is easy around a lot of snow, because any windy area has beautiful snow drifts. I just spent some time in Maine photographing and spent more time scouting than anything else. Once I find my subject, I set up lights around the scene and meter their brightness. I’m often alone when I shoot, so I almost always set up the lighting by my best estimation of what will look best. I don’t own a digital camera outside of my cell phone, and Polaroid slows me down, not to mention that I don’t have much left since type 54 is in short supply. Then I open the shutter, add the prescribed amount of light, and leave the shutter open to expose the background if it’s too far for me to light myself. To help with exposing for the background I keep notes on my previous shots including my exposure times, fullness of the moon, cloud cover and ambient light. [Then I] close the shutter.

Why did you choose this subject matter?

I had been in college for a few years, spending a lot of hours photographing in the studio, and getting pretty tired of it. I felt like I was a better photographer than my photographs, which were looking like everyone else’s. The first landscape I shot was a mix of irony and experimentation. I had been getting lots of studio lighting assignments, and everyone was shooting inside, so I went to the park. Once I printed it, I kept thinking about it. I decided that we are overwhelmed with photographs that tell us what we should value, but we don’t see photographs in this hyper-real validating style, unless it’s a product or service with someone that benefits from your desiring it. I continued with this subject matter to highlight the value of the non-commercial world.

What’s your thought process when deciding what areas of the landscape to light and which to leave dark?

There are two goals I have with my lighting in most cases. The first is to take a unique subject, and highlight it, separate it from the background, and make it beautiful. I try to use the light to expose textures and flowing shapes in the subject, as well as creating gradients that show the shape of the subject. The second, is to make the light look fairly natural, as though it might be from the moon peeking through a cloud, or from nearby buildings or street lights. I definitely want it to look surreal, but not fake.