On our last day here in Portland, expert photographer Efrain Padro shared the two rules to getting great night photos… Rule #1: Don’t photograph at night Rule #2: Photograph at night. Rules in photography are often broken. But it’s better to know what makes a good saleable photograph and then decide consciously to break the rule than it is to go around breaking all the rules because you don’t know any better. Here’s a photo from Efrain’s own portfolio taken during the Blue Hour – that half hour after sunset when, to your eyes, the sky looks a dim blue… but on your camera it looks amazingly cobalt… 
And here’s one taken after dark… 
In general, blue-sky photos look best and are more saleable when the street lights or other lights on the building are on. But sometimes dark-sky photos are saleable, too. Efrain took this one above both with a blue sky and a black sky and he likes the black one better. If you’re going to photograph after dark, he says it works best when all the edges of the building – the complete outline – are illuminated. Anything in shadow is going to get lost. Whereas with a blue sky, even shadows will appear in your photos. Share on Facebook
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