Getting away from the city lights from time to time provides an opportunity to take in a star filled night sky revealing a universe of possibilities which is always humbling for me. All of those things going on in life become brought into perspective as the whole universe is a good reminder of our place in it. I can stare into the abyss watching the stars twinkling for hours. Time seems to speed up as my eyes bounce from constellation to constellation occasionally being interrupted by a satellite passing by. Once in awhile there’s a shooting star if you’re looking in just the right spot. Often times I try to capture all of this with the camera but it seems impossible to accomplish. On this particular September night I wasn’t expecting an opportunity to see stars as rain and thunderstorms were forecast. At one point I looked up from an evening fire and began to see stars overhead. Continuing to watch more and more stars revealed themselves so I decided to grab the camera and begin shoot away.
After the first shot or two I really liked how the clouds made the vastness in the sky appear and enhanced the transition from the horizon to the stars. There are several star clusters and what looked like a possible galaxy which, unfortunately, is not clear enough in this picture to see but it’s the bright light just off center to the right. The light showing in the clouds to the right near the horizon is a rising full moon which I think is also a nice addition to the photograph.
Being near a lake it is only appropriate to attempt capturing this beautiful star filled sky reflecting in the calm water. Bordering the stars with a spruce tree seemed to be a nice contrast as well making for an interesting shot. After spending a little time just photographing the stars and watching them twinkle, doing some light painting seemed like a good idea. As it turned out I had quiet a bit of fun doing this and trying some different angles with a green light.
Light painting didn’t actually start out as the objective. Looking at the picture below you can see how I did it. A friend of mine wanted to do some night fishing and had brought along some bobbers with lights on them so I started to take pictures of his actions with a fishing pole and realized how intriguing it was in the photo. The fish weren’t biting so we began setting up some ideas to photograph and this was how it turned out. How do you set up these shots? Once the camera is in place and you can see the range of the landscape in the potential photo you can begin to direct where to cast for the lit bobber to really show up. Since night photography usually involves long exposures you have a little time to work with. Once the shutter button is pushed the model then begins reeling in the line and casting it back out in a different direction to get the light trail where you want it. For one of the photos I used a flashlight to show the process for a few seconds, turned off the light, and continued with the action of reeling in and casting back out in order to show how this can work. It was a lot of fun and something I hope to work with more in the future.
