Stonehenge
A trip to England's Stonehenge with special access to get up close and personal with the stones.
A trip to England's Stonehenge with special access to get up close and personal with the stones.
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Jan, 2016Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo at Stonehenge. Prior to traveling to Stonehenge I arranged for access to the stones after normal visitor hours. Many people do not realize this is possible, however there is an application to fill out in advance and just about anyone can get in to walk among the stones and really experience them up close and personal.Time
It was summer, early July and I took this shot close to 8:00pm. Sunset is later in the evening so there was still plenty of sunlight at this time.Lighting
Fortunately as we walked around experiencing the stones with the general public the clouds began to part and as the evening approached the sun created the amazing shadows in this image.Equipment
This was shot back in 2008 with my Canon 20D and 10-22mm lens. I did not use a tripod for the shot, but I was close to the ground and was able to hold the camera very steady.Inspiration
I have always loved the mystery of Stonehenge and my trip to England was surrounded around my desire to visit this magical place. My travel companion and I both had the same enthusiasm to visit the stones and we actually had two after hour visits into the stones. In my research before visiting Stonehenge I saw a picture with similar shadows being cast by the sun and I had hoped we would be blessed with sun to create a shot with those long dramatic shadows as well.Editing
There was post-processing work on this image. Even though this was after hours, there were other people who also gained access also so I had to remove a few people who were walking among the stones while I was shooting. Also as the sun was behind the stones so I took a range of exposures in order to layer them in photoshop and paint the best parts of each exposure to make the look I was after. I also enhanced the colors and used a few filters to achieve the final effect.In my camera bag
It depends on what I'm shooting. My gear now is different then when I took this shot, but now a days I typically carry my Canon 5D MK III with 3 zooms if I'm not doing a lot of walking as I try to travel on the light side. The lenses of choice are a 16-35mm, 24-105mm and 70-200mm. I occasionally carry a Speedlite but when traveling I very rarely use it. I also have a polarizing filter and a couple of neutral density gradated filters. For tripods I have two that I like to travel with, a Slik Pro 700DX and the smaller more compact Cullmann Concept One 622T. My newest piece of gear is the iUSBportCamera to shoot using my iphone or ipad. It works great when shooting the night sky.Feedback
For this particular image weather is the first obstacle. We all know England is known for clouds and rain so if you have the ability to visit Stonehenge on multiple occasions I would do so just to give yourself better odds to catch some sunlight. The stones are magnificent though and it's probably easy to get great shots in any weather. Technically speaking photographers can probably have a field day with HDR on a shot like this now, when I shot it HDR wasn't available or at least I wasn't aware of it. When visiting popular sites it's hard to shoot something that hasn't already been done a thousand times before so trying to find a unique angle or perspective of the subject is key, but not always easy. Sometimes you just have to shoot that iconic shot and be happy about it!
