Back to Tainter Land in the Moon light

I was prepared this morning. I woke up by accident at 2AM and decided not to get up.
I really did decide to sleep more.
That is until I looked out the window.

I knew that the weather was supposed to starkly change between Sunday evening and Monday evening. Cold, windy, and rain was forecast. Then a plunge back into December weather.
I wouldn't have a change at another full moon night for quite a while.
I also knew that the next moon shooting opportunities would not be until New Years almost.

I sighed. The moon won.
I heated up some coffee and checked the weather on my smart phone. 24 degrees and calm.
Hand warmers. Check.
Extra batteries. Check.
Flash light. Got it.
I used the remote to start the Subaru [dang I love that thing!].
Headlamp. Check.
Note to self, change batteries in the older headlamp.

I drove to Tainter Land. The moon was brilliant.

I finally got a good shot of the tree I wanted and decided to explore the other bridge.

And I was very happy that I did.

What a beautiful night in such an isolated area.

And my hands stayed....oh, so warm in the combination mitten gloves with hand warmers.

It was a wonderful morning.

Night Moves

The alarm beeped and I reached over to turn it off. Dang thing.

What did it go off for? Who set that alarm for 1:30 am? Oh. I did.
I was going to get up and see where the Milky Way was and I'd set up my camera to try a shot of the night sky.

I had pre-focused my Nikon D5200 just before sunset and had it locked on infinity in hopes that using the 35mm prime lens would give me enough sky to capture some stars.

I shot this at a 20 second exposure with an f stop on the lens of 1.8 and an ISO of 100.
What I saw on my screen afterwards was nearly totally black.

I took another shot on the other side of the house looking north.

I could see a bit more of the stars on my screen. But I wasn't happy with it.
So I changed up the settings and did some light painting.

I used a LED flashlight for about one second on this shot, just clicked on and off quickly.
I could see this on the monitor.

So I tried another experiment. I wanted to take a shot of the porch.
Note to self. Once I took the camera off from the infinity setting and used the Auto focus to take a shot of the skull, the camera would not focus for me. I even tried manual focus.

Frustrated, I set the exposure to 10 seconds and then flipped the little flashlight I had across the porch...

Early this morning the alarm went off at 1:30 again. I sighed and shut it off. I shut my eyes and soon I was wide awake. I glanced up through the window and the stars were bright. The weather folks were wrong!

I grabbed the camera. I thought I'd set it up properly.
However...

I hadn't. The focus was off and I didn't know that until I opened the photos later this morning.
However, I do know where the Milky Way is around 2am now.
And have an idea of where to get shots of it from the yard.

So I will set things up again for another try tonight.

Settings for these shots were 20 seconds, f 1.8 [35mm lens], 640 ISO and 800 ISO.

Tonight I will set up the 35mm lens again and set up the 18-55mm lens to see if I can't get a wider angle.

My husband thinks I am certifiably crazy.

I say, I need to keep experimenting and challenging myself.

I like night. Night shooting.

Well what do you do when you have to work the 'graveyard' shifts or get off at odd times of the morning and there is a clear sky and bright moonlight....

you almost can't pass up the chance to experiment a bit with night shooting in the moonlight.

The biggest issue is that even in bright moonlight your auto focus cannot pick up anything. I solved this when I had my friend stand and I could shine a light and focus on her. Without another person, it is a bit harder.

For this shot I turned on the vehicle headlights, got a focus and pressed the shutter with a 12 second delay. I ran back to the car and flipped off the lights.

Bravo! I got a 60 second shot!

Then I thought the moonlit road would be interesting.

And...it really wasn't interesting other than only being lit by moonlight.

And then a 'shot' in the dark. I used to moon to get a focus and then pointed the camera an tripod behind the car.
At least there are stars in this one and the colors are more interesting.
The picture is noisy and has some funky pixels in it.
I was too cold to continue at this point, the temperature was 10 degrees.

So I packed up and went home to bed.

Since I had to work another midnight shift, I thought I'd take a few moments on my way to work to try out some other night shots.

I went to the pedestrian crossing near the Genoa

This shot was a total mistake. I didn't use the timer to prevent a jiggle in the exposure and the plant lights were too bright.
But one has to make mistakes in order to improve.

6 seconds of exposure at f 4.5 was too much. I should have gone to an f 11 perhaps.
I didn't have time to really take other shots, I had to be at the plant in 10 minutes after taking this shot.

However I pointed the camera with the same settings in the other direction towards the dam and got this shot. The color version was a mixed back of odd colors from the bright lights at the dam and the different kinds of light they have, so I turned it into a Black and White shot.

This turned out much better.

It was cold and I had little time to experiment, so I wrapped things up and went to work.

On my way home I couldn't help but pull over and take a shot in Romance, WI. The Bad Axe river was steaming and the trees were full of frost.
I pulled onto a side road and walked through the ditch to try and get a decent shot.

The light was so glaring and different from Night shooting.
But it was worth the walk through the crunchy snow.

Tonight the 15th will probably be my last night for any moonlit shots for this month. I can look forward to this again in April.

Perhaps I can convince my night hiking pal to help me go out tonight and take some of the snow lit up by the moon.
We will see!

Treasures found while Night Hiking

We hadn't gone in a while so I texted my friend and asked if she were up to a night hike.

She replied that yes she was very ready for a night adventure, "Was the regular time good?"

We started out through the summer pasture and dove down off the point. I lost the trail a few time and had to back track a few times. It was easier in the snow at night for some reason.

When we got to the valley we crossed the creek and ended up at the crossing. We were amazed at how much damage had been done by the recent heavy downpours we'd had. The snowmobile culvert was nearly washed away again.

Lauren spotted something in the grass and we bent down. A golf ball! I laughed as she picked it up. It had been at least 10 years since the Peterson's had played 'Pasture Pool' in this area. Our first treasure of the night.

I thought we should head out to the ridge above the 'ice' cave, but at the last second I headed down into the creek and we forged our way across it and into the old camp ground. 
Lauren said she was happy that she'd worn her rubber chore boots.
I was trying out a pair of knee high chore boots and agreed. I hadn't planned on dragging her through the creek.

I thought we'd search for Skunk Cabbage alongside a certain section of the creek. That was a bust. I was hoping to see some.

We got to the big spring and I explained to her that I thought 'those little plants were water cress' and ... I pointed ... those little plants would be the first yellow flowers in the valley. Marsh Marigolds.

I searched around with my headlamp and lo and behold! We found skunk cabbage! I said that I'd take a night shot of it when we came back.

Little did I know, we wouldn't be coming back the same way.

I was able to find an old cow/deer trail that took us right down into the eastern 'Ravine' or the huge dry run that had a tiny spring up towards the middle. 
It was the magical place of blue, green, and pink ice a few years ago.

We started our upward climb over huge boulders and rocks.  We did find ice. Not much, but there must have been quite a bit to have survived all of this warm wet weather.

We climbed onward.
We found the first little pond.

"Hold on a second," I told Lauren, "this is a little pond of spring water. Look how clear it is!"

Lauren laughed and said that if I hadn't pointed it out she may have stepped into it.

If you look carefully at the picture you can see my headlamp causes the floating leaves to cast a shadow on the leaves at the bottom of the small pond.

I had Lauren sit on a rock above the pond. I wanted a photo of her boots.

What can I say, ... she can't sit still either! However, see the reflection of her boot in the water?

We were like little kids. We laughed.

I know any lurking night creatures had probably fled as we climbed the tumbled boulders and stones higher into the steep ravine. We made little jokes and comments. 

We stopped at the 'step rocks'. I told her I really had no idea what to call them but that. The rocks were in layers like little steps.


I took a photo of the green algae in that little pond.

I tried a shot of the mini water falls above it. It turned out awful with my headlamp.
We turned off our lights and listened to the forest around us and the water running beneath our feet.

I got a sense of well being and and internal feeling of awe. Once our eyes adjusted to the night, we wondered why we had been using lights.
The moonlight was bright.

So I wondered if I could take a moonlit shot without any other light with the camera.
I set up the tripod and set the timer to LiveBulb. I carefully pressed the shutter and...

Imagine our surprise to see this after a 2 minute exposure.

We were both floored.

Since we were blocked from climbing further up past this point by downed trees and steep rock walls, we turned around and headed back towards the valley.

We excitedly talked about how amazing it was to capture a photo in the moonlight.

I asked Lauren if she'd like to climb the hillside to the camp road and cross the ridge above us or head back down into the valley.
We stood for a moment Yes? No? Maybe? Okay!

And we began the steep climb with assistance from our headlamps once again.

Part of the way up the hill I heard Lauren call out excitedly. "Bones! Skull?"
That stopped me in my tracks. We love finding bones. Perhaps she'd found an antler shed.

She'd found what appeared to be the bones of a coyote. I picked up the lower jaws and admired the clean sharp teeth. We searched up and down and around the hillside but found no skull.


We found the backbone, which still had the tail bones attached, and the bones that make up paws still held together by old sinew and hair. It is amazing how complex the canine foot is.

After quite a while we gave up. Lauren tried to get a photo of me holding up the jaws with her cell phone, but it didn't work very well. So I set up my camera and told her how to take the shot.

She did well didn't she?

Just as we were about to step out on the old hill road I spotted the prize and let out a shout of glee. There it was, the gleaming white coyote skull. And it had all of its teeth and no damage.

I did a mini happy dance and we continued out towards the cropland and into the moon and star light.

We walked and talked. I looked up at the moon and the stars and decided to try a 'selfie' in the moonlight. I had no idea what it may look like.
I set things up and was frustrated with the fact that there is no delay on LiveBulb. I used my light to focus the camera on Lauren and then hit the switch.

I think the most difficult part of this photo was the fact that we had to actually sit still for 2 minutes.

Look at my hands. They couldn't stay still.

We kept muttering to each other wondering if we'd be able to hear the shutter close.
A long eared owl serenaded us from somewhere to our west deep in the woods.

And...we heard the shutter close!

Another surprise!
See the coyote skull and the golf ball?

We were tickled and thought we'd try another spot. We picked a deadfurrow and used a tree for our focal point.

Well we weren't very good at staying still this time. But you can see the homestead clear as day behind us. The old silo still stands and you can barely see the roof of the cabin between the tree and I at our hip.

The slight red in the sky are from the lights of Readstown. And you can see star trails above us from the long exposure.

We were like two kids in a candy store. Well, I was probably more tickled. I've always wanted to try night 'shooting' but it is a lot nicer to have a friend along. I've hesitated about doing it alone.

We walked moved closer to the woods to get out of the cold light winds. I back tracked and asked Lauren if she wanted to see PeeWee's Hole.

It is a hole in the ground that leads to an underground cave. At one time the fellas whose father settled the land had ladders and would climb down into the cave.
I showed Lauren and flashed my headlamp down into it. Sadly the fella that lived in the cabin had been using the 'cave' or hole to dump his trash. However there was still a trail up the steep side. It looked like raccoons were using the hole.

Here I was, walking with a great pal and friend in nearly the middle of the night listening to the owl calling...and my hound Dixie barking at the moon off in the distance.
And I couldn't think of when I'd had so much fun.

Well, except for the last time I went hiking with friends.

We came down our road and I just had to take a shot.

The clouds were moving in fast and we'd soon lose most of the moonlight.

So we set up one more shot.

While not a stellar shot, it does sum up our Night Hiking quite well.

Hmmm. I thought Lauren was taller than me!
We faced towards home and listened to the owl once more and listened for the soft click of the shutter.

And then our adventure was over.
I took the skull and set it on the porch with its jaws and the golf ball.

I hope the sky clears tonight.

Night sky

An attempt at the stars in September during the Super Moon Eclipse.

Partial eclipse.

Laying on my back after sunset.  Very long exposure.  See the white spot amongst the moving clouds?
A star....

The clouds after sunset.  Looking west.  The sunset itself was rather blah.  This 131 second exposure should make up for it.

Follow up to Bones ... more cool photography on a budget.

The weather was again cold.  -8 with winds type of cold.  It actually got up to 11 degrees yesterday but I had no desire to go tromping through the snow in the blinding sunlight.

Towards evening I decided to try another Bone & Light experiment.

Here is the lamplit version:

Of course the light shows up with a yellow cast and the velvet reflects light.  I don't mind the texture in the velvet, but decided to get rid of it and the yellow cast.

I turned this into black and white using Topaz B&W Effects.  Then I went back and brushed out the velvet and light spots by simply adding a layer and using a pure black round brush.
I thought it would be faster than using the burn tool.
I was wrong.
The blacks did not match and I had to go back more than once to get this the way I wanted.
So much for short cuts, right?


The skull was off center a bit so I added a canvas portion to the right and to the bottom. 

You can get rid of the yellow cast from the lamp and get a floating skull.

Next I decided to keep the lamp on and use an LED flashlight to light up the dark side of the skull.

That was interesting!  Now I had a yellow cast and a blue cast from the flashlight!  Plus the mess from the textured velvet.

And then edited:

Well, that was cool!

What IF I turn out the lights and just use the flashlight?

Well that didn't work so well.  But the camera was set on a 30 second exposure and I kept moving the flashlight to try and expose the skulls.  It turned out overexposed.  
But, what if I can tone it down and get rid of the colors?

Not too bad.  
But I can see I didn't use a lot of sense placing the skulls.  I also left some of the velvet in.  
Not sure if I like that either.  I can always brush it out.  But I was able to sort of fix the shot.  However I am unhappy with the placement of the items.

So this will have to be a re-do.

Lastly, I thought I'd not highlight the whole skull and just experiment a bit.

Here is what I got with 'light painting' the deer skull.

and then this:

I like this last shot as it doesn't highlight the whole skull, but I think the left side of the skull is more complete and I should try a side shot with this method.

Items used for this.
Tripod.
Camera with long exposure capabilities.
Old chair.
Black material, in this case velvet, but muslin may work better.
Bendable desk lamp.
LED cheap flashlight.
Living room.

Shot with a light on in the other room so I could see what I was doing.

Night Photography~Unseen Beauty

Did you have any idea what beauty lies in the darkness?

I recently saw some shots at Flickr that had Light Painting and Night Photography.

Intrigued, I decide to do some research and reading on the subject.
Night Photography is absolutely fun and creative.

So of course I decided to try some of my own.
I went out at dusk. The light was poor...
My first shot was hand held with my point and shoot and of course not timed...it turned out poorly, but editing did help.
Experimentation in mind ~~ I drove down to the valley and parked alongside a small bridge over what we locals call Black Bottom Creek.
I set up my tripod and camera while in the car with the dome light on...too dark outside for this...and I'd forgotten a flash light!
Exposure on manual...
15 seconds.
F stop at 5.6.
Push the button, swat madly at the mosquitoes...
and you get some lovely shots!
See the headlights from the traffic on the highway [top of photo]?
These photos were taken after sunset...in the dark. I think 8:50 was the time I took this one.

My Nikon battery was on low, so I headed towards home, but stopped at another bridge over Black Bottom and decided to see how long of an exposure I could pull out of my Point and Shoot camera.

This is 4 seconds [fireworks mode]....on a tripod...
Not the worst, but I could see that a 10 second exposure would have worked very well.
At the top of the ridge, I decide to give the little pocket camera one last try...
I was not disappointed.
A tripod is really quite necessary for these kinds of shots. This last one, I simply put the camera on the top of the car and used a 2 second delay to get this.

Night photography is really a beautiful bold world...
Charge up those batteries!