Onegav

I was late finishing work tonight, and by the time I arrived home it was already pitch black. I know the nights are drawing in, but it is startling at the rate the days are shortening!

Anyway, it was really cool, because it was one of those days that really forces you to find something to photograph, which is, essentially the main learning in all of this. It’s training for your eyes.

A fist thought was the sky, it was moody as I left work, but I didn’t just want to take a photo of the sky, so I drove on.

Halfway home I thought about past photographs, and the images I’ve taken of the street lamps. Nice images and fond memories of past adventures, but tonight I wanted to try something different; again the nights are drawing in and there would be plenty of time later in the year for nostalgic lamp post photographs!

I did, however see a lamp post almost covered in tree branches just before I arrived home, which looked interesting. I went for a look but I couldn’t quite get an angle on it to capture the effect I wanted. One for the memory bank there, a photograph for another day for sure.

Eventually as I walked a little further past the lamp post in the tree, I was nearing a bridge that goes over the motorway, and I had the thought of using the night to my advantage and taking a long exposure of the car lights whizzing past.

Plan hatched, tripod up, and I dialled the settings in I wanted. At first I set my 50mm lens to its widest f/1.8 aperture, to grab as much light as possible, but in the end I chose f/5, to give me a couple of extra seconds of exposure.

Final settings were: 50mm – f/5 – ISO100 – 4 second exposure, and I’m happy with the result. A nice sweeping curve of lights, twisting off into the distance.

The main shot above, I like best, but in Lightroom I also adjusted the shadows and blacks a bit, to see how it looked with more visible detail, which you can see below. However, I like the simple flat black background, with the lights streaking across much better.

Learnings – A real “365” learning today, a real push to find something my hungry eyes thought was interesting. Sounds stressful doesn’t it, but it really wasn’t, I loved every minute!

Also, I keep forgetting to mention, but along with all the photographs I’ve taken, and shared in the blog, on this adventure, I have also just gone past 100k words! Well, 102,750 words to be precise, plus however many you’ve just read.

Thank you to everyone who’s supported me so far, passed generous comment to me or just simply enjoyed my photographs without saying a word. It really does help, and it’s so nice to be sharing the adventure with you.

Have a great weekend 🤗