I had been wanting to experiment with a little long exposure night photography for awhile, and because digital doesn’t fall prey to that small issue we know as reciprocity failure, I figured digital would be a nice way to start. My first attempt at shooting star trails was back in 2003 when Patty, Stacy and I visited Colorado during Spring Break. Keep in mind that I still knew very little about how photography actually worked at that time, despite being a photo major for nearly a year. (Yes, we’re talking about basics like aperture and film speed.) Those images turned out faint and unprintable.

This time I was armed with a working knowledge of everything I needed, and I was shooting in RAW to boot, so I was completely in control. That is, except for the lighting conditions. With very few nights open to staying up past 11pm now (because of, you know, work), I had to go shoot on Friday night or not again for awhile. I left home at 1am and drove past our new house and kept going. After about 45 minutes of driving, I decided to head over to a boat ramp on the lake. The moonlight and abundance of clouds almost entirely snuffed out any hopes of star trails. And let’s not forget that magnification factor of 1.6x on that Digital Rebel. So the whole wide angle thing was lacking as well on my 28-135 (the widest in my arsenal of two).

I had a flashlight in hand, which I used on many of the exposures that night to light parts of this tree selectively, but this turns out as one of my favorites… completely devoid of any light but that from the moon. I could’ve left after about 15 minutes with this shot, but instead I spent an hour and a half. I guess the journey really is the best part.

Surprisingly enough, these fireflies survived 24 hours in this jar. I caught them after mowing the lawn at my grandmother’s house the night before and accidentally left the jar on our back porch. After waking them up as the sun set, they began to light up again. I released them just after this.

Daniel relaxing as I meter for a shot to be taken on the 4×5.

The Animals in the backyard; Ginger on her back, Homer wondering when we’re going back inside.