Here's another from the Yaquina Head lighthouse; I took this one over the weekend after a failed attempt to capture the Milky Way near Broken Top, in the central Cascades.
The title's photo is derived from a line in Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place."
Prints and more at my website.
Tags: Pacific Northwest ben coffman ben coffman photography clouds fresnel lens grass lighthouse long exposure long exposure night photography newport night night photography oregon oregon coast pacific ocean stars yaquina head yaquina head lighthouse
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I'm still churning through my archives. On a personal note, my elbow is healing quickly, so I should be out taking photos again very, very soon. I'm really excited about that.
Anyway, this was taken this spring. I know I've said this to the point of cliche, but shooting here was fairly challenging. It can be really, really difficult to find good compositions when you're shooting landscape astrophotography, mostly because the primary foreground object and the primary sky object are immovable, unless you have the luxury of a forklift or the ability to wait 12 hours for the sky to move to a better position, neither of which happened to be available to me in this case. Or ever.
I was shooting uphill from this car, but I still wanted to get a substantial amount of the sky in my shot, all while shooting in landscape format. This required me to shoot two exposures, one that was mostly sky and a little bit of the horizon, and the other which pretty much had the foreground you see here. I then combined the exposures in PS, resulting in a final photo that's a little bit taller than the 2:3 aspect ratio I usually use, although it wouldn't take much of a crop to get it to 2:3.
I'm sure I probably blew my focus on those wildflowers in the foreground anyway, since I was shooting at 24mm and they were right in front of my face (and I had to get low because my foreground object was downhill from me), but the 25-mph winds and the fact that this was a 20-second exposure at high ISO certainly did nothing to unblur the flowers. But, honestly, they weren't really a part of my vision for this photo anyway.
Tags: Pacific Northwest abandoned abandoned car ben coffman ben coffman photography classic car dalles mountain ranch landscape astrophotography long exposure long exposure night photography milky way milky way photography night photography star photography starry night stars washington
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It's that old familiar story: Kids get excited about going to school, kids get tired of going to school, school gets abandoned, decades later photographers flock to abandoned schoolhouse and wonder what it must've been like to go to school there. It's the circle of life.
Man, I'm excited about clear skies. I know that realistically we're 3 months away from reliably cloud-free skies, but that won't keep me from making a mile-long list of sites to visit and photograph over the summer.
Thanks to Gary Weathers for lighting the interior of this old one-room schoolhouse. Well done, Gary!
Tags: milky way milky way photography oregon oregon stars star photography abandoned school one-room schoolhouse eastern oregon The Dalles Mt Adams
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I'm just going to say it: I didn't get nearly enough backpacking this summer. I did better than I did last summer, but I certainly didn't cover as much ground as I'd hoped.
I get struck by these pangs of regret around the first of October every year. I dig out my "greatest summer ever" checklist and note that fewer than half of my plans have been fulfilled.
With that said, this was a pretty great summer, and this photo was taken on a pretty great (albeit quick) backpacking trip to Jeff Park. It was my first visit, but it won't be my last.
As always, more of my photos can be seen at my website.
Tags: Mt Jefferson Pacific Northwest alpine lake bear grass ben coffman ben coffman photography blue deep twilight high alpine lake jeff park jefferson park lake long exposure long exposure night photography milky way milky way photography mountain night photography oregon reflection star photography starry night stars still water twilight
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The warmth of the sun is a welcome feeling after a night of snow camping at Crater Lake National Park.
I'm still churning through my old files. For those that didn't know, I had a fairly involved elbow surgery almost a month ago, and I'm still in an elbow brace. Although I desperately want to go out and take photos, I've forced myself to stay homebound and work on old images. It's much safer body-wise, or at least that's what I tell myself.
This photo's about a year and a half old. I'm hoping to get to a wintery Crater Lake at least a couple of times this winter--I didn't make it at all last year, unfortunately. I'm not a big snow camper, but this place is irresistible to me.
For those of you interested, I'll be announcing my 2015 night-sky photography workshop schedule very soon. It's a somewhat limited schedule, so if you're interested in heads up before the official announcement you might want to get on my email list. Use the contact me form at my website to let me know you're interested.
Tags: Pacific Northwest alone backcountry camping before dawn before sunrise ben coffman ben coffman photography blue clear skies cold crater lake crater lake images crater lake national park crater lake photo freezing landscape astrophotography landscape photography long exposure long exposure night photography milky way milky way photography morning night photography oregon oregon landscape oregon star photography pacific northwest star photography snow snow camping snowshoeing solitude star images star photography star photos starry night stars sunrise winter wizard island
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