When I travel, like many people, I’ll have a hit list of specific locations that I want to photograph. What I noticed recently was that when it comes to city visits, most of these locations tend to be views that embrace psychedelic city lights during blue/golden hour or even after dark. I guess I’m not alone in being compelled to capture the best rendering of a colourful kafuffle of twinkling lights that I can, but on a recent trip to Japan I realised that I was really shooting to a repetitive, highly prescribed formula. So often I think I’m being creative and original in my thinking, but now I’m not so sure.
My goals with urban photography are always as follows:
Long exposures
Traffic tail-light trails
Movement
Trams/trains
Tall buildings with foreground or leading lines
Dynamism
Order
Structural balance in architectural design elements
Catching the brief cross-over lighting where neon and natural light are in balance
An alive and harmonious rendering of the human urban-scape
I suppose capturing/satisfying many of these aspects happens at a subliminal level, but you still have to seek out places that have the potential to generate a good photograph. While I do scout images online that might afford me the kind of scene I’m after, I try to apply originality to my work, although sadly sometimes I simply end up with a copy of the template I saw online, other times I actually do produce something quite unique. An interesting example that illustrates the limitations of originality is given by my experience of shooting the Skytree, Asahi Building and Azuma Bridge across the Sumida River in Tokyo during sunset. I don’t consider this one of my greatest images, but it illustrates the point nicely. I’d seen a couple of pictures online – nothing particularly jaw dropping, but when I arrived mid-afternoon, the scene was really quite boring, and nothing I did could bring the scene to life, so I decided to come back during blue hour to shoot it illuminated and hopefully with boat light-trails. The final scene below can only be shot from an area that extends maybe 1-2 metres along a narrow concrete lip on the edge of the embankment, enough space for one tripod, and one photographer. This constraint means everyone shooting this scene (after applying the subliminal filters listed above) will end up with the same basic image structure. It took several images to get something I was happy with, and then I needed to merge a few images to ensure I had boat light-trails that spanned the scene. Now, luckily, I was the only photographer here, because quite literally this scene can’t be made anywhere apart from this specific spot. Was I being original? I’m not sure – this is “the” scene. Any good photographer shooting it would come back at dusk to capture it, so maybe I’ve not taken a particularly original shot.

Another, almost identical example is given by the image below of Tokyo Tower in Akabanebashi, Tokyo. When I first saw this scene of car light-trails converging on the Tokyo Tower online, I knew I wanted to catch the scene, but hoped I could apply something unique that set my picture apart from others. Constraints limit originality, and so I ended up with a great shot, but one that others have executed just as well before me. Again, you have one place two metres wide that this image is taken from – nowhere else works as well.

So here we have two great pictures that reflect my goals well, but that can hardly be considered original given constraints on where one can shoot from. I do like the unusual green tail-lights in the second image, which were from a convoy of go-carts, but still, while I like these images, I don’t feel I’ve done anything unique in producing them.
The next city night scene is different. I feel I have managed to produce something a bit “alternative”, less generic, although I’d be surprised if I was the only person to have executed this particular shot. I like it because it is an iconic location, a dynamic scene and has a lot going on within the frame that sums the centre of Melbourne up very well. Like the two images above, it is a long-exposure, utilises traffic and reflects movement/dynamism. Flinders Railway Station produces very ordinary daytime shots, but at night with the tram, lights and crowds, especially after rain the scene becomes magical, and the options for originality and creativity are almost limitless, unlike the two highly constrained location images above.

All three images were taken on a Fujifilm XT2 with a 10-24mm f/4 Mk1 lens. All employed a Manfrotto BeFree travel tripod and were processed in Adobe PhotoShop.
Fuji kit is great for city photography at night as it is lightweight and easy to carry, but during the day on really long, arduous city hikes, I often leave the camera in the hotel and just use my phone. The quality at base ISO and with the latest software algorithms can produce remarkably good pictures, especially of modern buildings which lack complex detail, and which really pop on my Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. The 2 Tb storage is more than enough not to worry about disc space and the Pro features of the camera allow a remarkable level of control. Quality can approach that of my “proper” cameras, but does lag behind them, although I’d be happy printing up to 30 inches with some of the phone images I have, and that’s good enough for 99.9% of sane people. For serious stuff at night, don’t bother using your phone, camera and tripod are the only way to get truly great images.


As this is article is about city photography at night, I thought I’d end by adding in an image that depicts my favourite time; cross-over lighting, the inflection point between night and day when city lights are in balance with the natural light. Sticking with Melbourne, the image below was taken at this critical point at the end of the day and is so full of life, city light and movement that again demonstrate how options for originality and creativity abound.

Have fun searching for and creating your own original image magic of the city at night…. BUT be vigilant and safe!