Starlight, Starbright
My friend Herbert Law of Minute Sixteen is in town, and invariably, we have insanely mis-matched schedules. The other night he invited me out to join him and a couple others to photograph the Perseid Meteor Shower which came “flying through” (haha) this month. And while I had such great intentions to connect before the night was through, it turned out that another dear friend, Stacy LaMascus was going to leave town for a year at school… In this case, the mini going-away party trumped the meteor outing… But as we hung out and the ladies took a dip in the hot tub, I put my gear to use in the back yard to capture a few starlight photos.
Take a look.
The first image here has a shooting star. I also like the framing of the house and surrounding trees. It feels like we’ve got a portal to another world!
This one is (I believe) a satellite moving through the night sky. The milky way really stands out in here.
I noticed that the yard, lit by a light from inside the garage, had some interesting features contrasted against the starry sky. Fun!
See these images at the 2012 Fine Art Gallery.
March Aurora
Last night, after crawling into bed with Heather to watch a sitcom, my phone buzzed. It’s not often that folks call me in the late hours, so after the show was over, I hopped out of bed to find a message from my friend Shea excitedly telling me about the Aurora. He hasn’t let me down with reports of northern lights in the past, but just to be sure, I headed to Facebook to see what the crowdsourced space-weather report looked like: tons of people were chatting up the lights.
Not wanting to miss out on epic action, we bundled up and walked to the end of the street, seeing the sky aglow with the wisps of light. While the lights were certainly present, they were a bit bland to the naked eye – the truly amazing show had been earlier when the message was left. Not wanting to miss out on a return event, we went back home, tucked Heather into bed, and I headed out to make some photos.
Shea and others had been texting through the night encouraging and tipping each other off to aurora awesomeness in the case that we were not keeping eyes peeled to the sky… (Sometimes driving to a new location means that you miss the most amazing display ever.) It was nice to know that someone else was out in the cold and enjoying the sights. In a strange way, it’s kind of like that song in Fievel Goes West. Anyhow, back to last night.
After standing in the Mendenhall River for around an hour and thirty minutes, I was able to capture a variety of shots, and eventually headed back to the road where Shea had showed up. We stood and talked for the next hour or so making a few frames, and also gathering images for a time lapse video. Eventually I made it home, offloaded images, and was able to slip under the covers at just shy of 4am. Today has been a day of caffeine!
Take a look at what I came back with – shown in chronological order:
And lastly, the time lapse video. This was at ~2am for an hour. 400 frames, each at ~8sec/ea. Playing at 15fps.
Take a look at the larger versions by clicking on an image or heading to my 2012 Fine Art gallery.
Sleepless Nights
Most people accuse me of not needing much sleep. I’m not so sure I agree, but I am certainly aware that I have strange sleep patterns. Take tonight for instance: I went to bed at a ‘reasonable’ hour (I think it was around 9:30 or 10pm), and then I awoke at 12:15am without much explanation. I even tried to go back to bed, and after laying there for 45 minutes waiting to fall asleep, I decided it was time to just get up and go read or otherwise keep myself entertained.
I’m glad I did.
Facebook did me well tonight. A fellow photographer who has a knack for aurora images had posted an image showing proof that the aurora’s were out, albeit faintly. That was enough. I went out and spent almost 2 hours collecting images. The one below which “made the cut” is one that was approximately a 33minute exposure (f6.3, ISO 400, @14mm).
I finally decided it was time to go home when I couldn’t feel the tips of my fingers. I’d blame it on the lack of gloves, but mostly I think it was my half-hearted efforts to create a time lapse that had my hands out of my pockets every 10 seconds.
Enjoy!
Also, I’ve put this up on my Fine Art page where prints and other artwork are available for purchase.
3rd Annual Calendar
For the past couple of years, I have taken on the task of creating a photo calendar featuring some of my work from the past year. It’s a fun project for me to look back and find 12 of my favorite images, and of course my mom loves it because she can now brag about the artist, but still get’s her annual calendar from her son! 🙂
In reflection of my 2011 images, I didn’t think I had a strong enough collection in one particular vein to have strictly a Macro, Wildlife, Scenic, or other theme. But with Heather’s help, we were able to get it done. You can call this particular grouping, “photos that made the cut”! Ha!
For printing this year, I decided to go with one of our partners, Kodak Gallery. In the past I had used iPhoto, chosen for their fairly simple process to get a large, quality calendar. So many places offer calendars but at some minuscule size (like 8.5×11) which, to me, communicates mass-market cheapness. I’m a big fan of quality over price.
After receiving the calendars last week, I can say that I like the product. The size is more than adequate –14.25″x10.9″– (larger than the iPhoto calendar –13″x10.4″– that I’ve had previously), and the print quality gets a 7/10 ranking because while the quality of the print & paper was mostly amazing (9-10/10), the downside was that their printer obviously had some issues as there were color bands across many of the images (5/10). I haven’t decided if I’m going to chase down their quality control offices and demand a refund (reprinting is too late in the game for Christmas Gifting.) They may be expensive to make, but it’s fun to share, and most people can actually use it throughout the year!
If you don’t get one from me by new years and you REALLY, REALLY have to have one, let me know. I’m happy to order more, but you’ll cover the costs. 🙂
Here are the images (in order of how they appear in the calendar). Click for a larger view.
Windfall Hike
Last night, after work, I took off as quickly as possible to catch up with Paul and a few students from UAS Housing. As a “Residence Life Coordinator” he pulls together random activities which always seem like a blast, though I can’t often make. This time I was finally able to join in the fun. There were 10-15 students who were going to spend the night at the Windfall Lake Cabin, and then hike out the next day. I planned to hike back that same night, which worked out well because Bob decided to head back early so I was able to make a new friend on the return hike!
It was lots of fun, and of course, I brought a camera. Here are a few shots…
Garbage Bears
I love wildlife and I love people.
I hate it when one side of that duo become so familiar with its surroundings that it creates dangerous situation for the other.
Lately, on the UAS campus, there has been a bear who shows up to peruse the Mourant Building area looking for morsels. It’s a real bummer because now that the bear has visited on multiple occasions this week, the next step will likely be some intervention by some agency. (I presume darting or live capturing the bear to take it to some far-away area.) The bear is simply looking for a food source, and fortunately he didn’t find any on this trip, even after knocking over the bear-proof garbage can and getting up into the box recycling. The bear ambled away without much human interaction (save for my photo-taking)
This isn’t particularly a striking set of photography, but I believe that it is important to share when these things happen so that people can be more aware of the impact of their actions…
And I just noticed that this is a tagged bear (the top image, he has a blue mark near his ear). I don’t think that bodes well for our furry friend… 🙁
Auke Bay Harbor
Last night was another late night. I went to bed at a normal hour, however, I’ve been battling a sore throat for a few days and it finally was bold enough to wake me up just a couple hours into my slumber. So I got up. And I stayed up. And I looked at the Aurora forecast and realized that if my super-science friend, Matt, was correct, there might be a chance. I grabbed my tripod (still with camera strapped to it) and headed out.
Naturally, with my Northern Light Luck™, there was high cloud cover, and the stars were nowhere to be seen. Go figure.
Fortunately, the evening was uncharacteristically warm (my car claimed 63˚), so I opted to head out anyways. I found myself at the Auke Bay harbor and looking for some cool images. As it was completely comfortable to hang out in the warm night, I decided to try to take some shots with my intervalometer. Below you’ll see one of my first time lapse videos of the moving clouds. It’s kind of fun, but I’ll need to work on it more before I consider it awesome. 🙂
See these and more in my 2011 Fine Art Gallery.
Auke Bay Clouds from Cody Bennett on Vimeo.
Out Late
Saturday morning I snapped awake at 4am and suddenly realized that the northern lights might be out. I had noticed a stronger than usual chance of the aurora, so was enthusiastic to get up early to explore. I checked Facebook for the requisite comments about the lights and found several folks who had commented enthusiastically. So I set out… And found nothing but a sunrise. 🙁
Last night I opted to stay up late in order to look for the lights. A friend came along so we headed out to the Mendenhall Glacier in hopes of escaping the light pollution of streetlights. After checking out the horizon and not seeing anything of note, we continued to the shore of the Mendenhall Lake. Night photography is always something I enjoy and I had hoped that I might be able to capture some of that cool blue coloration of the evening sky and maybe even the Big Dipper over the glacier itself.
I thought the evening worked out well, photographically speaking. The Auroras came out for around 1-2 minutes at nearly 2:50am, and Joel can tell you how excited I was. I seem to have a knack for getting shots of the aurora the night after a great display. It works, but one of these times I’m hoping the timing will be in my favor.
Enjoy the photos…
This is obviously modified in post production - I had noted that my camera was able to capture the detail of the mountains and nearly give a daylight feel, but with stars. I should note that it is ~2:45am, and it is in fact dark to the naked eye.
One of the techniques I learned long ago was to turn around when photographing an interesting subject. Sometimes we get so immersed in what we "should" be photographing that we miss something even more spectacular that is happening behind our backs. Try it sometime. Oh, and regarding post production here: I simply muted the tungston lights falling on some of the tree branches.
Another instance of 'Turn Around'. If you look closely along the shoreline, you can see my friend Joel engrossed in his own imagery.
Proof of the Auroras. 🙂 Oh, and note the Big Dipper
See these and more in my 2011 Fine Art Gallery.
Moonlight Bright
In mid-February, I heard that the Aurora’s were firing up again with another 4/10 rating, so I decided to head out to do some Northern Light hunting. It also happened to be a full moon. As I drove around Juneau, I eventually made it out to Aurora Harbor and, while I never found any Northern Lights, I did capture a few frames of the bright moonlight and the deep blue of the night. In this frame, we see the Shrine of St. Therese illuminated warmly in contrast of the frozen evening:
Auroras
On Heather’s Birthday, the UAF Aurora Forecast showed to hit a 4/10. It doesn’t sound like much, but for those living in Juneau, it means that it’s very likely that the Northern Lights will be visible provided the sky is clear. Lately we’ve had a cold snap and with the skies clear, I was excited to get out to see some Aurora. As it turns out, I’ve seen other postings (through facebook) suggesting that my late-night session in the cold wasn’t nearly as spectacular as earlier in the night, but when your wife wants to head to bed… Well, who am I to argue? I wound up getting out of bed at around 2:45am and headed light hunting. Here’s my favorite shot from the evening:
