Here in the UK, or certainly in my part of it, I can't remember the last time we had a clear sky. It's rained cats and dogs or been so damn cloudy that my trips out in the dark have been curtailed. It's even more depressing with the autumn nights drawing in meaning I can practice my "dark art" and still be back home in bed at a more hospitable time!
So on Saturday night, the forecast was clear! Amazing! We jumped in the car to Magpie Mine dodging the speed cameras at breakneck speed to set up in time before the sky clouded over again. We set up the cameras to shoot Milky Way images before going on to star trails only to suddenly realise it was f'in raining again! I couldn't believe it.
We walked back to the car only to see the rain had stopped. Again. The skies wierdly became clear again and I couldn't see any clouds on the horizon so we walked all the way back again to the mine. That must have been a freak shower because it certainly freaked me out!
We forgot about shooting Milky Way and set about shooting star trails.
Magpie Mine under the stars
This shot consists of 168 x 30 seconds images stacked in Photoshop.
For the first image in the stack, I set up two RGB LED cubes to light up the winding gear to the mine and light up the side of the engine house. Once I was happy with the lighting I set the camera going to shoot a further 167 images.
This one took a while to process because the images were shot in uncompressed RAW format and each photo was around 50mb each.
Those Damned Planes!
This is a version of the above which shows how the image looks before I clone out all the planes. These take a while to remove and involves removing each trail on their respective layer in the stack. I'm pretty sure someone somewhere will have an AI algorithm to remove these!
The "Do I prefer this shot instead" Shot
Sometimes I come back from a night in the dark thinking I might have overcooked the lighting or maybe the colours aren't quite right. So this is a version without the lighting. I don't mind this version but I think maybe this would be less appealing to the viewer especially on the fickle Insta....
The light hitting the top of the engine house would have been from a passing car.
The Bonus Shot
I repositioned my car closer to the mine while waiting for the star trail sequence to finish. Sat in the car keeping warm is far more preferable than standing freezing cold for 90 minutes. While sat in the car I noticed this point of view or composition. Despite visiting Magpie Mine many times I never saw this before.
This is 100 x 30 second images stacked in Photoshop the same way as above. I only got to 100 images because it was getting really cold by this point and I didn't want my engine running to keep warm with the lights from the car polluting my image.
The Rest
This was shot on a previous night way back when we used to get clear skies all the time. I liked this one but I felt like I was too close to the mine and promised myself to revisit and try again.
I just noticed the date on this image. Just after lock down in 2020 and a solo trip in the dark. Very peaceful!!
The Mine from the Other Side
This image shows what happens to star trails if you point away from the North. It was shot as an experiment in this case for another trip. Note to self; shoot this PoV again!
The Hands that Rock the Cradle
Magpie Mine is the gift that keeps on giving. Here we used smoke pellets, a fractal filter and a willing victim (aka volunteer) to light up the winding gear.
The Winding Gear Wide Angle Shot
This is another view of the winding gear shot wide at 16mm.
The Fisheye Winding Gear
here I used a Samyang 12mm full frame fisheye lens to shoot this whacky PoV. I remember being quite impressed with the impromptu flypast by the ISS (on the right of frame).
This is a shot I need to reshoot with a little more subtle lighting. It pays to revisit and reshoot.
About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; please don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like to create art.
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Lightpainting is a photographic technique in which exposures are made by moving a hand-held light source while taking a long exposure photograph, either to illuminate a subject or to shine a point of light directly at the camera, or by moving the camera itself during exposure. Nothing is added or removed in post processing.
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