Day 206

Day 206 - Wild hairs, insanity, patience and disappointment

I got this wild hair and this was the week-end, all of the elements were in place: hot and dry, full moon, wheat field nearing harvest.

I have read all of the books that talk about the golden hour and although I have no reason to doubt anyone, I wanted to see for myself, so I put together my own little mini-project. I found a wheat field out in the open that was close to home.

I even defined mini rules for myself. I wanted roughly the exact same image at four different times in a 24 hour period:

1. When the full moon was at it's highest in the sky
2. Sunrise
3. When the sun was at it's highest mid-day
4. Sunset

I stayed pretty close to my set parameters and I learned a few valuable tidbits. I am completely sleep deprived. It was a week-end of multiple happy nappies, but never a full nights sleep.

And most importantly, I need to shout out a huge thank you to my partner Karen who has humored me all week-end with photo shoots at all hours of the day. Thank you Karen, from the bottom of my heart. You inspire, encourage and support me, I can't ask for anymore than that.

ISO 100, 105mm, f/10, 88.0 sec. 12:31:17 am, Sunday, July 25, 2010

Lit by the full moon
I picked out this field earlier in the week, easy access and close to home but I didn't really scout out the location. Arriving at midnight with just the light of the moon (where was my flashlight, you ask?) was a bit of a challenge, but I had enough moonlight to set up the tripod.

It occurred to me that only an insane photographer would go out in the middle of the night into the middle of a field just to get "the shot."

I used the bulb setting and since I didn't have a timer of any sort, with every click of the shutter I counted to 100 or more. The hardest part of the whole thing was trying to manually focus. My car was parked on the other side of the highway, so I had Karen turn on the high beams and they just hit the top bar of the first wheel.

ISO 100, 96mm, f/13, 1/30 sec. 6:11:28 am, Sunday, July 25, 2010

Sunrise or shortly there after
Three hours of sleep and we were back up so that we could capture sunrise at the wheat field. I was there about 30 minutes early and really wasn't that impressed. The lighting was pretty darn flat, the skies were faded to a not so nice gray.

I watched as the sun came over the horizon and I still wasn't that impressed. I waited around and was walking back to the car about 20 minutes after official sunrise when I turned around and saw this.

I scrambled back to my spot, set up and watched as the sun gave me those famous golden moments. If I had left the minute the sun rose, I would have missed this. A little patience definitely paid off.

ISO 100, 92mm, f/22, 1/125 sec., 1:44:47 pm, Sunday, July 25, 2010

Under the mid-day sun
This one took the most tweaking in Lightroom, but I do think that full sun gets a bit of a bum rap. It didn't take too long to set up and get my image.

ISO 100, 75mm, f/8.0, 1/60 sec., 8:35:08 pm, July 25, 2010

Sunset, the last light of day

I was disappointed at sunset. I thought I had time to stop for gas, but I didn't. This was the only image I captured as the light began to fade fast with 15 minutes to go before actual sunset.

I hung around hoping to somehow redeem my sunset image, but it never worked, at least not with the parameters that I had set for myself.

Yup, lessons learned.