Welcome to the second step! 

If you missed the first article on Composition, I encourage you to recap on this link

This way you won’t miss anything important!

Now it’s evening…breathe in and relax. 

Remember if you ever need advice when visiting Como, feel free to contact me on this link.

I’d like you to take your time to dedicate some hours to night shots but mainly to enjoy the fresh air and quiet atmosphere. Today, while I’m writing this article, it is July so I can suggest that you go out at 8:30 pm after dinner and walk near the lake to appreciate the colorful lights and the landscape of Como lake.

For this challenger I recommend to park your car in Villa Olmo park, carry on your best camera and tripod and start walking along the lake in the North direction for 300 m, until you near a classic home with windows and arcs and place your lens in the direction of light in Como city coast as I indicate in the below images.

Now, stop and take a moment to look at the landscape and, if you are lucky, without clouds in the sky you can see the colors blue and purple, the reflection of the moon lights and the principal monuments that I rapidly describe below. From right to the left there are:

  • War memorial “Ai Caduti” : a big monument to remember the soldier and commemorate the First World War. Built in the 1930’s and dedicated to soldiers of Como who died in World War 1, it was designed by the famous Terragni Italian architect.
  • Volta Temple: built in honor of Alessandro Volta, the inventor of the electrical battery, who was born and died in Como.This neoclassical temple was built in 1927, 100 years after the death of the scientist.The temple hosts a museum dedicated to the scientist
  • Como Cathedral: the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, better known as Como Cathedral, was built between the 14th and the 18th centuries and It is recognized as one of the most important religious buildings of Northern Italy

The challenge is to reproduce the spectacular night effect!

For the landscape I used my grand angle Nikon lens and I used this 4 tips:

  1. manual mode set, 
  2. closed max possible the aperture to increase the sharpness, 
  3. use ISO low and 
  4. “play” with the shutter speed! 

I suggest you lock all parameter settings and try every shot changing the shutter speed: in fact the natural light rapidly changes to dark and you could obtain photos underexposed.

So I suggest regulating the shutter speed between every shot:  for example, for this photo section I started with 1/100 second and ended with 20 seconds of shutter speed. 

So you understand the important use of the tripod and in addition I remind you to use self-timer mode to reduce every camera vibration.

For this second group of photos  for monument details, I simply change the primary lens with a zoom lens. Naturally I try many times to obtain the correct regulation but in the end I think the final effect that you can obtain will be very good!

For these ones I use the composition roles that I explain in the other article. If you are interested I propose reading on this link.

Last but not least I tried to use this long exposition regulation for light painting effect and post a little color correction work, this one is the result!

Thanks a lot for reading and feel free to contact me for any questions or suggestions.

Remember to Link me on my Instagram profile for news!

Stay tuned for more tips on the perfect shot in Como

Big thanks to Bianca Snyman for her support!