Terlingua Church

A couple of weeks ago I made this image at night as the full moon was rising.  I had scouted the location earlier in the day to see how I wanted to setup to photograph the church at night.  I decided that a wide angle lens was required because of the location I needed to setup the tripod.  When I arrived after dark the wind was blowing hard and kicking up dust.  There was some shelter from the nearby hillside that blocked some of the bigger gusts.  As I prepared my equipment I could see the full moon rising behind the church and I had to work quickly to get my exposure before it rose above the steeple.  I placed an LED light inside the church and set my camera for a five minute exposure.  Throughout the long exposure I walked around and lit the front of the church with a flashlight.  It is important to keep moving with the light to prevent hotspots in the scene.  I also try to maintain extreme lighting angles to the plane of the camera in order to create contrast and detail to the subject.  In this scene I was 90* to the front of the church wall as I painted with my flashlight.  Nighttime photography takes a lot of planning and preparation and can present some real challenges with working in the dark.  It usually requires a visit to the location during the day to choose camera location and lighting angles.  

Old Bus-Terlingua, Tx.

We were in Terlingua,Tx. recently, an old mining town that was abandon for many years.  It is an ideal place for photographing old buildings and junk vehicles left behind by the miners.  I decided to try some night photography by using a combination of ambient moon light and light painting with a flashlight.  I spotted this old bus sitting off the road during the day and scouted out the best location to setup the camera in the dark.  The total overall exposure was five minutes with the intermittent use of a flashlight to paint light on areas of the bus including the inside.  The best technique in light painting is to use off camera axis light source.  In the above photo I painted the right side of the bus while walking from the back to the front right next to the bus.  I used my hand to block the direct beam of the light from the camera.  The front grill area was painted from the left side at about 90* angle to the camera.  The ground was lit by holding the flashlight at ground level to give detail and contrast to the surface.  I chose a five minute exposure to give me plenty of time to move around and paint in light on the bus.  After making an exposure be sure to check your histogram to determine if enough light was applied to the scene.  The LED screen on the camera is bright and can fool you into thinking you have made a proper exposure.  This type of photography requires numerous exposures and experimentation to obtain a successful image.