Shooting the City of Dresden at Night

Dresden Altstadt with Frauenkirche
Dresden Altstadt with Frauenkirche

Visiting a photogenic city and having plenty of time – what else would make a perfect photo night? Perfect weather. Well the first two things I had last weekend. But the weather was rather a challenge than being suitable for citynight photography: drizzling, foggy, low clouds and gusty winds.

My good old friend and photographer Volker lives in Dresden and was the perfect guide for our nightly photowalk. Ofcourse we started with one of the most famous vantage points: Canaletto’s View. (Canaletto was a painter who portrayed Dresden at around 1750.)

Next stop was a new bridge which has been opened just a few months ago after years of legal action between city planners, environmental activists and private interests. The thing is that the architecture of the bridge (Waldschlösschenbrücke) had to be trimmed-down in parts as a concession to the rivaling parties, and therefore it looks partially quite strange. Nevertheless we took a few nice shots. The challenging thing was that the rails of that bridge have 8,000  extremely shining white LEDs which make it quite hard to expose properly.

Later we went to the old town around the rebuilt church (Frauenkirche), but the gusty winds always blew raindrops onto the lens so that a lot of reflections ruined any good image.

Hint for everyone who wants to shoot Dresden at night: Starting from around 10 pm they switch off the illumination of famous buildings. So better postpone your dinner to after ten (restaurants will be open to late night).

Nightly Dresden from Canaletto's view
Nightly Dresden from Canaletto’s view
Waldschlösschenbrücke crossing river Elbe
Waldschlösschenbrücke crossing river Elbe
Symmetrics from underneath
Symmetrics from underneath
The LEDs at the rails care for daylight feeling
The LEDs at the rails care for daylight feeling

 

Dresden Altstadt with Frauenkirche
Dresden Altstadt with Frauenkirche