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I always enjoy heading outside at night when the skies are clear. In Pembrokeshire we are lucky to have plenty of places where there is little in the way of light pollution and in fact, there are several areas that are designated Dark Sky Discovery Sites http://www.visitpembrokeshire.com/explore-pembrokeshire/gazing-at-the-stars/ Whitesands Bay is not on the list but is still a great place to see the stars when there's a gap in the clouds.
I often only decide to head out when I happen to look out of the window and notice the stars are out, or when putting the bins out. Bin bag in hand, I look upwards and realise I need to get my camera out and wrap up warm for a couple of hours stood in the dark gazing upwards and attending to the technical challenges of photography in the dark. Sometimes I curse the lack of clouds if it's late and I'm ready for bed but I rarely regret making the effort to get out there.
I heard this Kafka story read on the radio recently and although I rarely slam doors or speak curtly on my departure, the story struck a chord somehow! I rarely stop by to see any friends either, it's usually a solitary practice unless I bump into the odd nocturnal animal; A fox spent a good deal of time barking at me in a cemetery once.
If you enjoy my night photography there are some more images on my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/ThomasBownPhotography/
The Sudden Walk
by Franz Kafka
Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir
When it looks as if you had made up your mind finally to stay at home for the evening, when you have put on your house jacket and sat down after supper with a light on the table to the piece of work or the game that usually precedes your going to bed, when the weather outside is unpleasant so that staying indoors seems natural, and when you have already been sitting quietly at the table for so long that your departure must occasion surprise to everyone, when, besides, the stairs are in darkness and the front door locked, and in spite of all that you have started up in a sudden fit of restlessness, changed your jacket, abruptly dressed yourself for the street, explained that you must go out and with a few curt words of leave-taking actually gone out, banging the flat door more or less hastily according to the degree of displeasure you think you have left behind you, and when you find yourself once more in the street with limbs swinging extra freely in answer to the unexpected liberty you have procured for them, when as a result of this decisive action you feel concentrated within yourself all the potentialities of decisive action, when you recognize with more than usual significance that your strength is greater than your need to accomplish effortlessly the swiftest of changes and to cope with it, when in this frame of mind you go striding down the long streets - then for that evening you have completely got away from your family, which fades into insubstantiality, while you yourself, a firm, boldly drawn black figure, slapping yourself on the thigh, grow to your true stature.
All this is still heightened if at such a late hour in the evening you look up a friend to see how he is getting on.
From... http://www.franzkafkastories.com/index.php
And so to the picture...
