Building Exteriors at Night

I had to shoot a building last week. The folks who requested the photograph
wanted a night shot. The building is out from town, and well lighted.

My idea was to make use of the floodlights to light the structure and have enough ambient light to have some sky visible, not just the house surrounded by blackness.
I knew what time the sun was supposed to set and used that as a starting point for my shoot.

I got to the house well before sunset and checked different views. I wanted to have the building framed somewhat with the trees. The trees help pull your eye into the image. I needed some light in the sky to make this happen.



I waited for the floods to come on, narrowly escaping a wet surprise as the sprinkler system came on. Grabbed my tripod and ran. Anyway, the lights came on and I waited until the floods illuminated the front of the house. I was shooting on manual
so I could balance the exposure for both the house and the sky. Both photos were shot at 1/2 second and F16. The top image was at 8:35pm, the next one at 8:45pm.
The light on the building stayed the same, but the sky darkened q good bit in the 10 minutes between photos.

To make all this mixed light easier to deal with I shot with the white balance on auto.

Building exteriors are a lot more fun to shoot at night, and the photos are usually more interesting visually. Just take your time.