Night station

So I was sitting in a doctor’s waiting room a month or so ago, leafing through a copy of Smithsonian magazine (the current issue – can you believe it?) and I came across a feature on night photography and a photographer from Chicago who has a photo blog called No Traces.

After seeing what was possible with night photography, I had to give it a try, and the photo above is my first attempt at capturing moving clouds after sunset. I stopped by the local commuter rail station, set up my tripod at a low angle in the middle of a set of tracks (it was the weekend so there was little risk of a train interrupting things) and took a couple of long exposures. This particular one was taken about 45 minutes after sunset at an exposure of two minutes at f22 with the addition of a 2-stop neutral density filter. The long exposure time blurred the clouds and creates a bit of an aurora borealis feel.

It’s modest, but it’s a start.

Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2006 James Jordan.