Friday, March 9, 2007

Light Pollution

I nearly ran up Mt Sanitas today, nearly as in I was actually keeping pace with the guy who was running just ahead of me, all for the promise of photographing lenticular clouds at sunset from the summit. Man, these things are rare! Of course, when I got to the top, the clouds had mushed together into what became a large amorphous sun curtain (i.e. flat light, and no more lenticulars to speak of). On my way down, though, I came across this view, where one side of the sky hung on to its last few minutes of purple twilight, and the other caught all the stray city light (pollution) in its wispy clouds.
When I see potential for something like this, I need ask myself only one question: do I mind hiking back down the mountain in the dark? Because I'm more and more interested in incorporating both human and natural elements into my compositions, and the lighting was pretty interesting, I decided that my trekking poles would just have to double as seeing-eye aluminum poles. Turns out the light pollution kept parts of the trail at least dimly lit, and my very versatile trekking poles did the rest.
And no, this isn't becoming a Mt. Sanitas blog, although there is so much happening on that Mountain, that I am sure one could write quite a prolific blog about it, and all the little boulderites who've made it their daily playground.

3 comments:

Evan Petrie said...

Wow Serge, this is great! I'm glad that you decided to finish your hike in the dark. I'm also glad that you are taking to photographing human things so well. Your transition from landscapes to photojournalism really seems to have improved your work. The stuff you have been posting here is really impressive.

I apologize for asking a technical question, but what ISO is this shot at?

SG said...

hey evan, thanks. the iso is 800, 30 second exposure at I believe f11. I needed to boost the iso becuase without a digital remote release, my shutter maxes out at 30 seconds. I really appreciate the comments.

Evan Petrie said...

Damn, your camera really does have good high ISO performance!