About The Shot: Elk Meadow Startrails
On Monday January 21st, 2014 I was in denial that I actually had to go to school the next day. Since I didn't truly believe I had to wake up early in the morning I decided it would be as good of a time as any to go out and try to capture a few nighttime shots. The previous night I had gone to Elk Meadow to take some pictures and had gotten mediocre results. I thought that I could improve upon some of my photos by adding in startrails. After setting out on the hike back to where I had shot the day before, I quickly learned why the meadow is called Elk Meadow. Walking with my headlamp off I unknowingly stumbled into a herd of elk which suddenly ran off right to where I wanted to shoot. At that point I decided to change plans and head to the old barn seen in the picture above. Alone at night the barn was not too inviting. The occasional creaking wood and other mysterious noises were enough to remind me of every horror movie I have ever watched. I quickly composed my shot and set experimented with my flash. I found that firing the flash from within the structure produced the most interesting light with the best contrast. I toggled with my settings and finally landed on a 30 second shutter, f/4 aperture and iso 800. Once everything was set up right I left my camera and caught up on some homework. During this time I convinced myself that someone would certainly find my camera sitting alone and decide to keep it for themself. I came back 200 pictures and almost 2 hours later relieved to see my camera was still there. (Side note: while it is highly unlikely that anyone would even see my camera in the middle of a dark meadow far from any trails at 8pm on a Monday night is unlikely, leaving my valuable camera unattended is a risk I do not plan on taking ever again.)
After I had all the pictures taken for this shot I spent some time tweaking the photos in Lightroom. Unfortunately when I took the pictures there was a lot of airtraffic and airplanes appeared in over 30 of the shots. After two hours of removing airplanes, I used a program called startrails.exe to combine all the photos into one. After some more tweaks the photo was ready to go.
Thanks for reading!
After I had all the pictures taken for this shot I spent some time tweaking the photos in Lightroom. Unfortunately when I took the pictures there was a lot of airtraffic and airplanes appeared in over 30 of the shots. After two hours of removing airplanes, I used a program called startrails.exe to combine all the photos into one. After some more tweaks the photo was ready to go.
Thanks for reading!
All photos copyright 2014 by Nick Gilbert Photography.
