Big Bend ruins by night

One from my Big Bend trip earlier this month. Went into the backroad campsite by the Mariscal Mine and stayed one night. Did not get much sleep as I was up late and then again early to light paint the ruins.

Here is one of the mining houses done Strobist syle. The right side of the house and house interior were lit by flash units with gels. The left side is moonlight. You can pick out the Big Dipper in the sky.

A very neat location, if you make the trek to BBNP this is weel worth your efforts to get to. You will need high clearance and it is about a 2 hour drive from the pavement. It is a neat location in a spectacular park.

Sounds like a really cool place. Great shot, I found the big dipper easily. I think it would also look really cool with some star trails.

One of my favorite forms of photography :). Nice job on the lighting, though I'm not sure the multiple colors are my style, but still a good job on the painting. How do you manage to focus in the dark? I've tried a couple different ways, with mixed results. I'm going out next month for a few days of night shooting in western Kansas while the moon is full.

Darren, Big Bend sounds like a cool place, I would love to get there some day but it is a long ways away unfortunately.

I think I'm with Rob about the colors but the technical job you did still looks great to me. I really lime the shadows on the front of the building and the lighting on the distant Mts. What is your exposure time? And how did you have time to do all that painting and not get more star trails?

Rob- focus is easy...infinity.

I went to just using the back focus button. I also know where infinity is on the lens (my lens is marked). I dial it in and then when I trip the shutter, there is no refocus. Viola!

The colored light is a way to play at night. In the film days night photography was slow (15-60 minutes or more per image. You might take 4-5 in a session. Now with digital, I can do alot more.

I was working two cameras. One was pure landscape, the other was mine ruins and playing with light painting. On a ruin, I find it works for me. Plus it is kind fun.

Beautiful image. I would argue that the style is more lostamerica.com than Strobist. I am planning to do some shooting similar to that this summer.

Initial impression, I like this. I'm not completely sold on the color painting but that might grow on me as I've not seen it done before. I do know that I love the moonlight on the structure and the inner glow created with the flash units. The overall exposure and sky is wonderful and the icing on the cake is the shadow on the wall, very nice!

Really nice work Darren. I've got a full moon ahead of me while in Moab next week ... maybe some colored light painting on an arch is in my future too! That is if my wife will let me play outside in the dark in a strange land.

This is an intriguing photo, Darren. I have never attempted this type of shot, but it does look interesting. By the way, I looked at your online gallery yesterday and I was very impressed. I most enjoyed your fall photography in the Guadalupe mountains and also the thunderstorm shots. Excellent work.

Darren, I really like what you have done with the lights and the stars in this shot. Can you give us exposure times, etc.?

Thanks all.

I'll agree the colored gels take getting used to, but on old ruins can be kinda fun sometimes. At first I was just using yellow or orange in the ruin to light it like it was occupied but I did some with different colors on shadowed walls outside. Not pure nature but fun.

I have played around with light painting going back several years, but it always seemed to be more miss than hit with film. Digital with the ability to shift ISO settings on the fly and histograms make it much easier to work at night. Strobist got me thinking of using flash, lightstands, etc. What I like is that allows me more pinpoint control. When I walked around and popped a flash or used a flashlight, there were too many variblaes. Let's see how far was I? How long did I wave the light? etc. Now I set up the light stands and once I get the exposure set (two or three quick frames). I can work and get consistent results.

Since the moon was up and almost full, I was at ISO 1000, That is fairly grain free and allowed me to use 30 second exposures. f/4.5 and 10mm.

The flashes are set on stands and triggered remotely with a set of Cybersyncs.

Really fun. Especuially on a clear night at old ruins.

I like this a lot. I think you chose the right gels to make the colors work well. I can see how this type of photography could be really fun!