Painting the Night

The light is everything.  What we see around us is the reflection of light on different surfaces... Without light, we can't see anything.  Even in the absence of light, even in the situations we call pitch black, with the right exposure time, we may be able to "record" some light and therefore make something out of what we have recorded.

The following pictures were all taken at night during different camping trips.  I was able to record the light information by keeping the exposure long and the f stop low.  In most of them I also used artificial light (such as flashlight, a lighter etc.) along with the available light provided by the stars or the moon.  All of the pictures were taken in a single shot.  None of these are multi-exposure. None of them were retouched in Photoshop, except putting my business name on.

Let's start with a simple one.  The night sky in Sedona, AZ and the trace of a red-eye flight.

This one is next to the highway in Sedona, AZ as well.  The city lights in the horizon, the cars on the highway on the right and the moon and the stars in the sky.  I love the color of the bushes.

I took the next one in Joshua Tree.  I love the "space station" kind of eerie look.

Still in Joshua Tree, I took this one with the fish-eye that I love.  Full moon.

This was a great night.

Now to the fun stuff... Another full moon, this time in Limekiln, Big Sur, CA, one of the best camping grounds...  I only noticed the face of the rock after i took the pictures...

The same night, this time my wife Jennifer and her cuz Joe joined me.

I love the following one.

This one has no artificial light whatsoever.  Only the moonlight.

The same camping ground, but different time, this time there is no moon. I used a flash light and a lighter for this.

Another camping trip to Big Sur, CA.  This time we stayed at Kirk Creek as Limekiln was closed.

We put our tent right by the cliff.  We've been on this campsite before, and we put our tent at the same spot... Maybe closer to the fence.  But then, there was no fence, and in the middle of the night, I woke up and got out of the tent and I was too lazy to walk too the restrooms... I almost fell...

This is the view of the ocean from the same cliff late at night with a 3/4 full moon's light.

And this is the moon slowly setting as the morning approaches.  I took this one, waking up in the middle of the night as well.  That moment had an eerily beautiful feeling to it.

A good camp fire is one of the best things about camping!

I will leave you with some fun pictures we shot before we went to bed :o)