eevy24012
Perseids 2016
I always try to think of the best possible location to be for a spectacularly predicted meteor shower weeks in advance, and last night set out to reach that chosen place. Sadly, it would appear that just about every road I tried to drive on of the 60 miles or so one way trip to the site was under a paralyzing construction zone, starting on the beloved I-81. I finally reached the point of inaccessibility in Buena Vista, VA when the road up into the mountains was blocked for construction. The detour would have been utterly ridiculous, so after an incredible waste of gas headed back to a location closer to home. Ran into my final mountain road construction delay en route, making me contemplate strange conspiracy theories.
The crowds on the parkway were insane, cars and people everywhere. It has been my experience that people, including other photographers, can be utter doom for night long exposures since they can't keep a light of some sort off for more than a minute or 2. Throw a bunch together and there will be lights going off like a disco for hours. So my friend Steve and I were fortunate to land a good spot at Abbott Lake at the Peaks of Otter without anyone near us. This location was early in the night and the meteors were sparse, and then finally the spot completely ruined by heavy cloud cover.
I headed for home due to a low gas tank thanks to so much wasted driving earlier, and nowhere to get any more up in the mountains. So I was forced into the location where I got this shot, The View Purgatory Mountain overlook on the parkway. The sky had become much more clear in this area, though there were a few people about, including a photographer I had met years ago in a storm. This is one of the last places I would have opted to shoot the meteor shower. I plopped the camera down, and the first shot was the composition that never changed over several hours...aimed straight at the shower radiant. People everywhere, cars driving past constantly, and so the philosophy became "use their chaos for advantage". If you sit in one place and run the camera for hours something interesting and unexpected is bound to plop into the scene. This came in the form of an oncoming car and I powered off the camera in the middle of a 25 second exposure to catch the car's lights at the perfect time before they blew out the scene. The meteors got better all the way up to 5 AM when I left due to the sun's influence beginning. This collection has 23 meteor captures, the moral is just set up the camera and go socialize and do other things and leave it running, punctuated by a moment of luck and attentiveness.
Perseids 2016
I always try to think of the best possible location to be for a spectacularly predicted meteor shower weeks in advance, and last night set out to reach that chosen place. Sadly, it would appear that just about every road I tried to drive on of the 60 miles or so one way trip to the site was under a paralyzing construction zone, starting on the beloved I-81. I finally reached the point of inaccessibility in Buena Vista, VA when the road up into the mountains was blocked for construction. The detour would have been utterly ridiculous, so after an incredible waste of gas headed back to a location closer to home. Ran into my final mountain road construction delay en route, making me contemplate strange conspiracy theories.
The crowds on the parkway were insane, cars and people everywhere. It has been my experience that people, including other photographers, can be utter doom for night long exposures since they can't keep a light of some sort off for more than a minute or 2. Throw a bunch together and there will be lights going off like a disco for hours. So my friend Steve and I were fortunate to land a good spot at Abbott Lake at the Peaks of Otter without anyone near us. This location was early in the night and the meteors were sparse, and then finally the spot completely ruined by heavy cloud cover.
I headed for home due to a low gas tank thanks to so much wasted driving earlier, and nowhere to get any more up in the mountains. So I was forced into the location where I got this shot, The View Purgatory Mountain overlook on the parkway. The sky had become much more clear in this area, though there were a few people about, including a photographer I had met years ago in a storm. This is one of the last places I would have opted to shoot the meteor shower. I plopped the camera down, and the first shot was the composition that never changed over several hours...aimed straight at the shower radiant. People everywhere, cars driving past constantly, and so the philosophy became "use their chaos for advantage". If you sit in one place and run the camera for hours something interesting and unexpected is bound to plop into the scene. This came in the form of an oncoming car and I powered off the camera in the middle of a 25 second exposure to catch the car's lights at the perfect time before they blew out the scene. The meteors got better all the way up to 5 AM when I left due to the sun's influence beginning. This collection has 23 meteor captures, the moral is just set up the camera and go socialize and do other things and leave it running, punctuated by a moment of luck and attentiveness.