A Little Night Photography in the City of Providence
On a Saturday night I hit Providence with a few other Rhode Island photographers for dinner, a couple of drinks, and a lot of night photography. The city has plenty to shoot at any hour, but once the sun goes down and the lights come on, it turns into a different place entirely.
Normally I grab a wide angle lens and go for the big skyline shot. This time I left it in the bag and brought a medium zoom instead — the challenge was finding the smaller, more intimate stories in the city rather than the big picture.
Walking the streets and looking at the details instead of the skyline, I was surprised how much design work goes into this city — small sculptures, intricate signage, all of it. I spent a while photographing the front of the Providence Performing Arts Center and its neon, then packed up the tripod to see what else was around. A block later I glanced back over my shoulder and stopped — a staircase along the side of the building, fully enclosed in frosted plexiglass, looked like a white snake slithering up the side of it.
I crossed the street and worked the scene for a while before landing on the composition I liked best — the one you see here. Photography can be a genuinely exciting way to spend an evening; you never quite know what you’re going to turn around and find.