This is only my second shot ever of Coal Harbour at night, one of the more iconic Vancouver locations that untold generations of visitors have captured. However, I doubt that many have taken it with an old tank like my Polaroid 600SE or with instant film. It happened that I was on my way to check out the Saxony House (an unofficial pavilion by the Saxony region of Germany) and took this shot with Fuji instant.

To the right of Canada Place -- the building in the center with the white sails -- is the tiny (from my vantage point) Olympic flame. It's probably the instant shot with the best tones I've taken to date. I metered with my hand-held meter and tripod-shot it for two minutes.

Nearby to me were a dozen other tourists and many of them took instant shots of their own -- with digital -- but only a handful of them knew about long exposure. Some of them were popping off flashes. Sooner or later someone is going to have to show them the night exposure mode on their camera.

Why is the sky blue?

My dad wondered how it was that the night exposure turned blue; there are two reasons for this.

(1) Film and any kind of sensor is collecting light over a long period of time in this kind of exposure and with all that light, even the black 'night' will have ambience from all of the city light. Our eyes are just seeing the immediate effect of the light but film and sensors collect it over time.

(2) Also, less of an effect but still a factor is that film -- in this case even an 'instant film' -- is exposed for a long time it undergoes reciprocity effects of which color change can be a result.