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.
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 sea life creation.
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Shutter Speed: 1/20, Aperture: f/2.8, ISO: 1000
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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 Bluetooth headphones. We had to try it, and the queue moved quickly, possibly because the choice of music was loud and unpleasant (or maybe I am just getting old).
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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.
Shutter Speed: 1/60, Aperture: f/5.0, ISO: 1600 (last earth photo had aperture: f/1.7)
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Shutter Speed: 1/60, Aperture: f/2.0, ISO: 1600
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Shutter Speed: 1/60, Aperture: f/1.8, ISO: 1600
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More Light Festival Fun
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Shutter Speed: 1/50, Aperture: f/1.7, ISO: 1000
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Shutter Speed: 1/80, Aperture: f/9.0, ISO: 1600
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The ever-changing colours of most of the lights are captured in this promotional video from the city.
General Tips on Photographing a Light Festival
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- 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.
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- 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.
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 facebook page.
- 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 and Moscow at night.
What’s your favourite light festival?
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Camila @ Adventitious Violet
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!
Travel Tuesday
Fantastic shots of this wonderful festival, Rhonda! Night photography is magical when done well 🙂
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Setarra
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.
Christine | The Journey of Christine
What a cool festival! I wish Houston had something like that! All the light displays are so much fun!
Jenny Smith
Good job with the photography, love them.
Goblinette
So this is how you do it. I have been to two large light festivals in Benelux and all my photos were horrible 🙁
Mary (cactus catz)
wow, it looked amazing
beatravelling
This is so cool! I have never been to a light festival, but I’d definitely like to 🙂
Luci
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.
Kay L. Davies
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
karen
love the tips. capturing the lights as they really are can be so difficult
Angela
I love light festivals–and the Mountain of Light creates a great memory!
Parul Thakur
Gorgeous lights and I loved your shots. Thank you for sharing!
Paul Pietrangelo
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
Rhonda Albom
LOL Paul, we travel to many of these things. Auckland is about an hour from our home.
Reese Woods
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!
Ellen Pilch
Beautiful photos, thank you for sharing.
Carol
Light Festivals are so much fun. Great job with the photography!
Priyadarshini Rajendran
Wow, the pictures are amazing. I keep hearing about this festival, will surely check it out.
Rhonda Albom
You probably keep hearing about Vivid in Sydney. This Auckland festival is only in its second year.
Vibeke
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.
Rhonda Albom
Have you been to Vivid in Sydney? I imagine that to be the ultimate light display.
Sarah Carter
I love it. Interactive makes it so much more memorable! And Auckland is beautiful too!
Rhonda Albom
I agree, and not just for the kids, interacting is great for everyone.
Courtney
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!
Rhonda Albom
You can take night light sculptures on the iPhone, just not always with the same dynamic range, but you can get the memory.
Patrick Weseman
Wow, that is so very cool. Thanks for sharing it.
Rhonda Albom
Glad you enjoyed it Patrick.
Kirralee Baker
That Mountain of Light is stunning. I love these light festivals. Although the crowds here in Sydney for Vivid are a challenge.
Rhonda Albom
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.
Indah Nuria
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
Rhonda Albom
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.
Lisa
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!
Cori
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!
Rhonda Albom
Remember, it is almost winter here, so dark is pretty early. We were there from about 6-7pm.
Comedy Plus
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. ♥
Rhonda Albom
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.
Paige
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.
L. Diane Wolfe
The mountain of light is just gorgeous!
Rhonda Albom
That is my favourite shot as well.
stevebethere
Brilliant photos Rhonda love the lights and colours and that first photo what a good shot 🙂
Have a festivaltastic week 🙂
Rhonda Albom
The first was really cool live as the whale actually swam across the boat hull.
s.c.
Great photo’s captured well. I like it.
Rhonda Albom
It was a fun event to attend.
Lady Fi
Wow – fabulous shots.
Joyce
The colors are gorgeous!
Rhonda Albom
I was pretty impressed with some of the lights.
Ryan Biddulph
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
Rhonda Albom
As you know, I love Auckland and I look forward to meeting up with you when you are here on your way out.
Alex J. Cavanaugh
There’s just something about outdoor light shows that are just too cool. That interactive globe is a fun idea.
Rhonda Albom
I totally agree, especially when the weather is good and the sky is clear and black.