Great Falls at Sunrise

While I was off work a few days during the Christmas season, I took the opportunity to go the Virginia side of Great Falls National Park and take some pre-sunrise and sunrise pictures.  The wonderful thing about taking pictures 30 minutes or so before the sun rises is you can easily extend your exposure time to 10 seconds or more.  This allows the normally turbulent water to appear smooth and silky.

Pre-sunrise image of Great Falls.  10 second exposure

Red sunrise sky reflecting in the water above Great Falls

High Dynamic Range image of the pre-sunrise sky at Great Falls

It turns out that I was not the only one out there, although I was not as adventurous as he to climb out on the ice rocks so close to the falls.

A fellow photographer capturing the ice on the falls

I wish everyone a Happy New Year and thank you for visiting my blog and leaving comments on my work.

Total Lunar Eclipse 20101221

We had a total lunar eclipse early on the morning of Dec 21st, a rare event to coincide with the 1st day of winter.  Unfortunately, the weather was not the best with a layer of clouds that drifted in and out of the view finder.  More importantly, the rush of Christmas preparations prevented any dedicated all night photography outing.  So, using a variety of tools including The Photographer's Ephemeris to estimate how the moon would move in the sky, I set the camera up before I went to bed.  I set the timer to start taking pictures around 01:30 when the moon entered the Earth's umbra (shadow) and programmed the timer to take a picture every 2 minutes for 99 times (the max on my timer).  That placed the last picture around 04:40, just before the moon left the earth's shadow on the other side.  Using my experience from the Lunar Eclipse in February 2008, I used an exposure setting of F/4, 0.5 seconds and ISO 400.  While this was a good exposure for the moon during the eclipse time of total eclipse, it cause the moon to blow out before and after.  The clouds didn't help any either. 

The image below is a composite of selected (19) of the 99 images I captured.  The lens was a 24mm lens in portrait (vertical) orientation, so the motion you are seeing is how the moon moved down the sky between 01:30 and 04:40 this morning.  Not my best image, but not bad either given that I just set the camera up and went to bed.

Total lunar eclipse from the early morning of Dec 21st 2010

Giving Back

The past week, Angela Goodhart of Goodhart Photography and I teamed up to give back to God and our community this Thanksgiving and Christmas season.  We worked with the wonderful staff of Inova Loudoun Nursing and Rehabilitation Center to provide free portraits to some of their long term residents.

Angela and I really enjoyed working on the project and I got to learn a great deal about "formal" portrait photography -- something I had not done extensively before.  But the greatest joy was getting to meet the residents of the facility and using the gifts and talent God has given us to bless them this Holiday season.

The idea for this project was inspired by Craig Tanner of "The Mindful Eye."  One of his  Daily Critiques a couple years ago was on a portrait that someone had taken as a service project in a senior center.  Craig challenged his audience to find ways to "give back" to the community through their photography.  Angela and I built on that thought to provide these free portrait sessions and prints.

We used a two-light set-up with the main light on camera left and the fill on camera right, about 1.5 stops down from the main light.  Both lights were about 45 degrees between camera and subject.

Thanks again to the wonderful staff at Inova Loudoun Nursing and Rehabilation Center (and especially Mabel) for not only helping to make this project possible, but so much fun.  And thanks as well to my daughter for helping set-up the backdrop and lights and recording the name of each resident so we can easily get their portrait to them.

Merry Christmas,

Tim

Florets

My family and I went to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington DC earlier this week. Cameras were not allowed around the printing presses, but were allowed in the atrium and gift shop. The ceiling of latter was very ornamented.  I guess they don't have much problem coming up with money to pay their contractors.

Ceiling of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing

Nature Visions Photo Expo

Three of my images will be featured in the Nature Visions Photo Expo this weekend (13-14 November 2010).  The expo will be held Saturday and Sunday at the new Hylton Performing Arts Center on the Prince William County Campus of George Mason University.  Hours are from 10:00 am to 4:30 pm.  If you have the opportunity, I encourage you to visit and look at all the images accepted into the expo.

I'm Watching You

Lotus on Canvas

Fall Triangle

Saguaros, Sunrises and Star Trails

Saguaro at Sunset, McDowell Mountain Regional Park near Phoenix, AZ

I just returned from a 3 day trip to Phoenix and was blessed by a gorgeous sunset the first night and beautiful clear skies the next two nights.  Pictures of long exposure light trails, with the stars swirling around the North Star, have always been favorites of mine.  I have tried, unsuccessfully, several times over the past couple years.  I finally succeeded early one morning a couple weeks ago with a star trail over the Potomac River.  However, I couldn't get a long enough exposure before the sun rose.  More importantly, I lacked an interesting foreground.  The Saguaro Cactus and desert night sky of Arizona could solve both of those issues.

Light Trails at McDowell Mountain Park near Phoenix, AZ

I arrived in Phoenix to cloudy skies -- not promising conditions for star trails.  I went to McDowell Mountain Regional Park anyway, if nothing else just to scout out the area.  I arrived just after sunset.  While there I played around with some long exposures, light painting saguaro cacti and finally capturing a 6 minute exposure of the night sky as I drove the car back and forth along the road -- with only the parking lights, no headlights.

More images and light trails after the jump:

Columbus Day Weekend Shooting

Sunrise over the Potomac River

With the long Holiday weekend, I went out a couple mornings for some early morning photo sessions.  I was largely motivated by the Mindful Eye Community Assignment on long exposure night photography.  This assignment required an exposure time of 4 minutes or longer.

The first shot, shown above, was of the Potomac River at Algonkian Regional Park about an hour before sunrise.  The sky was perfectly clear, the river calm, and the sun rising to the east provided a beautiful gradient of color across the sky.

More images after the jump.