Ivan Pedretti
How many times have you tried to take a photo of a breath-taking landscape at night - lit by nothing more than the stars in the sky - only to realise that the beauty of what’s in front of your eyes simply struggles to translate through a camera lens?
Italian photographer Ivan Pedretti seems to suffer from no such issues - quite the opposite, in fact. Shooting most of his photos outside in the middle of the night, Ivan seems to have a supernatural ability to find an ethereal, magical quality in any scene that he shoots. Each photo is full of detail and texture, and more often than not you can find the Milky Way or Aurora Borealis floating majestically above the scene.
“Nocturnal photography has been a discovery for me,” Ivan tells us from his home in Sardinia. “[In 2012] I saw a landscape photo of the Dolomites taken at night that I particularly liked, so I said to myself: ‘I want to take these kind of pictures too. I don’t know how, but I have to succeed.’”
From that point, he dedicated himself fully to nocturnal landscape photography, spending hours travelling around Sardinia, “walking through difficult paths, often right before dawn”, finding unique locations and learning along the way. “I was particularly fascinated by the atmosphere of peace and adventure I could feel during [these] night trips. It made me feel privileged as I could see these places in a different way, for example just with the light of the stars. All was there for me.”
It wasn’t long until his intrepid nature paid dividends. In 2013 he entered into the Sony World Photography Awards and placed among the top 50 in the Panoramic category, a considerable commendation for a first-time entrant. But Ivan was determined to better himself, and so he decided to enter again in 2014 and submit his photo ‘Starry Lighthouse’. After months of waiting, the winners were announced. His name was on the list. He’d come First Place in the Panoramic category.
‘Starry Lighthouse’ by Ivan Pedretti. “The lighthouse is located in Capo Sprtivento, 50km away from my hometown, Cagliari, situated in the southeast part of Sardinia’s coast.”
Ivan was thrilled to win, but it took him a while to process the news. “One morning I got a call and they gave me the news; at the beginning I tried to stay calm, as if nothing happened, then I understood what was there waiting for me and I was, of course, very happy, because someone believed in me.”
The biggest (and most obvious) issue with night-time photography is the lack of available light, but Ivan sidesteps around this problem by using the Sony α7 and α7 II cameras, both of which are perfect for low-light photos thanks to their extremely high ISO range.
'Galaxy Dolomites' by Ivan Pedretti.
Ivan also owns a small arsenal of camera lenses that he switches between depending on the shooting scenario. He praises the Sony 70-200 F4, which he recently used with the α7 on a trip to Iceland, but it’s his wide-angle lenses that give his shots a distinctive panoramic feel.
“When I shoot nocturnal photos I often work with a 16mm F4 or a 14mm F2.8, where the wide focal helps. When I shoot landscape photos in daylight I often choose either an F8 or an F11 so that details and depth of field are guaranteed.”
'Kirkjufell pool' by Ivan Pedretti.
Photos like Ivan’s require more than just decent equipment, though. You need to have a keen eye for composition, a good geographic knowledge (Ivan even goes so far as to keep track of the position of the Milky Way), and a whole heap of luck, especially if you’re hoping to capture something as fleeting as the Northern Lights.
“The Northern Lights are a unique show: something that when you see it for the first time, you’re left motionless as you stare at it. When you see these green, sinuous formations in the sky you get excited like a child would. Sometimes though, there can be the disappointment of having a particularly intense light but being in the wrong place [to shoot] and vice versa; you [could be] in the perfect location but that night the Northern Lights [might not] show up.”
If Ivan’s story has inspired you to capture your own sweeping nighttime panoramas, then there are a few tips that he says you should abide by. “First of all, know very well what your camera and lenses are capable of in the specific conditions you’ll be working in, more specifically at high ISO and wide apertures. You need a very good panoramic head for your tripod and you need to be able, of course, to edit the photos in post-production.
“Finally, a tip I keep repeating to myself every time: try and try again until you get the result you are aiming for, and sometimes you can obtain more than you were expecting. This is the beauty of photography.”
You can see more of Ivan Pedretti’s work by visiting his official website, The Wildlife Moments.
