Mastering Urban Photography in Low Light and at Night
with Jason Langer and Lynn Saville
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Course Description
Traditionally, depictions of night in visual art are synonymous with mystery, the unknown, and dreams—in short, an altered state of consciousness. As photographers we are used to making easy adjustments to our camera settings to create photographs that simulate what we see during daylight hours.
But night photography presents us with special technical and aesthetic challenges. Our brains seamlessly help us transition through the various phases of space, light, color, luminosity, and reflection that we experience during the 24-hour cycle, but our cameras need help translating the subtleties of light and emotion found only at night. Here special language and skill are needed.
Longtime night photography devotees Lynn Saville and Jason Langer team up to guide participants through the specialized and creative possibilities of dynamic night photography.
Both these distinguished photographers are present at every session to share their perspectives, skills, and insights—from practical issues (like camera settings, mixed lighting, and differences between digital and film) to philosophical considerations when depicting the night and the history of night photography.
The workshop combines Lynn’s mastery of capturing nighttime architecture with color and Jason’s facility in making low-light, black-and-white photographs of populated urban scenes, resulting in a rich and lively mix of technical and narrative-based learning. Join them as they illuminate the alluring world of low light and night photography.
Additional Information
WHO SHOULD ATTEND:
What You Should Know:
Working knowledge of your camera. Participants must be able to download and select images using image editing software for class sessions.
Policies:
View Withdrawal and Transfer Policies for online programs.
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about
Jason Langer is known for his positive and encouraging instructing style, often motivating students to recognize and move past their own limitations to dig into deeper stores of creativity and expression. He excels in helping each student discover and highlight their technical and aesthetic strengths and abilities and help them find their core photographic narrative.
Jason is best known for his long-term photographic projects. His photographs often ruminate on enigmatic universal ideas stemming from his Jewish upbringing and Buddhist and Jungian concepts. He has published four monographs: Secret City (2006 Nazraeli Press), Possession (2014 Nazraeli Press), Twenty Years (2015 Radius Books), and Berlin (2022, Kerber Verlag).
Supported by grants from The Ford Family Foundation, The Joy of Giving Something Foundation, The Oregon Arts Commission, and The Wood Institute, Jason’s photographs are held in permanent collections such as the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery, Zimmerli Art Museum, and Sir Elton John, Sir Mick Jagger, International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum, and are represented or distributed by CLAMP (NYC), Galerie Esther Woerdehoff (Paris), and Gilman Contemporary (Sun Valley, ID). He has been published in the New York Times, Vanity Fair, American Photographer, and countless other publications and exhibits and publishes regularly.
A popular workshop instructor, Jason is also part of our Mentorship Program »
Website: jasonlanger.com
Instagram: @jlangerphotos
about
Lynn Saville is a fine-art photographer who specializes in photographing cities and rural settings at twilight and dawn, what she calls “the boundary times between night and day.” Her photographs have been published in four monographs: Acquainted with the Night (Rizzoli), Night/Shift (Monacelli), Dark City (Damiani), and Lost New York (KGP).
Saville’s work has been widely exhibited and praised. The following favorable notice of her retrospective exhibition at the Pratt Institute Photography Gallery appeared in The New Yorker: “There’s a long, rich history of New York photographers working at night, from Berenice Abbott to Joel Meyerowitz. Saville joins their ranks with these pictures …” Arthur C. Danto compared Saville’s work to Atget’s photographs of early-morning Paris: “Saville is his New York counterpart, the Atget of vanishing New York, prowling her city at the other end of the day …” In his recent book of essays, See/Saw: Looking at Photographs, Geoff Dyer wrote of Saville’s work, “The pristine silence, the lack of motion in these very still photographs, create the sense of a world that has dropped out of time—and therefore out of the cycle of transactions.”
In her Zoom and in-person classes on twilight photography, Saville teaches observational and composition techniques, shares tips on lenses and camera settings, and helps students appreciate the shifting balance between natural and artificial light. She also conveys her sense of wonder at this mysterious time between day and night.
Website: lynnsaville.com
