Cemetery somewhere in California

PhotoLasVegas

Family trip, driving the backroads at NIGHT... I mean DARK. Came across a cemetery and decided to try out some tripod long exposure shots....

One I think came out pretty cool, and the story behind how I got the shot is pretty funny... will tell it later after I get some comments

Honest, harsh, picky critique is enjoyed as much as positive comments are!

schmoo

I kind of like this shot for the feeling it gives me. Even though the grass is pretty green, the dark blue sky, barren branches and the sideways light on the graves reminds me of a good ol' east coast halloween.

So what's the story?

Eia

This is eery...but interesting and neat! I can't wait to read the story!

PhotoLasVegas

Thanks for the comments, I was thinking about de-saturating the grass a little bit, maybe that would add to the mood.

I didn't do much with this photo in post... upped the contrast a bit and did a little bit of saturation, and I think I popped the "blacks" level a little.

The story behind the shot is that first of all, we were driving along a river (on the other side of the road) and it was out in the middle of nowhere. There wasn't a light other than moonlight anywhere.

I tried the shot a few times as cars drove by, there was a very slight curve so the lights would move across the cemetery... but cars only came by like every 5 minutes so that proved fruitless.

Our car was parked about 100 yards away, so I had the wife on a cell phone, she started with the headlights pointing to her right (closer to the camera in the shot), then with the front wheels turned to the left, drove forward a few feet to move the lights across (away from camera).

We had to do this about 15 times at least, to get the exposure correct (not just the headlights, but move the car fast enough so the sky would be exposed to my liking... and then finally how long to let the exposure hold while the car was stopped in one spot (you can see how it's brighter towards the back.

I used "bulb" on the camera, with a remote shutter release and used a fairly high f-stop number for more DOF and clarity with the longer exposure.

I dunno, to me it looks a little like we drug out a bunch of spotlights and had a really long session with off-camera lights, etc... but I thought it was pretty cool how we improvised.

I got a few more decent ones, including the moon thru a branch that had an abrupt "U" shaped curve that the moon "fit" into (ie. the branch would have cut thru the middle of the moon without the curve). Will have to post that someday.

Wicked_Dark

Funny...the first thing I thought of was 'hey someone's using headlights for this' - very cool. I like the effect very much. Cemeteries are great places, but at night they become something else.

schmoo

That's fantastic! Good ol' technology