“Into the Clouds & Haze”
August 14th, 2020
Category: stars & streetlights
Here’s 2 strategies to capturing light trails: the pre-COVID way; I find a cool spot, setup up my tripod (first few images), and capture cars as they pass by; or, mount my tripod in my car and then took a series of 15-30 second images from the passenger seat (second set of images).
Things I learned from this photo adventure:
1. Windshields are dirty, even after you’ve cleaned them.
2. Programming my camera’s wired remote was much easier than I expected; I should have tried it long ago.
3. Roads, even the ones we think are smooth, are actually VERY BUMPY.
4. If you can’t do it the old way, try doing it backwards.
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< a little closer up >
For the second full week of Black & White February, I decided to follow up on an idea that I’d had for a few months – to shoot light trails in Elgin. I enjoy capturing long exposures, but the added challenge of capturing light trails in downtown Elgin instead of Chicago (where there’s more traffic) seemed challenging.
While we were out in the bitter cold for the January Lunar Eclipse, I realized that Elgin’s parking garages would make a great vantage point for some light trail images. I’d taken images from the top of the Spring Street garage, in fact, I’ve led photo walks in downtown Elgin and used the Spring Street garage as a vantage point.
However, I decided to add one more aspect to the week’s photos: I would attempt to shoot 7 images and capture 7 photos that I was proud of…I didn’t quite make it. Capturing light trails of traffic when there’s very little traffic turned out to be a bit more challenging than I expected. But I took 14 images, from 6 vantage points, and captured 7 images that I’m proud of.
Goodness, it was cold. We stood on a parking garage roof in Elgin for 2 hours, stepping back into our cars in between photos to allow the soles of our feet to warm back up. Luckily, the lunar eclipse didn’t happen during the “Polar Vortex” (that was the next week), but it was only 4° F (-15.5° C), and being 5 levels up meant there was nothing blocking the wind.
However, unlike the 2015 Lunar Eclipse and the 2017 Solar Eclipse, there wasn’t cloud cover. I didn’t stay for the entire eclipse, but I’m pretty happy with the images that I did capture.
