Posts Tagged ‘manasquan reservoir’

Manasquan Reservoir: Ice Abstract

Sunday, January 27th, 2008

Last Friday evening, I was able to go out to photograph the ice that was potentially forming at the reservoir. The ice was still thin, so the small waves of water moving underneath the ice made interesting sounds. Sounds that would have made a star trail trip later that night very creepy (it was overcast, so star trails were not possible that night). When I saw this area of ice, I decided to try some more abstract compositions and play with small depth of field ideas. The late afternoon sunlight gives definition to the texture of the ice and color to the reflections.

Manasquan Reservoir Ice Abstract

Manasquan Reservoir: Star Trails 4.1

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

Yesterday, I found time to remove the airplane trails from the image. It was interesting to see how many airplanes flew by during one of the thirteen three-minute exposures.

Manasquan Reservoir: Star Trails 4.1

Manasquan Reservoir: Star Trails 4

Saturday, January 5th, 2008

As mentioned in yesterday’s entry, I was able to take two trips to the reservoir: Last night and Wednesday night. Last night, I was more successful in lighting the foreground. I used a Maglite flashlight to “paint” the foreground with light. I used the stacking technique in both attempts, which gave me a bit of flexibility with the foreground. I used the flashlight on the first and last exposures I took; that way if one was too bright or two dark, I had the other one as a backup. It turned out I exposed too much light on the first frame, so I used the last frame for the foreground.

For this photo, I was facing a few degrees west of south, so my trails were longer. I got to the spot earlier as well, so my total, stacked exposure was twice as long as Wednesday night’s (approx. 42 minutes). I was amazed at the number of airplanes that flew over during that 42 minutes. Most of them did not expose on the image, but you can see a few there now. For any prints I may make of this shot, I will probably clone them out.

Manasquan Reservoir: Star Trails 4