Night Errand: a point-and-shoot flash AI photoshoot
Night Errand gives you six rough flash snapshots from an apartment building after dark, the kind an independent magazine runs as reportage. A 28 mm film compact fires its built-in flash point-blank, so clothes snap into color and everything a few meters back drops into black.
Art direction: Alex But
- Camera
- 35 mm point-and-shoot
- Lens
- 28 mm
- Aperture
- f/5.6
- Shutter
- 1/60 s
- Film
- ISO 400 color negative
- Light
- Built-in flash
Best for
Six frames from this shoot
Five frames and one detail, made by haloshot from three phone photos of one person.
Frame 1 · Night Errand 
Frame 2 · Night Errand 
Frame 3 · Night Errand 
Frame 4 · Night Errand 
Frame 5 · Night Errand 
Detail · Night Errand
About the point-and-shoot flash look
The only real light is the little flash beside the lens: hard, frontal and close, with bright hits on fabric and skin and a crisp black shadow on the wall just behind. Its reach ends within a few meters, leaving dim yellow windows and a faint sodium-orange tint far back. Held at hip height and tilted up, the 28 mm at f/5.6 and 1/60 s keeps everything near sharp on ISO 400 negative.
Clothes, place and when to pick it
haloshot dresses women in a cropped mustard mohair cardigan and a baggy pleated gray skirt with lace-up boots, and men in a twisted rust T-shirt with pleated gray shorts and derbies; both get a striped long-sleeve, red knee-high socks and an olive crossbody bag. Courtyard, stairwell and basement laundry make the set. Use it for a zine-style series with your own face.
How it works
Add three photos of yourself: face, half turn and full length. haloshot renders a free five-frame preview of Night Errand with your face. Pick the frames you like and keep them in 4:5 HD.
How to do point-and-shoot flash photos at night
A compact's built-in flash fires straight at the subject from close range. Its power dies within a few meters, so backgrounds fall black while near clothes burn bright.
- Shoot an apartment courtyard, back stairwell and basement laundry at night, with the building manager's permission.
- Load ISO 400 color negative in a 28 mm point-and-shoot and force the flash on, near f/5.6 at 1/60 s.
- Hold it at hip height, tilted up, 1.5 to 3 m away, the subject half a meter from a wall.
- Keep them walking and talking; ambient light during the 1/60 s ghosts fast hands faintly.
Many compacts reset to auto flash at power-off, so force it on again after each restart.
Set notes by Alex But, art director · Updated
More Film shoots
See the whole Film collection · 11 shoots
Collections
Shoot Night Errand with your face
Three photos in, five free preview frames out. Keep the best ones in HD.