Under the stars

Self portrait under a starry sky.

My wife and I visited my daughter, who lives in a rural part of Tennessee. Far from city lights that pollute the night sky. Clear nights provide a spectacular star show that I love to capture on camera. This photograph was made in one exposure, with no Photoshop other than to adjust levels a tad.

It took an hour or so to set up and choreograph this shot. I set up the camera on a tripod and framed the shot with an ultra wide angle lens while it was still light. Placed a flash on a stand just outside the frame to the left. Identified the spot in which I needed to stand.

When it was sufficiently dark (nearly pitch black), I set the camera to a 30 second exposure. The flash (fired by a wireless trigger on camera) was set to go off at the end of the exposure. That gave me 30 seconds from the time I hit the shutter to use a handheld flash unit to light the trees (five pops of the flash), find my mark, place the handheld flash unit behind me and hit a pose before the final flash went off. The advance planning paid off. It only took three or four tries to get a frame that I liked.

Ah, the things I do for my art.

Extra points if you can find the Big Dipper. The big dip is in the orange shirt.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.