Hello all! Here's my first "how I took it" post. Most of my photos don't have any particularly special techniques, but this one was the result of several nights' worth of work. Details are below, but for the moment I give you:
The Council of Dave
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Cliffs and Ruins, my photo blog! (I also have prints for sale at
David Clark Photography.)
When, Where: This photo was taken at a roadside park, high up on the hills above my house. It was also taken on a clear, moonless night in late winter (that means April, up here!). The lights in the background are the various parts of town showing through. There is very little light pollution away from town (it's a very rural area), so that wasn't a worry.
Gear: Nothing fancy. I used my Nikon D40x with Nikkor 18-200mm VR, all mounted on a cheap Sunpak tripod (which barely even stands up any more).
Exposure and Settings:
Shutter speed: 76.4 seconds (bulb mode), triggered with a wireless remote.
Aperture: f/10, to increase depth of field without making the exposure so long that amp noise (purple clouding) would show up.
Focal length: 18 mm
Focus: Before starting the photo, I focused on the second post in autofocus mode, while I was shining the light on it. Then changed to manual focus, to keep the camera from trying to refocus when I actually took the shot.
ISO: 100, to minimize noise.
White balance: Tungsten, to give the spooky blue color.
Other settings: All saturation, sharpening, etc. settings were at their default. No noise reduction. I shot this in raw mode and converted it using the UFRaw plugin for Gimp, but made only exposure compensation tweaks in the plugin.
Method: The main technique I used in this shot was light-painting with an LED flashlight. I took the photo in two stages. After starting the exposure with a wireless remote...
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Posts: First, I walked down the row of posts, shining my flashlight on each one for about 5 seconds. This produced the "spotlight" effect on each post. I held the light as high up as I could, to both get a pool of light, and to keep try to avoid the flashlight appearing in the photo. I also stood as far back as I could and wore a dark coat, to avoid light splashing on me and showing me in the background. Because I was walking in the dark between each lighting, I was invisible otherwise.
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Faces: Second, I walked back up the row of posts. At each stop, I kneeled behind the post and shined the light up onto my face. I made sure to hide the light behind the post, to keep it out of the photo. I also opened my coat, to let the lighter lining show, producing the faint outline you can see in the photo. Finally, I had to hold myself very still to avoid blur -- this didn't always work out, if you look closely.
Incidentally, a reasonably busy highway (at least by rural Michigan standards) runs right next to this overlook. I'm sure that I spooked more than one driver (and a pedestrian too!) while taking this photo -- all that a passer-by would have seen was a disembodied face hovering just above the ground!
How many tries? / Scouting the location: I had to try this photo quite a few times to get it right. I actually had the idea, and took my first test shots, on the previous night. I spent about an hour experimenting with angles, exposure times, amount of time needed to light each post and face, and focus on that night (before my hands started getting too cold)!
The day before the second try, I reviewed my photos, decided on my favorite angle (in particular, how steeply across the photo the line of Daves should angle), and decided on a proper focal point. I also checked the weather and sunset time. The second night, I showed up ready to go. I still ended up taking about 5 more shots before I got one which was properly composed, focused, and didn't have any motion blur in it.
Post production: The photo required very little post-processing work, which is the way I like it. I tweaked the curves a little with Gimp to make the faces pop out, and I cloned out a few stray light streaks from my flashlight. Otherwise, this came out as I wanted.
Composition and Goals: The idea for this photo was originally accidental -- I was trying to take some long-exposure star trails, but the sky wasn't clear enough on the first night. So I started playing around, and ended up with some neat effects, which eventually coalesced into this. Ultimately, I decided to aim for a spooky effect, with the stoic-looking figures and blue lighting. The idea came to me of a council sitting in judgment against those who do
really stupid stuff to this beautiful land: throwing their old washers over cliffs, burning tires in the middle of pine forests, stealing old machinery or even masonry from our old mining ruins. In particular, the old copper mine just above this overlook has some truly beautiful ruins and cliffs which have been ruined by graffiti, litter, and vandalism over the years.
I mentioned above that I had to work on the angle of the "line of Daves". I ultimately chose this angle (the line running all the way across the photo, from bottom to middle-top) to provide points of interest all across the photo, and to minimize dead space. I also wanted to create a sense of space in front of the Daves, where you could imagine someone standing to be judged.
What worked well? Overall, I love the final effect. The ghostly feeling and strange multiple-exposures worked well to create a spooky effect. The focus and clarity also worked out surprisingly well, even after all those tries!
What could I have done better? One problem inherent in this location is the bright blob of light in the background -- the central shopping area of town. I would like to find a location that doesn't have such a distractingly bright blur of lights, although I don't know of one which also has a good set of posts to use. In addition, focus was always a problem -- one of the Daves clearly has a bit of head-turning going on.