One Starry Night

Well, I thought I was Done, but, in fact, I do have more.

Sort of ...

I say sort of because while these are holiday, cottage photos, they could have been taken in other places because, within reason, the stars are pretty much the same wherever you are.

Brian and I went out one night to try our hands at astral photography. We were both trying out our brand new wide angle lenses. We both got the Tamron 15-30mm lens, he for his Nikon and I for my Canon. And we both love it.

There is a street light just inside the gate at the cottage, which I love having near the house or when I'm trying to find the place in a dark night. It does, however, have an effect on shooting the stars. It's incredible how one light illumines so much. We are about as far as we can get from it in these photos but still stay in open territory.

Strangely enough, although it really bothered me when I was shooting. I kind of like it in these two photos. I am not sure how the light shows up so well in the first photo because it's way off to the side, and there are no other, nearby light sources that I know of.

I think these two first photos are my faves, but I like things about the others too.

I think I slightly prefer the one below to the one above because of the bluer sky and the more impressive foreground, but I do like them both.

I took another shot similar to the first one, above, but played around with a bit of light painting. There was a bit of mist on the ground which picked up the beams of light. I don't mind the effect. You can also see the path of an airplane to the extreme left in this long exposure. These were all between 20 and 30 second exposures.

Then I did a little light painting on the planer mill. Of course, this makes the photo a little more about the mill than the stars. I would probably like it better without the beam in this case. Maybe next time.

Another shot, this one looking over the roof of the old barn, but they're all from close to the same spot but just turning around a bit. Once again, I find myself liking the glow from the streetlight much more than I thought I would.

Finally, I got a little silly and stepped into one of the photos, just for fun. There is time to do that when you're shooting a long exposure. You can't see me moving into the picture, but I did when the lens was open. The ambient light was so low that I didn't appear in the frame until I stood still for a number of seconds.

And that is that, said AC, the cat.