Sodium Lighting

Sodium Lighting is basically the lighting used for street lamps. Below is a section from Wikipedia's article 'Sodium-vapor lamp'.

'A Sodium vapor lamp is a gas discharge lamp which uses sodium in an excited state to produce light. There are two varieties of such lamps: low pressure and high pressure. Because sodium vapor lamps cause less light pollution than mercury-vapor lamps, many cities that have large astronomical observatories employ them.'

From what I have read on sodium-vapor lamps they produce much less light pollution. This is the reason they are used. Up to now I have tried a shoot using sodium lighting and found it very hard to use due to it being dark when taking the image. Being dark it forces you to use high ISO settings; something which produces very noisy images.

I don't particularly like this.

Below are some examples of uses of sodium lighting that I

like. Again they are taken from the Magnum Photo's website.

This is an image by Alex Majoli. It is an image of a phone box in Liverpool. I like this for the reason I like the image of the phone box in the fluorescent lighting blog. I like the fact it is personal and in way invades the subjects personal space. I really like the use of negative space gained from the fact it is 'night-time'. It adds to the personal aspect.

This image was taken by Steve McCurry. It was taken in China Town in New York. I again like this image for how personal it is. This is something that; I feel, works really well with night time images. I like the mystery to it, we don't know exactly why the man is sat there. He could be homeless or he could just be getting some fresh air. We simply don't know.

This image was taken at San Stephano Beach, Alexandria, Egypt. It was taken by Harry Gruyaert. I have chosen to put this one on as it is different to the other images I have put on in that it doesn't really involve any people and that it is just objects like the brief says. Again there is an 'atmosphere' to it. It is surrounded in mystery as we don't really know what is going on in the image. It leaves the viewer thinking; this to me makes a successful image.

Below I have put my photographs that have used sodium-lighting as a light source. It is something I found very difficult to do due to the use of high ISO's and the noise this creates. The best I could do without consulting anyone about it as to up the contrast of the images. I found it to be relatively successful and made the pictures look better on the whole.

I'll start with the first image. Out of both of the images this is my favorite. It was taken in Accrington town centre on Peel Street. I like how the perspective leads your eye towards the building which is the focal point of the image and the 'object' I chose to photograph. I love how light from the street lamp forms a sort of vignette on the building. I also really like how the building looks. I like the texture and how it looks like a typical mid-20th century building.

The second image is of the pay toilet on Peel Street. I like how its almost 'crushed' into the frame. This daws your eye to it.