PS#1: Night in the Ghost Town

Note: I'm going to start a new series of blog posts that I'm calling, Picture Stories. This will hopefully give me some inspiration to post more frequently on my blog as well as increase my shooting activity. My friend and fellow photographer, Bob Clark, maintains a blog and basically does just that; he tells stories. And good ones too :-)

This image was taken on my recent photography workshop based in Big Bend. It is just a snapshot taken during the workshop.

Perry School in Ghost Town
(click for larger image)

Shooting Specs:
Camera: Canon 5DII
Lens: Canon 24mm f/1.4L II
Shutter Speed: 25 sec.
Aperture: f/2.0
ISO: 3200
Camera positioned on ground

This photo above was taken as a quick test shot to see how the ambient light was registering on the building and determine if any light painting was needed. I wanted the light on the building to balance with the night sky, and I used it to help teach and demonstrate proper exposure to my workshop participants.

This is the old Perry School in the Terlingua Ghost Town (the ghost town is a few miles west of Big Bend National Park). The ghost town has few lights, but still the artificial illumination from distant structures does register on long exposures.

I simply laid my camera on the ground and fired off a shot. During the 25 second exposure, two things happened. The first was that a car drove by on a nearby road, and the light from its headlights blew out a spot on the left side of the photo. The second accident was that two workshop participants walked up to the building while their LED headlamps were turned to red mode.

The resulting photo was a happy accident. I really like it. The lighting is a bit freaky and the tilt of the camera adds some tension and drama, as if the photographer dropped his/her camera and ran off after seeing a ghost or something horrible.

So, in honor of the recent Halloween holiday, I'm posting this photo as the first in my PS series :-)