It’s not always delightful, being in the garden at the moment here in Wales.  We have severe drought. You may find plants in sudden collapse, certainly not happy, and the heat and humidity are horrid. But at night it cools and there is pleasure to be had. 

I’ve been experimenting with taking photographs – on my phone – at night. Or in the gloaming, when suddenly things can get wonderfully atmospheric. (A bit like our otherwise rather uneventful eclipse was)

That wasn’t taken on any special setting, though my phone makes decisions all of its own. But there may have been light coming from the house. The interesting bit that I want to share is that I take a photograph without the least idea what I’m doing or how it will turn out. And I haven’t edited any of these except sometimes to chop a bit out. So, presumably, you could have fun too, finding out what you get, and that it can sometimes be quite magical.

Skies can be good:

Night sky

Then there’s the strange things that happen to colour:

garden at night

Almost like daylight, but mysteriously not quite.

White is suddenly important.

Hydrangea flower at night
 
Japanese anemone at night

But may go pink.

Any available light suddenly becomes important

And sometimes I get something wrong and still love the result.

But sharp is good too.

And then it gets truly dark

 

You may need a torch by now, and that adds to the fun. Though the torchlight is  likely to be very random, given you’re taking pics too. It gets a bit of a handful and something may get dropped. On my phone you can make a setting in photos so that saying ‘cheese’ (or whatever else you fancy) will trigger a pic. That helps!

 

House lights can look good.

And we mustn’t forget the recently abused moon: (someone ploughed into it)

or, indeed, the friends you may meet outdoors at night. There seems to be always one there to greet me!