Star Trails

During my recent photo trip to Monument Valley and Hunt’s Mesa, we spent one night shooting some night scenes including a star trails photo with light painting.  Star Trails photos are fun, but they are a bit time consuming.  Here is what you do:

1. Get yourself a flashlight.
2. Set your camera on a tripod with a remote shutter release.
3. Set your camera to manual mode, a wide aperture, and “bulb” exposure.  If your camera has a long exposure noise reduction setting, you may want to set that as well. 
4. Focus your camera towards the stars with a nice tree (or rock) in the foreground. 
5. Release the shutter.  Exposure can range from minutes to hours depending on how long you want the star trails. 
6. At some point during the exposure, take the flashlight and shine it on the rock or tree for 20-ish seconds.  You don’t have to light paint anything in the foreground… it will be a dark silhouette if you don’t. 
7. Stop the exposure when you want and enjoy. 

Here is my best star trails shot. 

Star Trails on Hunt's Mesa

This exposure was a roughly 20 minute exposure at f/5.0.  ISO 200.  Exposure had about 30 seconds of light painting with a flashlight and some nearby light from a fire.  HINT:  Point the camera towards the north star to get the circular star pattern.  The north star doesn’t move.

Civic Duty

Well, I did my civic duty today and filled in my presidential ballot and mailed it off.  Whatever happens in this historic election, I will be glad when all this is over.  I just hope that whoever takes the office will do a better job than the current White House resident.

Hunt’s Mesa

As I mentioned in my post from the Denver airport last night, the visit to Hunt’s Mesa was incredible. Here is just one of the views of Monument Valley from the top of Hunt’s Mesa.

View from Hunt's Mesa, Monument Valley, AZ

So Many Photos, So Little Time

I am at the Denver Airport awaiting my late night flight back to Seattle.  It has been a crazy long week of photography in both Monument Valley and Capitol Reef National Park.  The weather was good, but clear skies meant not to many fantastic sunsets, but at least we had sunrises and sunsets every day.  

The trip up to Hunt’s Mesa was the highlight of the trip with absolutely amazing views of the entire Monument Valley.  Truly one of the world’s most fantastic views.  And only about 100 people get up there every year, so it is a view most never get to experience.  For me, it was a wonderful affirmation of God’s power and the beauty he has created on this earth.  Although I didn’t get a good night’s rest trying to sleep in only a sleeping bag on the ground in 20 degree weather, the experience of being on top of the mesa overlooking all of Monument Valley as the sun set and rose the following morning was well worth it.  

The remainder of the week was filled with good photography, new friends, and lots and lots of laughs.  I am tuckered out and Monday morning and work is approaching fast. I have photos but the Denver Airport internet is wonky and not letting me download photos right now.

3 Sisters Sunset

We reached Monument Valley today in time for sunset. Drove the wonderfully bumpy road into the valley, took some photos in the late afternoon light then just as the sun was setting, clouds starting appearing. We ended the day shooting the 3 sisters rock formation silhouetted against the pretty sunset color.

3 Sisters Formation at Sunset

Now I am off to bed as the wake up call tomorrow is 5am. Yikes!

Monument Valley

I’m here in Utah and we are just about to leave to go shoot sunset in Monument Valley. Wish us luck!!

Repairman Blues

I have this fireplace in my living room, but it really isn’t a real fireplace… its a faux fireplace with an electrical heater/blower.  It is pretty much the only heater in my living/dining room area.

And as it seems to be in my life, the motor to the heater/blower has decided that October would be a good time to start failing.  So, the repairmen came yesterday to pretty much tell me what I already knew…. the bearing in said motor is failing and unfortunately, you just don’t replace the motor, you replace the whole darn fireplace insert.  Oh Joy!  And it is not an easy process to replace fireplace inserts, which is repairman lingo for “its gonna cost you a lot of money”.  Double Joy!

Photo Seminar Lessons from Day 1

Good morning!  For some reason I am wide awake at 5am and I am not generally a morning person.  I am sure I will pay for this early morning later in the day.  

I learned quite a bit from my first day at the John Shaw Photo Seminar.  First impression…. he is a really personable and funny guy and I suspect going on a photo tour with him would be a kick.  He really did a good job with the first’s days Nature Photography portion and taught many of the normal concepts (composition, light, etc…) in a different manner with a different perspective which I found very refreshing.  I really didn’t need another seminar regurgitating the same crap you learn in most photo  books.  

Day 1 definitely taught me a few things and definitely got me motivated.  Well worth it. 

A few of my notes: 

1. Photography is not the recording of a subject, it is the recording of light on a subject. 
2. 3 Things that are a detriment to good photography:  Meals (often to far away from the best locals), Motels, & Mates (the non-photographing kind)
3. A great lesson on metering for varying color tones.  Hard to explain in writing, but if you meter correctly on one color in the frame, all the other colors will also be metered correctly. 
4. “Photography is not reality.  If you want reality, get rid of your camera.”
5. A really interesting discussion on flash and close-up photography (without a macro lens) using extension tubes, teleconverters, close-up filters, flash and sometimes all the above together.  Makes me want to get a flash unit for my Canon and try some of these techniques. 
6. Another interesting discussion on Tilt Shift lenses where John even mentioned my favorite photographer Vincent Laforet and his use of the tilt shift during the recent Olympic games.  I now understand why they are useful in the field (gives you a huge amount of depth of field while still shooting at a very low aperture.  
7. Practice, practice, practice.  John mentioned that many people who are great at what they do spend a lot of time practicing their craft, but most photographers don’t practice.  They expect to go out there a couple week a year and shoot great photos.  He says that if you want to get better at photography, shoot 10 frames a day.  Go out there and practice.  He also said that the more time you spend out in the field, the more good photos you’ll have. 

That was day 1 and after a quick shower here this morning, I will head off for day 2 in which the topic of the day is Digital Workflow.  John uses the Adobe set of Lightroom and Photoshop, so I hope the day isn’t too heavy on how to use these products as I am now a Mac/Aperture user. 

Oh yeah…. GO RED SOX!!!

Photo Seminar

I am headed off this morning for a two day Photo Seminar with John Shaw.  Its all classroom stuff, so no photos.  The first day is about nature photography and the second day is about digital workflow.  Hopefully, I will learn something that I can use to not only take some better photos, but to also process those photos a lot faster and get them on the web for everyone to enjoy.

This seminar comes at a good time as I will be headed off next week for a photo tour of Monument Valley and Capitol Reef National Park.

No Scotland

I can’t believe how stupid I am sometimes.  My co-worker and I were gonna spend a whole week in Scotland after a training class we will be attending in the UK.  But, did I check my calendar first to see if I could really do this extra week?  No, I didn’t and that was a huge mistake as I had a prior commitment scheduled for that week back home.  ARGH!  This revelation hit me (like a ton of bricks) at 10:30 pm the other night and I spent the better part of the next 3 hours and the next day frantically emailing and changing all my travel plans to adjust.  In the meantime I upset a friend and a co-worker with all the changes.

Next time, take a breath, don’t get wrapped up in the excitement of a trip, and check your darn calendar!