Jasper 4, the night photos

One of the drawing features of the Jasper trip was dark skies. Part of that is Jasper marketing itself that way, and trying to limit the amount of light pollution. And granted, you don't have to get far from Jasper to get away from human lighting. The other part is applicable to outdoor photography in general. You never know what the weather is going to do.

I've already shared some of the photos along the way in previous blogs. Here's the rest, along with some more commentary. Sorry if I'm repeating myself.

The first night (Oct 12) outside was Pyramid Lake.

1. I've got a bit of a procedure for doing night photography. I'll set up beside the car to get the camera focussed, and take a first photo. I don't really care about composition. It's a way to check focus, and make sure I've got all the gear and everything is working. I got lucky on these with trees beside the parking lot lining up with the Milky Way. Once I know everything is working I'll dial in the desired composition and double check focus. Sometimes that's tricky with a really wide lens because unwanted elements can intrude from any side, and getting the horizon level (if it's in the photo) can be harder than you'd think.

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4. From the bridge on the lake, in between car headlights and people flashlights, looking for star reflections. I'd have thought there'd be a bit more consideration.

5. Then we moved over to this bridge over the Athabasca not far from town. We figured we would be all alone since the road doesn't really go anywhere. I was working the scene from this bridge when a car drove up. They looked like teenagers on the way to watch the submarine races, if you know what I'm saying.

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8. Midnight ticked over to the 13th, still working the scene. You'll remember I did a bit of light painting for this. I tried doing some on the trees in photo 7, but that didn't work out as well.

9. After a full day of chasing landscape photos and reflections, we went out to a different bridge and tried again. The clouds moved in on us, but I got one of the Iridium statellites.

10. Figuring out the exposure settings and composition for the star lit river photo.

11. I'd wanted to do some light painting on the water, but it would have messed someone else up. However, another someone fired up their red light to do something on their camera and it hit the water. I'd have liked it better if they had done a better job of painting the river.

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13. The evening of the 14th was a huge disappointment for me. We went up the tramway for an evening dinner, and an opportunity to do photos from the top of a mountain, or look through the telescopes the Dark Sky organization had set up.

By the time we were done our meal the clouds had rolled in again. I didn't really like any of the photos I was getting, except this one. 

14. There is a boardwalk running behind the tramway and restaurant building. They had strung red LED  lighting along it for safety, but holy doodle! I'm sure you could see the boardwalk from space, they were so bright.  It was almost impossible for me to get photos without red reflections from the lens. Some of the time I was holding a mittened hand out trying to keep the lens in shadow. In this photo, I've dialed the brightness down. Some people had no consideration for a camera on a tripod, brazenly blocking the camera. There were way more people than I expected.

Plus, you'd think they would have shutters over the building windows, or dim the lights, but no. White light flooded out and mixed with the red, getting worse every time someone opened a door. People don't seem to understand that most humans actually have pretty good night vision. Once our eyes adapt, even starlight can be enough. I'm pretty sure my eyes never dark adapted at all that evening.

15. Trying a fun composition. Again, the brightness and saturation are dialed way down.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (BC)

Driftwood (Jasper)

Plus a wood related serendipity from 2019, so how could I resist?

Peony. And I think that's the last of the peony for 2023. Unless I find another.

Flower

Yukon

Film (new)

Film (old)

The mint plant is just getting it's legs.