Category Archives: Photography

I’m providing a few more images from my journey into Patapsco Valley State Park. They’re not great, but the sky was overcast, I was losing light, and I kept hearing gunshots so I really thought I was about to be mistaken for a deer.

Along the farm road on the way in, I encountered what appears to be some ancient and abandoned thrashing equipment.

There is a path cleared of trees that penetrates the southern section of the forest. My guess is that this was meant to accommodate the gas pipeline.

The forest itself is easily traveled. The trees are well separated and the ferny undergrowth is almost inviting.

As I was walking through, I couldn’t help but think that this place reminded me of the forests in the Legend of Zelda games.

I’ve developed a sort of fascination with remote locations. My ideal day involves heading somewhere very few people go, taking it in, and photographing it. Places where there are no photos on Panoramio or Google Earth hold particular appeal with me. Yesterday I hopped on my bike and headed to Patapsco Valley State Park. The southern section of the park is mostly inaccessible, so this of course was where I decided to go. I rode down a set of small local farm roads before dumping my bike at the edge of the forest. I wandered in and walked down a path created by two treads from a vehicle of some kind. I figured this area must have been cleared out at one time, probably to install a natural gas pipeline that I observed.

When you head to Iceland in winter, which apparently no one does, you have to see the Northern Lights.  It’s obligatory.  But seeing them requires that you get as far away from cities as possible.  And since there’s really only one city, it means getting away from Reykjavik.  So we hopped in our tiny European rental car and drove east midway between Höfn and Jökulsárlón, or for all intents and purposes, between no one and nowhere.  It was dark.  Real dark.  But that wasn’t good enough.  Here’s what came out:

For the benefit of anyone who ever tries to photograph the aurora, here are my pieces of wisdom learned from this experience.

1. You’d better have a damn sensitive sensor.  If you can’t get up to at least ISO 64,000 you’re going to be in for a hard night.
2. Ideally you want to shoot for a 15 second exposure.  Any more and you’ll start getting star streaks.  Make sure you have as wide as aperture as possible.
3. It will be cold and you will likely have to wait for a while, maybe days.  Be prepared.
4. Cold temperatures will drain your batteries right quick.  Keep them warm, perhaps wrapped in a hand warmer if you can.
5. Don’t underestimate the wind.  This photo had to be taken in the car with the window rolled down and even then the wind was still blowing us around.  Thankfully the road we were parked off of wasn’t super busy at that late hour.
6. It’s better if you can see any and all aurora.  This means get somewhere you’ll have an open view of the entire sky.  Trees, rocks, houses, etc. are fine because they create points of interest, but keep your sky clear.  Notice how my aurora falls behind the mountains.
7. The best shot will come as the aurora obtains three dimensionality, e.g. as it passes overhead.  Mine looks flat because it’s in the distance.

I’ve come to believe that getting a really good Northern Lights shot is really hard to do, especially if you don’t live around the Arctic Circle.  The wind, clouds, and lights themselves can be very fickle.  You must carry the right equipment and know how to use it quickly.  The cold and time will wear at you.  If you’re interested, this photo was taken with a Nikon D40 with a 18-55mm kit lens, ISO 1600, 30s+ exposure, i.e. NOT the right tools for the job.

I’m excited for the arrival of my new Nikon D7000.  It’s about time that I have an adequate sensor, bracketing ability, higher ISO, etc.  I’ve also invested in my first telephoto zoom lens which will extend my photographic range from 55mm to 200mm.  Expect a vast improvement.  I still don’t own a dedicated wide angle lens, but I employ all sorts of tricks in post-production to hide that fact.  I’m unabashedly a fan of Photoshop and will use its magic every chance I get.  My goal, however, is to make it difficult for the viewer to notice.

Late last night I was browsing through some sunset photos of Hawaii and was inspired to rework one of my (unpublished until now) images from Nicaragua in Summer 2010.  What do you think?  Click to view the larger photograph.

Another image from the insomniac.  Northern Baltimore City is lit up with fireflies this time of year.  I took a 60 second exposure at 1600 ISO to capture their transient luminosities.  The image is dark and noisy (obviously; it was 3am), but I like the number and color of these little buggers.  The streaks even give you a sense of how far they travel between flashes.

I took a step out my front door late last night and found two deer stealing my grass in the silent darkness. I ran to retrieve my camera, but when I returned, they were gone. Instead, I turned my attention to some of the old growth trees around my house and ripped this shot out of the night.

A view from the top of the world!  I’ve adapted this image by Roddy Mackenzie into another cylindrical panorama.  Admittedly, the original photo I lifted was at a shoddy resolution.  I managed to smooth out the sky and color gradients, though.