Here's another of the "Night Lights" photos. this one has more of a "movie poster" feel to me, only without the type. Imagine the movie voice guy saying "In a world without light, one city refuses to be in the dark ..."
From scia.org: Five hundred, 15,000,000 candle power spotlights lit the night along three miles of the Santa Cruz, CA coastline. The "Night-Light" creators hope to bring together community to illuminate the message of peace. Artist and SCICA Co-Director Kirby Scudder along with hundreds of volunteers from the community turned on the 500 lights at 9 p.m. for one hour in the communal celebration of peace.
These spotlights -- weighing 14 pounds each and totaling 7000 pounds -- were placed every 30 feet winding their way down West Cliff Drive and ended at Pacific Avenue. The project involved 200 volunteers manning the lights.
Me: The lights were actually not that bright. As you can see from my images, they lit the sky, but the beams were not that powerful. I tried to make sure to get the beams exposed correctly, but not at the expense of over-exposing the image. Also, focusing was very tough, so some of the images may be soft.
The Cement Ship at Seabright State Beach in Aptos as the sun goes down.
This image will appear in the February issue of Santa Cruz Magazine.
Commission Name: In The Tides of Time / En las Mareas del Tiempo 1994-5.
Details: Irish blue limestone / text. (22'x15' x 10').
Information: A site-specific sculpture for the Municipal Wharf in the City of Santa Cruz, California. The work consists of four shell forms or "seed boats" and a large round fruit form. These five elements are arranged about an imposing arch. This arch or gateway is aligned with the opening of Monterey bay to the greater Pacific Ocean. On the inside of the gateway's posts a poem by the artist is inscribed in both English and Spanish. "In the tides of time we have found safe harbour, here on this western shore where the waves ebb and flow, restlerssly, and the seasons, in their old harvest hulls, have borne us ripe cargoes of plenty, with enough fruit for all".
Camera: Nikon 6006
Film: Fujia Velvia
Speed: 50
Type: Slide
Lens: 35 mm
Shutter: 30 seconds
Aperture: f3.3
Date: Jan. 12, 2006
Flash: 1 strobe popped at camera right, 45 degrees from lens and about 10 feet back from subject.
This is Black Thought from The Roots and in case you have never heard of The Roots, slap yourself and then go get an album. Better yet, see them live. You will not find a better live hip-hop group.
It's easiest to just photograph myself to test things out.
For the studio lights lovers. There is a cheap flash behind me and to camera left that is snooted to avoid highliting my shirt. My 580ex is on the camera with a lightsphere on it (ETTL -3 stops) and a snoot around the sphere so it hits just the face and neck.
It's post-processed in Photoshop. I desaturated the reds and used curves to adjust the contrast. I duped the background and used surface blur to soften the skin. The opacity is lowered to 40% and the shadows and eyes are masked out. There's another curves layer to brighten just the eyes.
There are a lot of light set-up mistakes, most notably the side light is too high. Hey, this is why I practice on myself.
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