Ok so it has been a while since I have posted anything here, so here are a few of my latest experimental shots...

I recently went to Thorncombe woods just outside Dorchester with one of my friends, James,  with the intention to create some long exposure shots of the forest lit my torch light. After walking a mile or so in the pitch dark, and seeing a few deer and rabbits, I set the tripod up beside a lake and got ready to photograph the trees opposite while James painted them with the torch.

Here is one of the images produced. The exposure is around 20 seconds on F11. I like the overall feel of the image, however about 20 minutes into the shoot we noticed the large torch we were using was getting very dim, so had to rush to get the shot which wasn't ideal.

This image also had a 20 second exposure, however the light is much more concentration, creating a much more abstract feeling to the image. There is quite an intense contrast across the entire image, it quickly goes from being bright to pitch black in a very short space. I would like to experiment with this type of shot and see how it looks along side other images, perhaps in a book or on the wall as an exhibition piece.

This image is one of my favorites from the shoot. It was taken as the torch was just running out of its last bit of light, so the exposure was much longer than the previous photos. This led to it being a very noisy image, but i actually think it works quite well. I really like the dim horizon in the background cast by the lights of Dorchester a few miles away.

On the drive back home we decided to stop at Hardy's Monument, as i wanted to try and take a photo of a star trail, something i have never done before but always wanted to try. I know from reading other blogs and magazines that the best method it to take lots of images with about a 30 second exposure and then stack them on Photoshop. However i do not own a Intervalometer (a device which takes an image at a set interval eg every 30 seconds) and my camera does not have one in built. Solution? Try one long exposure!

This is the image without any alterations on Photoshop apart from me pushing the exposure in RAW. As you can see there is alot of noise as the exposure was nearly 20 minutes, and it has revealed what i believe some sort of damage/distortion to my sensor in the top left. I have noticed this distortion faintly in a few images, and i guess because this is such an extreme image, it highlights it. This is a good little starting block, but i am looking forward to creating a really good set of images i can stack to create a full Star Trail.