New image taken in June this summer entitled, "20/20 Hindsight." This is an ulta-long exposure of 20+ minutes. This is my second take on this scene, taken almost exactly 2 years apart, with my first one, "Kanarra's Ladder" doing very well for me winning me some accolades/awards and earning a tidy little sum of money. But in "Hindsight," I looked back and noticed my errors and improved on many things this time around in this composition. My only grudge with this second effort is losing some of the rustic effects in the first image with the deadfall makeshift ladder being all wood with rusty old bolts. But as things are always changing in nature, in 2013, a massive flash flood washed many of the old wooden ladder rungs away (all were present and very noticable in my first image taken one year before the flash flood). All of the ladder rungs have now been replaced with more permanent and more safe/stable metal rungs bolted into the deadfall...however, this glistening metal takes away something slightly from the second composition in my humble opinion. My reasons for such a lengthy exposure of over 20 minutes were twofold: First, I wated to see if I could get all of the settings to mix perfectly with the time of day I was shooting (8pm), and, still at the same time, create the softening effect I wanted on the water flow. Second, this literally cool canyon and water spot was crowded, even this late in the daytime for this moderate 5-mile hike, because it was a both a Saturday and it was a hot southern Utah summer evening still at 88°F at 5pm. Subsequently, I knew people would be walking in and out of my compositions and there would be no way around it unless I shot very fast or extremely long. Everyone knows my talents are not in capturing a 1/100 second long exposure, so my options were the latter rather than the former. Anyway (2nd of my twofold reasons), my main goal with using a 20 minute exposure was in NOT capturing the 50 or more people (men, women, boys and girls all ages) who walked in front of my camera while my lens was open and I was exposing this scene...they splashed in the water in front of me and climbed both up and down the ladder here. But no worries for me, because the extra long exposure erases all people unless they stand absolutely still for at least 25% of the exposure time (meaning 5 minutes here), which of course nobody did, or even came close to doing. So, Presto-magico! here are the results of my efforts. And a nice side effect of shooting so long was my pup and I got to play in the water and cool off on this hot night as well while my camera was doing the work I assigned it to perform! Fun day all the way around for me, my dog, and all of the locals having fun cooling off in this cool slot canyon that is truly a giant watery playground...and all of those people who walked in front of my camera thought that I was the calmest, nicest, laid back, and most care-free photographer they had ever met... Camera Settings: ISO-100, 20mm at f/20 for 1220 seconds (20 mins 20 sec) using 2 Lee Proglass ND filters totaling 5 stops (.6ND and .9ND)...image was captured from 8 pm to 8:20 (20:00 to 20:20 in military time for 20 minutes)...from the settings and time of day, you can see how I got the title of this image ;) Peace, D."Bodhi"
No comments:
Post a Comment