1911_1467 Starry Foggy Night
An old International Harvester sits rusting in a field in the middle of nowhere. When the online astronomy bloggers got all excited last week about a possible meteor shower or even meteor storm, I thought this would be an amazing setting for such a phenomenon. Then someone at NASA said it would likely be a bust, so that tempered my enthusiasm. But I had to try.
The morning had been cloudy, but by mid-afternoon all that blew away, creating perfect conditions. It had snowed the day before, so I drove out to the site to make sure the roads were passable. No problem. The show was scheduled for 10:30 pm, a 40-minute window. By 8:30, fog was forming in the village, and my expectations sank as it grew in intensity. Still... I had to try.
I drove out there. I used only one lens, the 14-24mm, set at 14mm with the focus ring taped at infinity. Sure enough, there wasn't a single flash in the sky... but the whole thing was magical anyway. The fog gave the scene an ethereal look; stars twinkled above; far away, a pack of coyotes set up a yipping chorus (one of my favourite prairie sounds). I couldn't really see anything through the viewfinder. A minor consideration. I've always been good at pretending to know what I was doing.
For this shot, I painted the truck and foreground with an LED flashlight, did a "one Mississippi, two Mississippi" count with the shutter open, until I got bored, and later monkeyed around in Photoshop until I thought it looked good. The fog turned out to be a key component of all the shots. In the end I came away with two or three more that I liked - that was an intense and productive three quarters of an hour! It was a reminder that the world will seldom conform to my personal wants and needs, but if I keep an open, fluid mind, I can indeed get over myself and see the photo potential all around me.
By the time I finished, I could barely see the nearby farm buildings. I followed my footsteps through the snow, back to my car, which was invisible until I got to within 20 feet. I drove home slowly. The fog was thick, then thin, then thick again. No traffic; none. What a night!
Photographed near Val Marie, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission © 2019 James R. Page - all rights reserved.
1911_1467 Starry Foggy Night
An old International Harvester sits rusting in a field in the middle of nowhere. When the online astronomy bloggers got all excited last week about a possible meteor shower or even meteor storm, I thought this would be an amazing setting for such a phenomenon. Then someone at NASA said it would likely be a bust, so that tempered my enthusiasm. But I had to try.
The morning had been cloudy, but by mid-afternoon all that blew away, creating perfect conditions. It had snowed the day before, so I drove out to the site to make sure the roads were passable. No problem. The show was scheduled for 10:30 pm, a 40-minute window. By 8:30, fog was forming in the village, and my expectations sank as it grew in intensity. Still... I had to try.
I drove out there. I used only one lens, the 14-24mm, set at 14mm with the focus ring taped at infinity. Sure enough, there wasn't a single flash in the sky... but the whole thing was magical anyway. The fog gave the scene an ethereal look; stars twinkled above; far away, a pack of coyotes set up a yipping chorus (one of my favourite prairie sounds). I couldn't really see anything through the viewfinder. A minor consideration. I've always been good at pretending to know what I was doing.
For this shot, I painted the truck and foreground with an LED flashlight, did a "one Mississippi, two Mississippi" count with the shutter open, until I got bored, and later monkeyed around in Photoshop until I thought it looked good. The fog turned out to be a key component of all the shots. In the end I came away with two or three more that I liked - that was an intense and productive three quarters of an hour! It was a reminder that the world will seldom conform to my personal wants and needs, but if I keep an open, fluid mind, I can indeed get over myself and see the photo potential all around me.
By the time I finished, I could barely see the nearby farm buildings. I followed my footsteps through the snow, back to my car, which was invisible until I got to within 20 feet. I drove home slowly. The fog was thick, then thin, then thick again. No traffic; none. What a night!
Photographed near Val Marie, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission © 2019 James R. Page - all rights reserved.