Tag Archives: Long exposure

Night Moves

Posted by dkrashb on

The Hunter Museum’s modern addition and the switchbacks of the riverwalk
Picking my camera up during a long exposure netted this fun set of swirls
This one almost looks planned
Playing some more with urban structures and sky
Playing with sky and the underside of an overpass
Between two bridges
More traditional point of view of the water cannons at Coolidge Landing
A different point of view on the water cannons at Coolidge Landing
Sculpture lit with a flashlight
The modern end of the Hunter Museum
Zooming during a long exposure
The heartbeat of the historical section of the Hunter Museum
Ghost of me taken by Stephen Sweat–supposedly there actually is a ghost at the Hunter Museum.

Friday evening I was running late. I needed to finish photographing some guitars for Coop Guitars before I could head out the door. Isn’t that great? “Oh, I’m sorry I’m late. I had to finish up some shooting before I could call it quits tonight.” (I wonder if someone who’s been a full-time pro photographer for a couple of decades would find it amusing to have this as an excuse for tardiness: “Oh, I’m sorry I’m late, I had to finish up a conference call.”)

Even better, what I was running late for was another shoot! A group of adults got together on the riverfront to play with their very expensive toys–or, as I like to think of them, our boxes of crayons.

We met at 7:45 and shot through sunset and twilight and then really went nuts after dark.

Do you remember summer nights when you were a kid when all the neighborhood kids would get together and play hide-and-seek when it finally got dark? We would swear we’d only been playing for a few minutes when parents would suddenly appear out of the dark saying things like “Where have you been that you couldn’t hear me calling you for the past 10 minutes?”

Friday night, no parents showed up to tell us it was getting late. By the time people started realizing they needed to leave, it was after 10PM. Several of us shot on. “Just one more shot” we said to our internal parents reminding us we had other responsibilities.

We swapped tips on getting night time effects. We threw around words like “high-speed sync,” “hyper-focal distance,” “aberrations,” and “stopping down” and we understood each other. We zoomed our lenses at bright bridge lights during long exposures and giggled at the results. We got out flashlights and created ghosts and swirls just for the fun of it.

Suddenly, without warning, it was 11:30PM. I realized I was cold, I’d had no dinner, I’d had nothing to drink for at least 5 hours, and I’d told my husband I’d get home before 11PM. Yet, I still had to convince myself that those were strong enough reasons to pack it up for the night–there were so many more ideas I wanted to try!

Oh, there was also the fact that I needed to get up at 6AM the next morning to teach a workshop.

But feeling that creative spark and losing myself to it for a few hours was a great reminder of what I love best about photography–and life. Getting out and shooting with a bunch of people had the added benefits of both learning from each other and getting to socialize with people with a similar vocabulary.

Haunted

Posted by dkrashb on

What would a haunt be without some haunting?  This was another idea I had while shooting the Acres of Darkness event.  I know I’m not going to have people begging to buy prints, but the entertainment value of creating “ghosts” in images is priceless.

For the second time in one night, photography served not as an art form but as a game.  I’m beginning to think I’ve found my niche–I may not be an artist, but I’m pretty entertaining.  😀

I managed to recruit the subjects to play “ghost.”  This required no acting.  It simply required standing still and moving on command.  By having the subject pause periodically and then move a few steps slowly and then pause again, we created a see-through ring of a ghost image of the subject.

People are amazed by this effect.  In fact, I am amazed by this effect.  No matter how many times I do this, I am still amused.

I learned a few things from this little experiment (OK, so maybe this should be obvious):

  1. People wearing light colors show up a lot better in a really dark image than people wearing dark colors.
  2. This effect only works well if there is enough ambient light to create a clear outline of the subject.
  3. To create a single image of a ghost-person, have them stand still in the frame for about 1/3 of the total shutter time and then walk out of the frame really fast.
  4. To create a trail of ghost images, they need to take two steps forward slowly, pause for about a 3-count (with a 30-second shutter speed), and repeat until the shutter closes.

The last image was an accident.  But, it seemed fitting with the theme, so I kept it.  It might just be a technique I want to try again someday. 🙂   I took a shot of the 3 kids using my flash, but I’d forgotten to change the settings on my camera from when I was shooting the previous images with a 30 second shutter speed.

So, my flash went off, creating a solid and clear image of the kids, but then my shutter was still open and I was waving my camera all over the place while I was talking to the kids, explaining that I needed to retake the shot but I had to wait for 30 seconds (this seems to be a difficult concept).  While I was waving my camera around, it picked up on the different things I pointed it at just enough to create the “fog” over the image.  I am not sure what the bright light at the top is, quite honestly.  Might not be able to recreate that part.  The next time I want to add fog to a scene, I might just give this a try!

Today’s life lesson from photography:  sometimes doing something just for the fun of doing it is more satisfying than worrying about the end results.