Onegav

I called this image “left turn”, becasue its a left turn on the M56 if your travelling west, in the direction the image is looking. I did obviosuly have thoughts about “fire at night”, and “world on fire”, but I didn’t want to miss lead you. That is not a fire in the background you see, its just smoke from a distant factory!

I spotted the smoke as I drove home, and I wondered if I might be able to make an interesting composition from the bridge crossing over the motorway; using the lines of the cars in a long exposure, framed by the high banks of the motorway and of course including the smoke.

The night is really clear tonight, and very still, so the rising smoke was towering up high, still formed in a tight column, and it was catching the light from the industry below and moon above.

I kept the starts in the image above, but took them out of the one below. I also cropped the image below slightly differently, to get more of the streaking lights in, but it did squeeze the smoke up a little close to the top of the frame.

The pylon in front of the smoke just sets the whole thing of for me, pinning it all together like a button. The curves of the lights, mirrored by the rising smoke, is an interesting line I think, something a little unusual. I’m really pleased with the outcome!

I have to say, I’d promised myself I’d take more moring shots today, after driving through some awesome mist covered scenes on the way into work, but for today, I’m really happy I didn’t have time and I captured this image instead. There are plenty more mornings to come before this challenge is over……..

Learnings – I actually wanted to push this exposure past 30 seconds, but that took me into “bulb mode”, and although I know the principles of it, I found I had to hold the shutter button down, which I can’t see as being right. I’m sure there must be a setting somewhere I can open the shutter in bulb mode and then time it, so thats a little bit of home work for me to swot up on.