Nikon Wednesday 2019: #50

Matt Laur · December 11, 2019

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After years of meaning to check it out, we took the hour and a half drive up to the Antietam Battlefield outside of Sharpsburg, MD, to see the annual memorial candle lighting. Volunteers put out 23,000 candles in remembrance of all who lost their lives there. Patient visitors wait a long time on the side of the road outside the park, and then make the slow, no-headlights five mile drive through the park. Just when you think you've begun to wrap your head around what those thousands of numbers are, you crest another hill and see hundreds more acres of candles to teach you some more humility.

It's a devilish thing to try to photograph, because you truly can't stop to hop out and shoot. Everything is from the car window, and has to be timed between episodes of brake light glare from the row of cars in front of you. Exposure is all about glowing candles and pitch dark fields. 1000-pixel-wide images here can't really do it justice, of course. But here's a taste of the drive, the memorial candles, and some of the history buffs who serve as the occasional ghosts gathered 'round campfires here and there. Shot these with a D810 and a 24-70/2.8, mostly at ISO 2000 or so, and 1/30th at f/4 (ish).