Capturing the Night: Ken Lee's Approach to Night Photography (and Colorblindness)

Light painting is a creative and adventurous form of night photography where you use a handheld flashlight to "paint" subjects during a prolonged exposure in total darkness. In this episode, I sit down with photographer Ken Lee to explore his journey into the world of night photography.

We also discuss something unique we share in common—besides our names—both of us are colorblind photographers. Ken opens up about how his colorblindness has shaped his approach to photography and offers practical tips and tools for fellow colorblind photographers. Whether you're looking to improve your night photography or navigate colorblindness in your work, this episode is packed with insights you won't want to miss.

Transcript

00:00:21:14 - 00:00:26:05

And you're in the composition, but because the shutters open so long, you're not appearing. 

00:00:26:07 - 00:00:51:05

That is exactly correct. And that's one of the most common questions that I'm asked. So what I'm doing is sometimes I am walking through the scene, but as long as I don't stand still for more than 10% of the exposure, I don't register in the photo at all. And if I were to stand still for 10% of the time, I would initially register as a sort of faint dark smudge. 

00:00:51:13 - 00:00:56:03

Holy shit, this blows my mind. I had no idea that this is how you do this. 

00:00:56:06 - 00:00:57:02

Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. 

00:01:00:03 - 00:01:21:18

Welcome to the Big Photo Hunt Podcast, a show where we talk with aspiring and professional photographers to help us all grow and improve our photography together. I'm your host, Ken Deckinger. If you're one of our community members and you'd like to be a guest on the show, please visit Big Photo hunt.com for more information on. 

00:01:31:22 - 00:02:05:21

I don't remember when, but there was a previous episode of this podcast where I mentioned that I'm colorblind. Not a big deal. 1 in 12 men are a listener emailed me after hearing that episode and asked if I would expand on how I deal with being a colorblind photographer. To me, it's all I've ever known. I see what I see and my photos look great to me, so I'm totally happy. But it got me thinking in researching, which led me to my guest today, Ken Lee. 

00:02:06:00 - 00:02:40:21

Based in Los Angeles, his work tends to focus on night photos of unique features, landscapes and abandoned historical places such as the famous route 66. Ken's images have appeared in National Geographic Books, Omni magazine, the LA times, and numerous other publications. He has won awards. He teaches night photography workshops, is an author with three books. And yeah, he's colorblind. So today we're going to talk about night photography and being a colorblind photographer. 

00:02:40:23 - 00:02:43:09

Welcome to the show, my Colorblind friend. 

00:02:44:11 - 00:02:48:23

Thank you very much. And, uh, thanks for that wonderful introduction. It's an honor to be here. 

00:02:48:29 - 00:03:05:02

Hey, man, it's an honor to have you here. Your photos are magical. And, you know, before we get into things, I just want to touch on something else that we have in common other than color blindness. You and I are both named Ken. Do you know what the name Ken means? 

00:03:05:12 - 00:03:07:07

It's old Irish for handsome. 

00:03:07:09 - 00:03:08:20

Yes, yes. 

00:03:09:00 - 00:03:10:06

That's what I'm talking about. 

00:03:10:15 - 00:03:11:06

Yes. 

00:03:12:15 - 00:03:35:13

You know, I didn't always know that. But in college, I had a friend named Ken and everyone called him Handsome Ken. Sometimes they would just call him handsome. And I didn't understand why. I mean, he was a good looking guy. He wasn't like Ryan Gosling, good looking, but he was a decent looking guy. But everyone called him handsome. And then I finally learned that. So. But fortunately, you and I were clearly both handsome and so clearly. 

00:03:35:15 - 00:03:36:00

Yes. 

00:03:36:10 - 00:03:40:04

I'm really excited to hear. Why don't we start by talking about your story? 

00:03:40:27 - 00:03:43:07

Well, my name is Ken. As we established. 

00:03:44:03 - 00:03:44:21

And. 

00:03:45:05 - 00:04:15:13

Um, I grew up in the Midwest, uh, moved out to California with my family when I was a kid. So most of the time I've lived in California. And, um, as far as night photography, which is what I'm probably best known for, although I also play music, it's sort of started because I was at, you know, famous Venice Beach, where, uh, there's lots of weirdos and roller skaters playing guitars and things like that. And one of the booths that was set up was night photography. 

00:04:15:18 - 00:04:52:07

Uh, this guy had all sorts of different prints. Now, this is in the early 2000. And, um, so it was all film. And so I stopped because I had never seen anything like this before. His photos were in Joshua Tree, which is about 2.5 hours from me. And he had a lot of photos of rocks with shadows that he had done with his flashlight. And so I spoke to him, and I remember him saying, there's more light at night than you think there is. He was talking about 45 minutes exposures and things like that, and I was just absolutely intrigued. 

00:04:52:09 - 00:05:26:18

So I kind of squirreled it away in my brain. And a little bit later, when digital cameras became a little bit bigger and I actually got one, I remembered thinking, I remember what that guy was doing. He was doing it with film, and it wasn't quite my aesthetic, but it sure was cool and I'd like to try that. So around 2012, I think it was, I started doing it and, you know, they looked horrid. They were just pathetic looking because I was just using my headlamp and things like that to light paint, and they were noisy and wretched looking. 

00:05:26:20 - 00:05:54:13

But I had caught the bug and I thought, this is so much fun. And one of the things that people don't talk about with night photography is how deliberate and how purposeful and calming it is you're at in the middle of nowhere and it's quiet. It's dark. And for someone, especially someone like me with ADHD, to be able to be almost forced, forced. 

00:05:54:15 - 00:05:55:19

To to focus. 

00:05:55:21 - 00:06:17:26

On one thing literally and figuratively is a complete blessing. So it felt great as well. It was super creative, very actively creative, and I just went with it and just kept practicing. And, you know, eventually getting better cameras and better lights and things like that. That said, you don't need very special equipment at all to do this, which is part of the fun. 

00:06:18:07 - 00:06:31:11

Most of your images are of abandoned subjects, buses in the desert plains and the desert cars and the desert. Route 66. Why abandoned subjects? 

00:06:33:22 - 00:06:34:21

I have. 

00:06:34:23 - 00:06:35:10

This. 

00:06:35:18 - 00:07:05:21

Real fascination with our history and with respect to route 66. The Western expansion, I think it's absolutely fascinating. I also think it's fascinating that these things were cast off. They were abandoned. And it always makes me wonder why. And so sometimes when I'm doing the light painting, I'm trying to tell a story, or perhaps give a little hint as to why it might be abandoned. You know, coming from my own imagination, of course. So a lot of it has to do with that. 

00:07:05:23 - 00:07:35:27

Plus, as night photographers, I think we're always looking for really strong subjects. And now I love nature and everything like that. And I try and look for the most unique or unusual nature that that I can. But you can only do so much. So I'm always looking for something. So it's not necessarily that I want abandoned, although I love that. But if I can find anything that's really cool looking or unusual, whether it's a sculpture or an interesting building, I'm all for it. 

00:07:36:02 - 00:07:39:25

What's it like to photograph route 66? I've never been there. 

00:07:39:27 - 00:07:41:09

Well, it's. 

00:07:41:15 - 00:07:42:00

I. 

00:07:42:02 - 00:08:14:29

Mean, you feel like you're you're walking or driving down America's main street and, and I think I think that's the allure of it. Just when you think about how many people have come before you and how many people had hopes and dreams and packed up the family and moved out west, I think that to me is what's particularly interesting about it. And and also, I like the aesthetic. I like the 1930s, 40s and 50s signs and buildings and architecture and things like that. 

00:08:15:01 - 00:08:17:10

So. So I'm attracted to that as well. 

00:08:17:22 - 00:08:23:00

So you casually mentioned something about 45 minute exposures. 

00:08:23:20 - 00:08:24:06

Yeah. 

00:08:24:24 - 00:08:34:06

Let's get into the technical side of this. Your photography has tremendous detail and color. How do you get that? 

00:08:34:29 - 00:09:07:25

Well. Thank you. As I mentioned before, I don't have any real special equipment. I suppose the most special thing is maybe the lens, but I have a Pentax K1, which is a 2016 DSLR and a Nikon D750, which is probably 2015, I think, also a DSLR. So I'm not exactly using state of the art equipment as it is. And both those I purchased used. So I mount these on top of a nice sturdy tripod. 

00:09:07:27 - 00:09:46:21

And I can use any sort of lens, especially when there's a full moon. And a lot of the abandonment that you're seeing is photographed near a full moon. So the full moon is acting as a major source of light, especially during a long exposure. So what I'll do is I'll hold the the shutter open for a long period of time, and then using a handheld flashlight, I'll go and illuminate whatever the subject is, whether that's an abandoned car or an abandoned building or a Joshua tree, or even some cool looking rocks or whatever it might be. 

00:09:46:24 - 00:10:10:00

I'll use my handheld flashlight and I'll illuminate that because it's handheld and it's not on a stand. I can walk around. I can, um, light paint with different angles and different colors and things like that. And it's really, really flexible that way. And one of the other things I like about that is that it's really, really actively creative. 

00:10:10:19 - 00:10:16:11

Are you keeping the light in one spot or are you moving it while the exposure is open? Are you moving it? 

00:10:17:05 - 00:10:48:21

Yeah, I'm moving that around quite a bit. I'm, uh, standing in several different locations. Sometimes I'm literally light painting. And when I say light painting, I mean that quite literally. I'm literally painting an object with light. And so I'm using my flashlight as a brush, and the light is going up and down or staying in one particular spot for longer if I want more light or what have you. And I'm in complete control over that. You know, I, uh, like a movie producer. 

00:10:48:23 - 00:10:52:26

I'm deciding what to keep in shadow and what to illuminate. 

00:10:53:01 - 00:10:53:24

That is. 

00:10:53:26 - 00:11:16:20

Cool. So. Okay, so I saw a photo with a plane. Like, it looked like a World War two airplane in the desert. Yeah. So you're keeping the shutter open. So let's just say it is 45 minutes. You're essentially lighting the front of the plane and then moving around different parts of the plane to light it. It's not all being lit at the same time. 

00:11:16:22 - 00:11:17:10

Correct. 

00:11:17:20 - 00:11:22:25

Cool. And you're in the composition, but because the shutters open so long, you're not appearing. 

00:11:22:27 - 00:11:47:24

That is exactly correct. And that's one of the most common questions that I'm asked. So what I'm doing is, uh, sometimes I am walking through the scene, but as long as I don't stand still for more than 10% of the exposure, I don't register in the photo at all. And if I were to stand still for 10% of the time, I would initially register as, uh, a sort of faint dark smudge. 

00:11:48:02 - 00:11:48:21

Holy shit. 

00:11:48:24 - 00:11:52:22

This blows my mind. I had no idea that this is how you do this. 

00:11:52:24 - 00:11:53:09

Yeah, yeah. 

00:11:53:11 - 00:12:10:03

Yeah, yeah. And this comes in especially handy when I'm painting something as large as a World War Two warbird, you know, in an airplane. Because that thing is huge. I mean, it is monstrously huge. So it's good that my light painting is therefore cumulative. 

00:12:10:08 - 00:12:14:24

Do you need to be in pitch black to do this, or can you do it in a somewhat lit area? 

00:12:15:07 - 00:12:43:00

It can be in a somewhat lit area, but the more it's lit, the more it negates my light painting. So if I'm under a bunch of streetlights, for instance, that might be really difficult. And that's something that we try and avoid. However, obviously with the full moon, it's not pitch black at all. You can see reasonably well, uh, with a full moon. So much so that a lot of times when I'm out at night, I don't even bother turning on my flashlight to walk around because I can kind of see where I'm going. 

00:12:43:25 - 00:12:59:12

To our listeners, you've got to check out Ken's website because you'll see the images that he's talking about. I am so surprised to hear this, because one of my questions today was, what lights are you bringing when you go shoot this? Because they look like you've got spotlights on them or something. 

00:13:00:11 - 00:13:01:10

See, this is. 

00:13:01:12 - 00:13:32:17

The wonderful thing again, is that it really doesn't take much. So if you wanted to light paint and you didn't want to spend a lot of money, you could buy a decent quality LED flashlight. It could cost $30, and I prefer a sort of a warm white light personally, instead of a cooler sort of light. So, um, I usually use something like that. It fits right in the pocket because they're really small. Now, I happen to have a special light called a proto machines. 

00:13:33:02 - 00:14:00:14

My model is an LED two and that produces different colors. And it's specially made for light painting. But you don't you don't need to have that. You can use a regular flashlight like I mentioned. And if you really want color, then you can go buy Roscoe Lux Gels. You can buy the sample pack that comes in a little booklet, and you tear them off the booklet and hold them in front of your flashlight and instant red, green, blue, yellow, whatever you want. Wow. 

00:14:00:21 - 00:14:11:24

So your key tricks here are dark place, tripod, extremely long shutter times and or not. 

00:14:13:00 - 00:14:31:27

Yeah. So it sort of depends because if you are doing the if let's say you're doing astro landscape or something like that, you're probably doing maybe a 15 or 20 second exposure. If you're doing star trails then it might go on for hours. So it just depends on what kind of night photography. 

00:14:32:02 - 00:14:38:09

And how do you get the colors then? There are tremendous colors like the sky has color. Everything seems to have color. 

00:14:38:11 - 00:15:11:12

So that's a great question. Now with our eyes. As things get darker, we tend to view things in monochrome more and more. So you'll you'll notice as when you step out at night, things look pretty monochrome to us. However, that's the limitation of our eyes. It doesn't mean that the color has gone away, because as you can see by my photos, for instance, even if I use a white light and illuminate things, you can suddenly see all the colors. And so it is with the Milky Way and other stars. 

00:15:11:14 - 00:15:44:06

Stars in the night sky. They all give off light, different color light. There's blue stars, there's red stars, there's yellow stars, and so forth. And that's why the Milky Way in most photos looks so colorful. It's because they're there and the camera can see them, but we cannot. So that's a very real photo with very real colors. You know, unless someone is like really seriously jacking the saturation or something. But it truly is all there and our cameras pick it up. 

00:15:44:09 - 00:16:01:09

And that's part of the wonderful aspects of night photography, is that, you know, you're never quite sure what you're going to get that first time around until you look at it in the back of the LED screen and you go, oh, there's some color there that I didn't realize was there before. 

00:16:04:21 - 00:16:34:27

Hi, it's Ken, I'm popping in here for a quick break. I hope you're enjoying this episode with Ken Lee. He's terrific, and I think we could all benefit from hearing from him. I also wanted to announce for all of you who may be interested in street photography, Paris, or street photography in Paris. My next episode will feature Parisian photographer Clara Abi Nader. I was in Paris and went on a photowalk with Clara. So join us to talk about that experience and photography in Paris in general, if you're into that kind of stuff. 

00:16:34:29 - 00:16:46:23

Of course, again, if you're listening and saying, what is this crazy bald guy with big teeth talking about, go check out Big Photo hunt.com for more. Now back to the show. 

00:16:51:01 - 00:16:59:18

This is a great segue into the color blindness conversation, because I wonder if you're attracted to this type of photography because of the rich colors that it generates. 

00:16:59:26 - 00:17:28:15

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, that's why I love the light painting. Absolutely. Yeah. So, um, both just to back up a little bit, both, both of us, the two cans are red green colorblind. And this is also known as, uh, deuteron opia. And so, like Ken said, one out of 12 males or approximately 8% have this. So it's it's hardly unusual. And there's different degrees of this. So mine is strong. Is your. 

00:17:28:17 - 00:17:29:02

Strong. 

00:17:29:04 - 00:17:45:07

So my reds are really strong. And the green the green is a little more subtle. Ironically, green is my favorite color. Uh, it's so weird, but my reds are pretty much gone completely. I have trouble seeing purple because purple is blue and red. 

00:17:45:10 - 00:17:45:26

Mhm. 

00:17:45:29 - 00:17:53:23

So when I have blue and purple next to each other, unless it's a really saturated like deep purple, they both look blue to me. 

00:17:54:00 - 00:18:26:25

Yeah. And I completely relate to that. So I think what a lot of people don't understand about colorblindness, particularly red green colorblind, is that we do see colors. We see plenty of colors. However, they might not look the same to other people as they do to us. So, like Ken was alluding to, you throw in subtle hues of reds and greens, uh, and then related colors oranges and browns. And it gets confusing. There's a lot of things that might look sort of brown or ambiguous to us. 

00:18:26:27 - 00:18:35:16

And also, I don't know about you, but when people discuss cyan, teal, turquoise, chartreuse, aquamarine, they hold little meaning to me. 

00:18:35:18 - 00:18:42:08

I was just going to say, as you were mentioning those colors, I don't have a clue what those even mean. 

00:18:42:12 - 00:18:45:28

No, no, I don't know what taupe is. I have no idea. 

00:18:46:00 - 00:18:54:07

No, I don't have a clue. I mean, no, not a clue. People ask me all the time, hey, so you see only black and white. I'm like, no, no. 

00:18:54:09 - 00:18:55:09

No no no no. 

00:18:55:22 - 00:19:18:02

That's not what it means. So I'm signing up for this workshop in Turkey that is focused on street photography and layering. It also focuses on color, and this guy speaks a lot about using reds and different colors in street photography to separate subjects and draw attention. 

00:19:18:05 - 00:19:18:20

Mhm. 

00:19:19:20 - 00:19:22:08

I'm thinking that's a problem for me. How do you deal with that? 

00:19:22:21 - 00:19:23:16

Well. 

00:19:23:26 - 00:19:49:15

If it's red, red, I can see that. You know, a fire truck is red, grass is green. I can see all that. I don't have a problem with streetlights, any of that. So if someone is wearing something that's reasonably close to primary red, or there's a sign that's reasonably close to that, I don't have a problem with that. So I would be okay with that. It sounds like you might have trouble seeing red. 

00:19:49:17 - 00:20:02:09

So yeah, my red is sounds like my red deficiency is stronger than yours because because I don't do that. So how do you compensate? What are some tricks to compensate for this in your photography and your editing? 

00:20:02:24 - 00:20:42:12

With night photography it you know, like I was saying, we we all see in monochrome anyway, so it it matters a little bit less when I'm actually setting up a shot and things like that. Um, and I know what colors. Um, ah, on my flashlight. So none of that is a problem. It's it's all, you know, preprogrammed or. I know what it is. Um, I think the fun begins when I start post-processing my photos. Because I'm not always 100% sure that the, uh, especially if I'm doing nature, I'm not 100% sure that whatever color is there is accurately represented. 

00:20:42:14 - 00:20:55:24

So what I do is, first of all, I don't mess with the color very much. I don't adjust the hue. It's very rare that I adjust the hue. And if I do, I usually have someone standing over my shoulder just making sure, yeah. 

00:20:55:26 - 00:21:04:09

I don't even know what hue is. I mean, I know like intellectually I know what hue is, but I don't visually understand what it's doing right. 

00:21:04:11 - 00:21:34:29

And I'm not always completely confident that when I adjust the hue, I'm not damaging it further. So I basically almost touch I never touch that. So there's several things I use Lightroom in Photoshop and in Photoshop. There's a color picker. And this is true of pretty much any photo editor. So what I do is if there's a color in question in the image, I select that color. And this produces a dialog box that gives me a visual representation of where things are on the RGB spectrum. 

00:21:35:06 - 00:22:05:11

Usually that's enough. I can tell. Right? Right from there. Okay, I can I can see where it is on the spectrum. If it's not, if it's not enough, well, on the side there's something called a hex code. And it's this weird amalgamation of letters, numbers and hashtags and stuff like that. So I copy and paste that and I go to any number of sites like color, hex, dot com I think is one of them. And um, cut a copy and paste that in there and that'll tell me what color that is. 

00:22:06:06 - 00:22:42:12

So that's that's very effective and it's very quick. Another thing I do sometimes is I'll crank the saturation to 100% to see if there's any color that's really not supposed to be there, or whether it's shifted or things like that. When I crank it to 100%, I can pretty much see everything. It looks gruesome and ugly, but at least I can tell what colors are actually really there. There's also things like, um, there's apps that address color cast. So if something is a little bit too, whatever it is, you know, two green or two orange or what have you. 

00:22:42:24 - 00:23:18:02

Frequently a color cast can fix it. And what that means is that you you go in to something that you know is supposed to be white, and you pick that, and it shifts the color cast automatically to represent that as white. If it's shifted a little bit too much, you can knock it back a little bit. And of course, like I alluded to, I ask for help while post-processing. I have my wife will come and look at it and I'll go look. Is there anything funny looking here? Is there anything that's not supposed to be a certain color? And so she'll help with that. 

00:23:18:04 - 00:23:34:19

And also I have two other night photography friends and I'll send photos and I'll go look, I did some color adjustments here. I just want to make sure that the sky is not purple, you know, or things like that. So that's how I get around it. 

00:23:35:00 - 00:23:42:29

You mentioned you jack up the saturation to see which colors don't belong there. What does that mean? Because I don't know if I would be able to distinguish that. 

00:23:44:01 - 00:24:14:16

Well, for instance, let's say if I'm photographing some rocks out at Joshua Tree, I know having seen the rocks before in other photos and in person during the day, I know that those rocks are not green. So if I jack the saturation and suddenly those look green, I know I've got a problem because they're supposed to be sort of tannish colored or, you know, somewhat skin colored or what have you. So I know that that's. 

00:24:15:07 - 00:24:16:14

That's an issue. 

00:24:17:12 - 00:24:18:13

Uh, that makes sense. 

00:24:18:15 - 00:24:19:07

Yeah. 

00:24:19:11 - 00:24:51:12

Or if, um, let's say I'm photographing trees and the trunk of the tree is green and there's no moss present. Uh, then I know I have a problem. So most of the time I have a problem with green, so. So I'll know that there's an issue, and then I'll try and, uh, mess around with it. And between that and the color picker, um, I'll, uh, I'll adjust that until it's correct. And thankfully, because especially with the with night photography, I'm setting the, uh, white balance to a specific Kelvin. 

00:24:51:14 - 00:25:01:12

Usually it's about 37, 50 or 3800 Kelvin. So I know I'm not really going to get a lot of problems because that's an appropriate white balance for night photography. 

00:25:01:17 - 00:25:21:28

I know you're jacking the saturation up just so you can see what should or shouldn't be there. When you're done with that, how do you know where to put the saturation? Because one of the problems I have is that because I have trouble seeing a lot of these colors, a lot of my images become oversaturated to the average person where they look normal to me. 

00:25:22:02 - 00:25:53:14

Well, I put it back to zero. I mean, I don't really use that much saturation. If I do turn up the saturation, it's usually like 5 or 10% or, um, it's just not that much. I don't really like that. I like to put the color in with my lighting or whatever is naturally there, but I really don't crank the saturation a lot. And that's the funny thing, is that if if someone doesn't know what I'm doing and they look at my photos, they'll say, oh my gosh, he he's just he's just let that saturation rip. No, that's the lighting. 

00:25:53:16 - 00:25:55:14

That is the lighting. Absolutely. 

00:25:55:17 - 00:26:28:10

That's cool. Again, to all of our listeners, you have to check out Ken's work. You'll see what we're talking about. There are these images that have such beautiful color. And you'll see how he's doing that all with light. Before we started talking. The way that I came across your work was through an article you published about being a colorblind photographer. You told me that a lot of people had commented on that article, but many or most people actually commented directly to you. 

00:26:28:12 - 00:26:34:01

They didn't want to put it on the public page. And I said I had a theory. 

00:26:35:13 - 00:26:36:13

I'd love to hear it. 

00:26:36:26 - 00:26:46:24

So as a photographer, if you are someone that depends on client work. You're probably not going to want your clients to know that you're colorblind. 

00:26:48:18 - 00:26:50:15

I. I think you're on to something there. 

00:26:51:01 - 00:27:05:20

And I think that a lot of people read your article and didn't want to comment publicly. Rather, they reached out to you privately to talk about it because they don't want to risk losing business or work because a client sees them as colorblind. 

00:27:06:17 - 00:27:38:10

Yeah, I, uh, that was the impression I had as well. And a lot of it was just expressing, um. Well, I think there were two different groups of people. If I'm generalizing here, uh, that did that, one of them is the group that you're describing, but the other one was people who were wanted to start out in photography, but they felt a little hopeless because they were colorblind. And they said. I feel like I might be able to do this now using some of your techniques. You know, I can use a color picker. 

00:27:38:12 - 00:27:56:15

I can crank the saturation, I can use the color cast in nick color effects or whatever. I can do all those things. That makes sense. I can make a photo that isn't garishly wrong and and has a wrong color cast. I can do this. 

00:27:57:05 - 00:28:15:06

I had that hesitation, I think, when I first started going, but for me, it wasn't an issue because I had so many other problems with making shitty photos. That color was the last thing I had to worry about. Now color is starting to have more of a role in what I'm doing, so it's becoming more of an issue. 

00:28:15:28 - 00:28:40:00

Yeah, you're able to incorporate color more because you you have increased confidence in what you can do. So for instance, if you do street photography, you can incorporate red because you can train your your mind to think, okay, I know this is red. And regardless, it looks different from all the other colors around. So I know that it's going to bring that subject forward a little. 

00:28:40:26 - 00:29:03:18

One other thing that I wanted to mention when I was reading your comments, not your comments, but when I was reading the comments that people left on your article, someone mentioned that colorblindness is actually a part of evolution, and so that you and I are actually further evolved than people that see colors. And the comment was that it's so that we can survive in the wilderness. 

00:29:03:28 - 00:29:04:21

Hahahahaha! 

00:29:05:15 - 00:29:36:11

I promise you, I don't know about you, but I promise you I cannot survive in the wilderness. He says it so that you can, particularly with like a military application. It's so that you can decipher between khakis differently so that camouflage can be seen better, and particularly with night vision. As you alluded to before, it's easier for us to see at nighttime. I don't know. I've had glasses since I was sixth grade. I can't see anything at night anyway, so I have no idea. 

00:29:36:21 - 00:29:37:12

But it would be. 

00:29:37:14 - 00:29:47:19

Interesting to find out whether, uh, red green color blindness or color blindness in general has increased over the years, but unfortunately, that might be rather difficult to to determine. 

00:29:48:07 - 00:29:55:01

Yeah. I don't know how you determine that. Right. Other than that test they give you in grade school where you have to look at the dots. 

00:29:55:06 - 00:29:55:21

Mhm. 

00:29:55:27 - 00:30:05:01

I didn't take that test till I was in high school. I had no idea that I just dressed like a clown until I was in like ninth grade and then realized, oh I, I don't see colors. 

00:30:05:12 - 00:30:06:27

Lots of blacks. 

00:30:06:29 - 00:30:07:20

And grays and. 

00:30:07:22 - 00:30:08:19

Blues. 

00:30:08:21 - 00:30:11:13

I joined a black t shirt of the month club for real. 

00:30:11:22 - 00:30:12:22

Hahahahahahaha. 

00:30:13:23 - 00:30:17:24

I, I get a black t shirt in the mail every month. 

00:30:19:12 - 00:30:20:19

That's awesome. Yeah. 

00:30:20:21 - 00:30:35:22

Now, now, in fairness, this company also has other colors, but I have a black t shirt that I order. That's it. Once a month it's on repeat. It's like $15. And every month I get auto renewed and my black t shirt shows up. Yeah. 

00:30:35:24 - 00:30:41:29

See, we won't be getting any c n teal, turquoise, chartreuse or aquamarine shirts anytime soon. 

00:30:42:01 - 00:30:57:27

No, I don't even know how to spell those, let alone see them. Are there resources or anything that you can think of that might be good for people to check out? If they're interested in either night photography or photography as a colorblind person? 

00:30:58:07 - 00:31:36:18

The latter, I don't know, but for Nitro Tography. Well, first of all, you could read my articles in Photo Focus because I write a lot about light painting and doing night photography. So that would be that would be a great resource right there, you know, and just ask questions. If I'm not covering something, but I cover a lot of basic things as well as more advanced things there. As far as color blindness, no, I came up with those techniques on my own, trying to circumvent my color blindness. So I don't know if there is something for colorblind photographers, but every time I mention that, people are really surprised, saying, how do you deal with the colors? And then I point them to that article. 

00:31:37:02 - 00:31:38:19

This is how I deal with it. 

00:31:38:27 - 00:31:50:17

Okay. And then I always ask three questions at the end of every interview. The first one, which you've already mentioned, is what camera system do you use other than the flashlight? 

00:31:51:10 - 00:32:29:18

Right? Right, right. So the Nikon D750 or Nikon, if you're everywhere else in the world besides the United States and um, the Pentax K-1. And it's sort of unusual that I photograph with Pentax, uh, they're sort of a, they're a business that sort of operates on the margins, and they cater more increasingly to niche markets. But I have to say the Pentax K1 is a brilliant night. Photography camera for all sorts of reasons. Produces a red LED, has, um, illumination for the various buttons that you want to get at and all sorts of other things. 

00:32:29:20 - 00:32:51:24

It actually has a sensor. It has a sensor that will track stars, so you don't need an external mount to do so. So it's really set up extremely well. And it's also built like a tank and is virtually waterproof. It's not really waterproof, but it could survive a pretty healthy downpour. 

00:32:52:17 - 00:32:57:18

Next question, which we probably could skip at this point, but what is your favorite genre to shoot? 

00:32:58:08 - 00:32:59:09

Haha, well. 

00:32:59:11 - 00:33:11:18

It just might be night photography, but I will mention though that I have done several weddings and I do event photography from time to time. Um, and I've um, also done macro. 

00:33:12:12 - 00:33:21:10

All right. The final question is, how often do you get that burning itch to get out there and photograph? On a scale of 1 to 10. 

00:33:22:02 - 00:33:22:20

11. 

00:33:23:00 - 00:33:23:25

All right. 

00:33:23:27 - 00:33:37:00

No, I want to get out there. I want to get out there all the time. Because I mentioned earlier in our podcast what it brings to me, as someone who has ADHD and how calming it is and how creative it is. So I want to do it all the time. 

00:33:37:17 - 00:33:39:12

And where can people find you? 

00:33:39:21 - 00:33:52:17

Well, my website is Ken Lee photography. Com and that links to my various social media. I'm basically Ken Lee photography everywhere on Instagram, Facebook, Flickr. Yes, I have a Flickr. 

00:33:52:19 - 00:33:53:07

Account. 

00:33:53:21 - 00:34:14:14

So you can find me on all those all those things and I love interacting with people. So if you have a question about what I'm doing, first of all, I usually leave my, um, my camera settings. I post my camera settings, which is unlike most night photographers. And if you're not sure what I'm doing, just ask. I'll answer. 

00:34:14:23 - 00:34:17:15

Awesome. That's super cool and super helpful. 

00:34:17:21 - 00:34:18:06

Yeah. 

00:34:18:21 - 00:34:31:27

Ken Lee, from one handsome Ken to another handsome Ken. Actually, you maybe more handsome than me. Thank you so much. I really, really am grateful for your time and have enjoyed this conversation. 

00:34:31:29 - 00:34:36:11

It's, uh. It's been a lot of fun. I've, uh, had a blast talking to you. Likewise. 

00:34:36:13 - 00:34:53:20

Thanks, man. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode. Our next show will feature more valuable stories from our community members. If you'd like to audition to be a guest, please visit Big Photo hunt.com for more information. Thanks again for listening today.