As nearly any photographer will tell you, shooting at night can be a complete and total pain. There is the typical challenge of the right exposure, focal length and shutter speed, but nighttime photography also adds in extra challenges, such as white balance, starbursts and halo artifacts. Couple that with the difficulty in finding good places for night photography, and it’s no wonder that most photographers both amateur and professional alike stick to morning, daytime and evening photographs.

However, for the truly motivated, there are ways to take high quality nighttime photographs (of course, shooting RAW doesn’t hurt either). In this post, you’ll find 30 awe-inspiring nighttime photographs that get everything from composition to exposure right.

Brooklyn Bridge New York By Dominique Palombieri

Symmetry By Sungjin Kim

Midnight By John Harrison

The Junction By Kevin Gu

Brightness In Osaka By Y2-Hiro

The Celestial Equator By Luis Argerich

Passage To Hope by Y2-hiro

Sunset At Bleik By Roy Samuelsen

Bay Storm By Idan Presser

006 By 911

Nocturne Eruction By Brad Goldpaint

Cave Lake By Nathan Dunn

Divine Show By Anton Jankovoy

Dancer In The Lights By Timucin Toprak

Vernazza By Ales Farcnik

Bolt From The Black By Andrew Styan

Osaka Night View By Hiroaki Koga

NYC night,Its Almost Day By lovro

Blue Of The Night By Dwayne Andrejczuk

Market Square By poralaxa

Milky Way Over Cottian Alps By Roberto Bertero

Night View In Busan By Sungkyu Choi

San Francisco USA 2010 By Raul Cruz

Slow Motions By Brad Goldpaint

Bosher – Amerat Road – Muscat By Baqer Jawad

Acress The Void By Brad Goldpaint

Sapphire Dreams – The Exquisite Marina Bay,Singapore By Elia Locardi

Twister By Aubrey Stoll

Night By Mikko Lagerstedt

Electropolis By Robert Work