Night in the Redwoods
Lori and I took a break from the heat and smoke, and headed to the California Coast for a few days. We had driven 9 hours to get to this exact campground early in the morning, so we could select a suitable site. We selected this site in part for the potential for a cool night shot (but I had medical considerations as well).
We drove up the coast to charge up the batteries with solar power, and returned after dark to make afire to cook dinner over. But someone liked our site, removed items from it while we were out for the day, and took our tag down. Fortunately the campground host had seen our paid tag, the belongings we had left in the site, and I had taken a photo of the tag up (knowing that such people exist). He had also noticed us driving through the campground multiple times to find a site that could fit our vehicle, had the right slope for the orientation of the bed (due to my sinuses I can't sleep with my head downhill), etc. He seemed annoyed at their actions and excuses, fortunately he wasn't accepting any of their baloney.
We've allowed people to share a site with us many times when there's an honest misunderstanding or sties are scarce, but too many details in their story didn't add up. And while the woman tried to manipulate the situation with unlikely excuses and poor arguments, the man stayed completely out of sight, the most likely explanation for his body language seeming to be deep embarrassment at his determined companion's brazen attempt at theft of our home for the night. They moved their tent and stuff to one of the many unoccupied sites that they could have occupied in the first place.
We didn't get to cook dinner over the fire because the delay of the totally unnecessary drama made that impractically late (and the coals that remained from the wood we had left were now insufficient for cooking), but we enjoyed what was left of our fire.
Even with a little bit of twilight light in the sky, there was so little light getting through the trees, I had to shoot up to an exposure of 30 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 12,800. The range of light was high, with the fire illuminating the camper, with the shadows descending into a morass of noise before it mercifully was cut off into black. So I bracketed to be able to use averaging or HDR to extend the dynamic range.
Night in the Redwoods
Lori and I took a break from the heat and smoke, and headed to the California Coast for a few days. We had driven 9 hours to get to this exact campground early in the morning, so we could select a suitable site. We selected this site in part for the potential for a cool night shot (but I had medical considerations as well).
We drove up the coast to charge up the batteries with solar power, and returned after dark to make afire to cook dinner over. But someone liked our site, removed items from it while we were out for the day, and took our tag down. Fortunately the campground host had seen our paid tag, the belongings we had left in the site, and I had taken a photo of the tag up (knowing that such people exist). He had also noticed us driving through the campground multiple times to find a site that could fit our vehicle, had the right slope for the orientation of the bed (due to my sinuses I can't sleep with my head downhill), etc. He seemed annoyed at their actions and excuses, fortunately he wasn't accepting any of their baloney.
We've allowed people to share a site with us many times when there's an honest misunderstanding or sties are scarce, but too many details in their story didn't add up. And while the woman tried to manipulate the situation with unlikely excuses and poor arguments, the man stayed completely out of sight, the most likely explanation for his body language seeming to be deep embarrassment at his determined companion's brazen attempt at theft of our home for the night. They moved their tent and stuff to one of the many unoccupied sites that they could have occupied in the first place.
We didn't get to cook dinner over the fire because the delay of the totally unnecessary drama made that impractically late (and the coals that remained from the wood we had left were now insufficient for cooking), but we enjoyed what was left of our fire.
Even with a little bit of twilight light in the sky, there was so little light getting through the trees, I had to shoot up to an exposure of 30 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 12,800. The range of light was high, with the fire illuminating the camper, with the shadows descending into a morass of noise before it mercifully was cut off into black. So I bracketed to be able to use averaging or HDR to extend the dynamic range.