Vivid colours, artistic lighting, and marine projections brought with it the challenge of photographing a light festival in Auckland at night. Bright Nights brought Viaduct Harbour alive with a light and sound spectacular curated by international award-winning light artist Angus Muir Design. As always, New Zealand knows how to throw a party.
“The waterfront means a lot to Auckland City, and creating a light art experience that interacts with the water itself was always the goal. The opportunity to use Viaduct Harbour as a canvas to launch a full-scale lighting festival for everyone to enjoy is pretty much a dream come true,” says Muir.
Table of Contents
- 1 Light Festival Photographs (Photo tips below)
- 2 Next, it became an interactive light festival
- 3 More Light Festival Fun
- 4 General Tips on Photographing a Light Festival
- 5 Practical Information on the Auckland Light Festival
- 6 Where to Stay in Auckland
- 7 What’s your favourite thing to do in Auckland at night? Have you visited Bright Nights or any light festival?
Light Festival Photographs (Photo tips below)
Auckland Bright Nights
Celebrating nothing in particular, this year’s theme focuses on clean seas and sustainability. It followed a path of light beginning at KZ1, the 1998 America’s Cup Challenger Yacht that sits on display outside the Auckland Maritime Museum. Here we discovered an ever-changing projection that showed geometric patterns when we first arrived and then a fabulous sealife creation.
Called Undersail this whale ‘swam’ across the hull of KZ1.
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Next, we looked across viaduct basin at Light Field and it’s colourful reflection in the water.
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Enjoying the colour change of Light Field, we can see two former New Zealand America’s Cup yachts, now sailed daily to allow visitors to experience the thrill of racing.
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Next, it became an interactive light festival
The next exhibit, called Square Dance Discotheque was fascinating to watch. Coloured lights rotated on the ground while people danced to silence. The music played via 
Square Dance Discotheque
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The Interactive Earth let visitors alter various things and see their effects on the planet. While we watched, a member of the Futuristic Vospertron performance team joined into the fun.
Left: Member of Futuristic Vospertron team. Right: Various results of an Interactive Earth
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The Fortune Fountain is a modern wishing well with proceeds going to the charitable trust.
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Burrow provided an opportunity to pass under the lights
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These lights seem to always be at Viaduct Harbour.
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More Light Festival Fun
I silhouetted the children to both give perspective and keep the focus on the Mountain of Light.
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Cubezoid’s colour movement was mesmerising.
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The Light Field looked much different from close up. (I liked it better at a distance like in the photos above.
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Water Fun
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Pou Rama (meaning light posts)
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If you enjoyed these images, please click on the image just below and then save to your favourite Pinterest board:
General Tips on Photographing a Light Festival
- Know your camera’s limits. I shoot with an Olympus OMD em5 Mark II, a compact, mirrorless camera that is not only the ideal lightweight travel camera, it also offers very high ISO options and shoots beautifully in low light situations.
⇒ If you live in USA or Canada, check pricing of the OMD em5 Mark II at Olympus
⇒ 
- Set your camera to manual mode.
- Use a high ISO for hand-held shots, the lowest for tripod shots.
- Use a wide-angle lens.
- Adjust your settings for the event, try to not overexpose the light.
- Bracket your shots.
- If possible, go on a preview or media only night.
- If light installations are large, try to include silhouetted people or well-known objects for size perspective.
- Another great way to improve your night photography is with a semi-private Auckland and sunset and night photography tour. A maximum of two people per tour, the reviews indicate lots of hands-on tips.
⇒ Check pricing and availability for an Auckland and sunset and night photography tour
Want more tips, get a copy of my free ebook:
Seven ridiculously simple tips that WILL improve your photos
Whether you shoot with a phone or a DSLR, let me share my secrets.
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Practical Information on the Auckland Light Festival
- The Bright Nights light festival photographed on this page took place over a weekend in May 2018 in Auckland at night.
- The lights festival in Auckland is a free treat hosted by the city.
- For information (not yet announced) on next year’s event, keep an eye on this page, or their official website.
- It is much smaller in scale than Sydney Australia’s annual Vivid festival.
- The two other major annual Auckland light festivals are the Chinese Lantern Festival and the Diwali Festival.
- A few other examples of night photography on Albom Adventures include the Sonoran lights at the Desert Botanical Garden, Moscow at night, and a mysterious light beam over Rangitoto Island.
Don’t worry if you missed this year’s light festival, there are plenty of interesting things to do in Auckland at night. Don’t miss this list:
⇒30 Fun Things to Do in Auckland New Zealand at Night⇐
Where to Stay in Auckland
If you visit Auckland New Zealand for a night festival, you will want to spend the night.
Booking.com
What’s your favourite thing to do in Auckland at night? Have you visited Bright Nights or any light festival?
That’s so beautiful! This is one of the reasons why I LOVE cities and the way they try to highlight their infrastructure mixing it with art!
Fantastic shots of this wonderful festival, Rhonda! Night photography is magical when done well 🙂
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Thanks for sharing these tips for taking photos at night! This light festival looks like it was so much fun, especially love how interactive it was.
What a cool festival! I wish Houston had something like that! All the light displays are so much fun!
Good job with the photography, love them.
So this is how you do it. I have been to two large light festivals in Benelux and all my photos were horrible 🙁
wow, it looked amazing
This is so cool! I have never been to a light festival, but I’d definitely like to 🙂
Marvellous images, and a great tutorial!
That looks like a lot of fun for the whole family. Its also really pretty to all the different lights and all the different shapes they can do.
Amazing photos. So much colour, so much light, and so much darkness, too. Thank you for sharing.
Kay
An Unfittie’s Guide to Adventurous Travel
love the tips. capturing the lights as they really are can be so difficult
I love light festivals–and the Mountain of Light creates a great memory!
Gorgeous lights and I loved your shots. Thank you for sharing!
Rhonda, I’m amazed with all these beautiful pictures and colors. They are so vivid. I think of boring my town has for me. The only beautiful place is the Navy Yard off the river. But you have so much. Lucky you! Thank you giving me the opportunity to view all of these wonderful pictures. See ya.
Cruisin Paul
LOL Paul, we travel to many of these things. Auckland is about an hour from our home.
How beautiful! I have never been to a light show like this before, but it seems like a once in a lifetime experience if you have to chance to go!
Beautiful photos, thank you for sharing.
Light Festivals are so much fun. Great job with the photography!
Thanks Carol, I agree. I love the colours.
Wow, the pictures are amazing. I keep hearing about this festival, will surely check it out.
You probably keep hearing about Vivid in Sydney. This Auckland festival is only in its second year.
I love light festivals. I have been to a few in Australia and Ecuador. I haven’t had issues with photographing it, even by using a phone only. It can be a bit challenging if it is too dark. I love your photos in this post. I hope to visit Auckland soon. I love travelling places and experience local festivals and events like this one. Thank you so much for sharing.
Have you been to Vivid in Sydney? I imagine that to be the ultimate light display.
Really cool festival! Thanks for sharing! I hope you have a wonderful week.
http://travelingbugwiththreeboys-kelleyn.blogspot.ae/2018/05/celebrations.html
Thanks Kelleyn, it had a great start at this festival.
I love it. Interactive makes it so much more memorable! And Auckland is beautiful too!
I agree, and not just for the kids, interacting is great for everyone.
Oh wow! This looks like such a cool experience. I just have my iPhone camera at this point, so night photography is out of the question! Your photos turned out great!
You can take night light sculptures on the iPhone, just not always with the same dynamic range, but you can get the memory.
Wow, that is so very cool. Thanks for sharing it.
Glad you enjoyed it Patrick.
That Mountain of Light is stunning. I love these light festivals. Although the crowds here in Sydney for Vivid are a challenge.
We have been debating for weeks over whether or not to cross the ditch to go to Vivid. Your comment makes me think we made the right choice.
What an incredible list festival you have here, Rhonda. And very colorful as well. We have similar things as well in Indonesia, particularly in Jogjakarta and Semarang
All the bright colours make these kinds of shows so fun to attend. I have seen a similar light sculpture show in Arizona as well.
What a lovely light festival to see and also capture. I especially like the tips you give, as I’m very much an amateur photographer. Your photos are wonderful, and really show off the best of the lights and the art on display. The one of the children and the colourful cubes is my favourite!
Thanks. Remember, it’s not just the photo tips, there is editing afterwards as well. I use Lightroom by Adobe.
This looks so fun! I’ve been to light festivals in a couple different cities and they’ve all been very much worth going to. It’s great to see so many people of all ages out in the downtown after dark and the installations are always great. It looks like Aukland has a particularly good festival!
Remember, it is almost winter here, so dark is pretty early. We were there from about 6-7pm.
I loved all the shots. Amazing lights. Always a beautiful sight at night.
I’m with you. If the music is loud I’m gone. I can’t do it anymore.
Have a fabulous day. ♥
I don’t actually know how people could stand and listen to it playing right in their ears so loud. I thought our hearing gets worse as we get older, maybe this is why.
What a cool thing to experience! It’s like street art come to life. I also love that you provide photography tips so that others can make some nice captures. Mountain of Life was my favorite display for sure.
Thanks Paige. There are a few tricks to photographing at night.
The mountain of light is just gorgeous!
That is my favourite shot as well.
Brilliant photos Rhonda love the lights and colours and that first photo what a good shot 🙂
Have a festivaltastic week 🙂
The first was really cool live as the whale actually swam across the boat hull.
Great photo’s captured well. I like it.
It was a fun event to attend.
Wow – fabulous shots.
Thanks Fi, I love shooting at night.
The colors are gorgeous!
I was pretty impressed with some of the lights.
Auckland is a beautiful city Rhonda. We had a night there 2 months back and 1 more night there on the way out, a month from now. When we return to NZ we will spend a few weeks there, a proper visit.
Ryan
As you know, I love Auckland and I look forward to meeting up with you when you are here on your way out.
There’s just something about outdoor light shows that are just too cool. That interactive globe is a fun idea.
I totally agree, especially when the weather is good and the sky is clear and black.