An Old Morris 10
I came across this old girl as I was roaming around the countryside near my home, looking for things to point my camera at. She was a wonderful subject and mode...
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I came across this old girl as I was roaming around the countryside near my home, looking for things to point my camera at. She was a wonderful subject and model to shoot, and I hope I have done her justice with the lighting.
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Jul, 2021Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
I am very fortunate that, very close to where I live in rural Northamptonshire, England, there is a field full of old farm machinery. The owner of the field (and of the machinery) very kindly allows me to wander around at night and take pictures of his pieces for my nightscape photography. He knows I do not touch any of the machinery; only with the light of my torch!Time
This image was captured shortly after midnight. The silence of the night was deafening, and every movement I made seemed to be amplified and exaggerated by the darkness! I am often out and about during the early hours, capturing this type of image, and I love it. It is so peaceful, so quiet and the night sky is always a wonder to behold and enjoy. I am no longer spooked by scrabblings and snufflings in the hedgerow, but the occasional fox bark will still startle!Lighting
The lighting is what this image is all about. For the sky, I wanted it to look as it did to my eye - cool and inky blue, with bright stars above. The car itself was torch-illuminated during 5 exposures, each one lighting a different part of the car I wanted to focus attention on. The warm interior glow was simply a case of warming up (in post processing) a particular shot I had taken specifically to light the interior through a side window (see below). A final shot was taken with a sweep of the torchlight across the grass surrounding the car. I use a white LED torch (flashlight), with a colour correcting orange gel tapes to the front. This brings the light it casts back to a neutral / daylight tone when the camera white balance is set to 3850K. This is a highly subjective area, so there is plenty of scope to create your own style. There is no right or wrong.Equipment
The equipment used for this shot was a Nikon D850, with a Nikon 14-24mm f2.8 lens, at 24mm. The camera was mounted on a Benbo Mach 3 tripod, low to the ground, enabling me to "look up" to the car and the night sky behind and above. Lighting was provided with a small LED torch. It is important that the camera does not move at all while you are capturing all the images that will subsequently be blended to create the final result. My tripod has metal spikes, and these enable me to "root" the legs into the ground, making a very secure base for the camera.Inspiration
I have always been fascinated by old machinery, including cars, and if there is ever an opportunity to take pictures of these at night, under the stars, I jump at it. Seeing the old Morris 10 during the day, alone in the corner of a field, I knew she would make a glorious subject for a light painted image. Very often it is the car / machine / equipment itself that inspires me to make a nightscape image of it. Somehow, photographing at night, adding light to where you want it, affords you the opportunity to bring the subject back to life, or at least breathe some life back into it, if only for an instant.Editing
Any night photography inevitably requires a fair amount of post-processing. In this particular case, the post processing was relatively straight forward. The sky was edited only to increase whites and reduce contrast, and the car was a blend of several exposures made whilst I was walking around it shining my torch. The warm glow inside the car was very simple: I made a single exposure with me kneeling low down on the other side of the car, and shining my torch up through the side window, thus illuminating the inside of the car (I used the car's interior roof as a reflector). In post-processing, I simply warmed up this particular shot. Once all the shots were blended together, the effect is as if the car's internal light had been left on!In my camera bag
For my nightscape photography, I always go out with the Nikon D850 and 3 lenses: 14-24mm f2.8, 24-70mm f2.8 and 70-200mm f2.8. I always use an intervalometer if I am making multiple exposures for stacking purposes, or just for capturing exposures while I am light painting. If the ambient temperature is within a couple of degrees of the dew point, then I will always wrap a lens warmer around the lens hood to keep condensation away from the front lens element, and this will be plugged into a power bank. I also carry a small LED torch, an LED lantern and a small LED panel. The torch and panel are colour corrected to ensure I have a neutral lighting effect when the camera's white balance is set to 3850K. The torch was used to light this shot, and nothing else.Feedback
Get out there and have a go! It's not difficult to do, and the results can be truly remarkable. Light painting allows you to add your own style and "feel" to a photograph, and transforms the ordinary into some extraordinary. Many people are nervous about being out on their own in the dark, and this is totally understandable. If this is an issue, you could join a photography group and go out together. This would be fun, and will also help with the learning curve. More than likely, you will already have the equipment you need. My main tip is to get hold of a good quality, LED torch, and then practice, practice, practice....
