Today’s photo prompt was “After the Dark”, which honestly had me stumped most of the day. Tonight as the sun was setting I decided I would just take the camera out to play out in my yard, and see what I could find. We had clouds moving in, so I wasn’t sure what I’d be able to get of the night sky. I tried to catch the lightning bugs but they were being shy. The moon wasn’t out yet, so that wasn’t an option. I ended up just setting up my tripod and playing around with long exposures and remote timers, and ended up with two totally different photos that I really like.
The first one is of the night sky. I used a twenty second exposure with a 100 ISO setting to keep the night sky dark but allow in lots of starlight. I shot it from underneath the edge of the pine trees in our front yard to give the stars just a touch of framing and interest around the edge of the photo. As you can see there are thin clouds rolling past, with the nearby shopping center lights reflecting off the clouds. It makes for a pretty shot!
This second one was a little more fun. I was telling my husband that I wish I had some sparklers so I could play with light, when he suggested I use my iPhone instead. Brilliant! I set my remote timer to ten seconds to allow me time to get set up, then set my shutter speed to a long time of eight seconds and the 100 ISO. Then I stood in front of the camera and waited for the first click, and drew a heart in the air with the iPhone. This is the result, completely unedited. The low ISO and the brightness of the light cause it to pick up a totally black background even though there was plenty of ambient light around. The long shutter speed allowed the camera to catch the streaks of light as I moved the iPhone, and created the shape with light. I’m definitely going to have to play with this technique some more!
What did you photograph today?
