From the beginning of his career, Horacio Coppola experimented with the contrasts of light and shadow in his images. There is a self-portrait from 1928 (when he was still using a camera borrowed from his brother Armando, his mentor and his first teacher) which is surprising due to its audacity and technical competence. A large part of Coppola’s photographic work is marked by the use of shadows, whether environmental or punctual. His nocturnal urban landscapes are comparable (in ambition and quality) to those of other famous photographers, cultivators of night photography, from the early decades of the twentieth century.