Star Trails - Ancient Bristlecone Forest

Congrats with this picture. Very nice, with an inspiring foreground. But it also has some 'scientific' value. It shows very nicely the movement of the earth in space. I am a science teacher, and could very much use this image during my activities.

I am happy to discover you and this photo. It is great ! Perfect. I love it...

Appart from that, nothing else to say, except it is nice to see that 4x5 can still be used

with originality.

 

Thanks for sharing,

Lenny

Wonderfull piece of work; both as a technical masterpiece and a visual portrayal of your sentiments.

BTW I reccomend viewers adjust their browsers to minimize clutter around it - in IE6 I hid status bar, and pressed F11 to give full screen view.

The exposure of the foreground is quite remarkable. I am curious about the light source. . . . . moonlight? post-sunset? pre-sunrise? . . . and also about the choice of 400 film.

 

The separation of the trees is carefully done, and I assume you set this up well before sunset.

The choice of black and white doesn't do much for me. Having done a lot of star trail photography myself, one of the most interesting things I find about it is that the color of the stars varies so much. From red to green to bright white, even blue. Otherwise, the foreground objects and dark location were a good choice.

One question, how is it that you can walk through the picture and not show up? I would have thought you would have shown up as a blur. I've seen and heard this before in other pictures but I just don't understand technically how it works.

I also understand that in some long exposure night photographs that the photographer will use a spotlight on the foreground for a few minutes just so that it will show up. How is this different than having a person in the picture for a bit.

Thanks.

Just shared your beautiful photograph with my 12 year old son. He now understands what a time exposure is! Great work...

Michael Le, the reason that he wouldn't show up in the image is that he was only there for a fraction of a second during an 8-hour exposure. So the fraction of the light he blocked in any one area was something like one twenty-thousandth. Hardly enough of a difference to be visible on film.

 

As for illuminating the foreground in some other time exposures, it's true that the light would only be on for a small fraction of the exposure time. But a flashlight on the sand is many thousands of times brighter than starlight, so if done right the total light cast by the flashlight over a few seconds could be comparable to the light cast by the stars in a few hours. There's also reciprocity failure which enhances the flashlight even more, but that's a technical detail which doesn't change the basic argument.

I was wondering why is the photo brighter towards the bottom. Is it sunrise?

"Is it sunrise?"

 

Not unless the sun rises in the north. Was there an urban area over the horizon some miles away?

 

This is really well-done, and the black and white works very well, in my opinion.

The subtle interplay of color with shape, muted pastels in the star trails adding to the aspects of the width of trails, would not be a negative, in my estimation. Too much color would be a negative, but I don't think that would have been an issue. But it is simply an aesthetic choice, and I respect the B&W choice, especially as it is close to how the unaided eye would view such a scene with only pinpoints for stars and with, at best, muted dark outlines for the trees (if at dusk or dawn, of course). One possibility: do your eight-hour-or-so shoot in color, then convert to B&W in PS so that you approach the best of both the color and the B&W aspects. You cannot convert B&W to realistic color, but you can go the other way, though some may say that the PS B&W is inferior to "the real thing".

Glad I looked at the large view as I am generally ho-hum about star trail photos, although I admit they are fun to make and interesting to look at. This one does take the cake, though. You must have frozen your watchamacallits off, though. Even in the summer at the 8000 ft level in the White Mts. of CA it's not that toasty up that high, and it's still a good hike to the summit. When I camped there a few years ago I found I'd tied my tent to a tree containing a mountain bluebird nest within and spent some hours watching mamma and pappa bird taking turns catching insects for the brood. Sorry no pix, just memories. Including recollections of the cute "friendly" ground squirrels begging and stealing our food along with the signs warning us that they may have been carrying rabies. Ah, the joys of camping in the mts.

OK, I gotta ask. All that time to think about it, set it up, wait, freeze, etc.... Why is it running uphill?

> One question, how is it that you can walk through the picture and not show up? I would have thought you would have shown up as a blur. I've seen and heard this before in other pictures but I just don't understand technically how it works

 

 

michael, the reason that i could walk right through that image (twice) and not show up is because of the long exposure time RELATIVE to the amount of time i walked right through the picture. if you perform a mathmatical integration of light striking the film at any point on the film, the amount of time photons that are reflected off me which strike the film simply do not register - let alone, the fact that i was in motion. had i stoof there for 5 minutes in front of the camera, you would then see an obvious "break" in the star trails where i was standing. also, had i had a flashlight with me, that would have REALLY shown up and destroyed the image.

> I have a question though. Why did you shoot it on 400? Ok, one more question. To create this star trail effect, you point the camera in the direction or the star Polaris?

 

 

adam, the reason that i had to shoot this on 400 speed is because my large format lenses do not stop up any further than f5.6. for that reason alone, 100 speed, 50 speed simply does not offer enough sensitivity. in 35mm, with an f1.4 or f1.8 lens, 50 speed film works.... and yes, i pointed the camera at polaris - well... approximately so :) i guaged where it would be by the position of the setting sun when i set the camera up.

As an astronomer, photographer, and artist, I relate to many aspects of this photo. The long exposure shows the relative paths of the stars, circling the polar axis (an illusion, of course... we are the ones doing most of the moving) and this gives me reference, a feeling for my place on the Earth, visualizing the sphere... the axis... always pointing North (another illusion, there is no direcion in space... no up, no down) When I looked at your photo a second time, another thought came to mind: the trees seem to be reaching, trying to follow the moving stars. There are many things about this photo that play on your sense of time, space, and direction. Instead of thinking about your position relative to the center of the Earth, and the imaginary line that defines up and down, try visualizing where you are at on this giant globe, spinning, and defining another imaginary line (polar axis) that points North. Go out at night and point to the North Star... your arm is now defining that same line, parallel to the Earth's axis (Polaris, the north star, is actually close to true North, but being slightly off, makes it's own small circle star trail)Also, for those of you in the Southern Hemishere, the axis extends South, but the idea is the same. About the technique used for this shot... I believe the forground was illuminated by ambient light (skylight, and to small extent, starlight) I also think this may have been part of the reason for using 400 speed film. It might not have worked with slower film. This was a very long exposure, and you might be suprised to know that of this had been done closer to city lights (it called Light Pollution) the sky would have totally blown out. Even darker locations have enough skylight to build up after several hours exposure, and you might also be suprised that after spending several hours watching a meteor shower (total darkness, except for starlight) and letting my eyes "dark adapt", I could see good enough to walk around without a flashlight... just like the song by John Denver... "The shadow from the starlight is softer than a lullabye... " (from Rocky Mountain High) Oh, one more thing... I usually like color for star trail shots, but this one works just fine without color.

> I was wondering why is the photo brighter towards the bottom. Is it sunrise?

 

 

nope.

 

the exposure went through a few hours of moonrise however. also, the rocks in the foreground (i am not a geologist so i don't know if this is right) are like a whitish quartz something or other. also, in the printing, i do a fair amount of overall dodging.

> This one does take the cake, though. You must have frozen your watchamacallits off, though. Even in the summer at the 8000 ft level in the White Mts. of CA it's not that toasty up that high, and it's still a good hike to the summit. When I camped there a few years ago I found I'd tied my tent to a tree containing a mountain bluebird nest within and spent some hours watching mamma and pappa bird taking turns catching insects for the brood. Sorry no pix, just memories. Including recollections of the cute "friendly" ground squirrels begging and stealing our food along with the signs warning us that they may have been carrying rabies. Ah, the joys of camping in the mts.

 

 

it's these memories that matter the most sometimes... many of which the camera can never do justice for... or even catch for that matter. as for it being cold up there, well, yes, it can be. but the day i took this shot, it was a rather pleasant indian summer day and did not get all that cold at night. also, the temperature in the morning when i went back to the camera to turn it off may have not caught my perception, as my mind was more focused on getting over to the camera before any sunrise alpenglow started to "blow out the sky" in the negative... so i was walking rather quickly. i do remember, that after tearing down the camera and walking back to my truck, it was not all that cold tho. i took the picture in the patriarch grove just under 12,000 feet.

> When I looked at your photo a second time, another thought came to mind: the trees seem to be reaching, trying to follow the moving stars.

 

jeff, check out the post i left titled "ovals & circles".... i got more philosophical in that post and it's sort of in line with what you are saying.... as for the statement "we're doing most of the moving"... well, that kind of knocked the socks right off the "man is at the center of the universe" idea way back when - haha. Actually tho, we, the earth, the sun, the solar system, the milky way... everything is in dynamic motion collectively... so in that vein, we're not doing most of the moving but rather, are part of all of what's moving - the expansion of the universe.... yes, those trees do reach for the stars, especially the one called "sun"... the one that gives the trees the capacity to make their own food.

What everyone else has said goes for me too. What I wanted to share were the comments of a coworker who isn't as versed in the photographic arts as those who frequent this forum. "What is that?" "The stars." Blank stares. "What do you mean the stars? How did they do that?" "You just take a really long picture all night, and the motion of the earth is captured on film." "Wow." Lots of oos and ahhs. This is one of those images that everyone will stop and look at at and wonder a little. Very well done.

hugo,

 

you can have fun with that - you can say that he rotated the camera and then watch their brains churn away trying to figure that one out.

 

i remember at an arts & crafts show awhile back, i had this star trail image (looking west) and there were some of the star trails that had wiggles in them. the reason they had wiggles is because my film (keep in mind it's 4x5 square inches) does not lie flat on the film plate holder as the temperature changes. the film will tend to warp... and so the position of the film moves around with respect to the focal plane of the camera leaving star tracks that are not exactly linear in parts of the film....

 

but i didn't feel like explaining all of that so i just said this:

 

"you know that the earth has earthquakes, right? well, that star was having a starquake"... and they walked away thinking about starquakes - heheheheheheohahahaha

here's the shot i was telling you about hugo. the digitalization really reduces the quality of the image but see if you can find several of the "starquake" star tracks...

http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/sierra_stardust/ detail?.dir=/a+visual+poem&.dnm=total+solitude.jpg

Coyote, that's an outstanding collection of photos you pointed us to with the yahoo link. I always loved your aspen shots, and have admired your work from afar many times. Congrats on this memorable capture, and on a wonderful portfolio. What an adventure you share with your viewers.

Fantastic - great effect. More surprising, a lot of interesting mind work around it, and the first one i find here with a deep sense of humour..

Well done!

Someone knows if a picture like this can be done with a 35mm artifact, or the quality decreases too much?

I'm very far from 4x5, at the moment...

Someone posted the question about why the shot runs uphill. The ground does, indeed, seem to be not parallel with the bottom of the frame. In my opinion, that adds much to the dynamism of the shot, and gives a great counterbalance to the lean of the tree that is closest to the camera. Also, from the same vantage point, had the ground not seemed to run uphill (to the right, I mean), then that same tree in the forefront also would have not appeared to lean as much: again, not as dynamic! A level horizon or groundline is far from being always ideal.