German cinematographer Bernd Meiners, for instance, recently inaugurated a photography exhibition, titled "Night" (城市夜影), at Taipei's Goethe-Institut (德國文化中心), in between two séances of his film Ghosted (曖昧).

"I always wanted to take night photos or snapshots, but normally that's not possible, as it all becomes blurry, including the persons, because they're all moving," explained Meiners.

"But that was the original idea. I wanted to take snapshots at night, without having to build up the standard or anything. And nowadays with infrared (digital cameras), that is not a problem anymore," said the cinematographer, who obtained a small camera with infrared mode in 2001, and has been unstoppable when the night falls ever since.

Contrary to most photographers, he just keeps his photo camera in his pocket during daytime as he remarked that there is no "excitement" in taking pictures at daytime.

You can see daytime pictures of any city anywhere, unlike the night, which always seems to be a bit forgotten, explained the night owl, who pointed out that although there are some night photos in photography book sometimes, there are hardly any books focusing on this subject.

"Actually I wanted to make a book," he said. "The photos would be an extra, and there would be a sound station, where you can listen to the sounds of the city through an earphone. Not just the sounds of the photos, but of the city in general."

"The original idea of a book plus a CD, however, is hard when you're not a well-known photographer. After all you need to have a name before a publisher will spend money to press it and so forth. As a cinematographer, I'm from a completely different branch," Meiners said.

"The photos are actually totally against the trend. Normally the pictures are giant with billions of very small pixels. My photos are exactly the opposite, they dissolve. The more you stretch them, the more they dissolve," he explained.

"In reality, it wasn't so blurry. And that is how it gets somewhat more artistic, instead of realistic. And that is what it was supposed to be, it's the impression of the night, and not naturalistic images," Meiners said.

While his exhibition will run in Taipei until the end of July, with pictures of cities including New York, Zanzibar, Moscow, Venice and Taipei, Meiners continues to stalk the nights to photograph the quiet moments of a lively city, and expand his collection.

"I always have my camera with me," he said with a twinkle in his eyes.

Night (城市夜影) by Bernd Meiners / Now through July 31 (Fri.) / Goethe-Institut (德國文化中心) / 12F No. 20 Hoping West Rd. Sec. 1, Taipei City (台北市中正區和平西路一段20號12樓) / (02) 2365-7294 / http://www.dk-taipei.org.tw