ABANDONED FARMHOUSE ON A STARRY NIGHT

Last week we had the rare opportunity to see the northern lights in our area. I actually wanted to photograph the northern lights last Saturday after a birthday party. I chose a location that I'd had on my list for a long time. It was a dilapidated farmhouse about 15 km from our house. I often cycle past there during my training sessions. The owner had mowed down the wild herbs around the ruins two weeks earlier. The adjacent field had been newly cultivated. You can park your car right next to it. The sky was open and starry. The new moon was only a few days old. Ideal! I thought to myself. If not today, then when? So I packed my tripod, photo backpack and a couple of flashlights into the car and drove to this photo spot with my wife Geane.

Once there, I noticed that the nettles had grown almost waist-high again due to the favorable weather conditions. Okay, that wasn't a problem for me. The herbs couldn't harm my outdoor clothing. However, I couldn't encourage Geane to go in there. 😆
That wasn't really necessary either. As I had planned the shot without a model. I set up the camera next to the road on the hard shoulder. It was now almost two o'clock in the morning and there were still a few cars driving along the remote road. However, they could be heard long before the headlights were visible in the picture. I covered the lens with my cap for this time.

It was just our bad luck that we didn't get to see any auroras that night. I was one night too late. 😐 So I took a few star trails. As you can see in the cover photo. I pointed the camera at the North Star. The ruin is perfectly aligned north-south. I would have preferred the perspective shown in the second picture under the North Star. You just have to die a death.

I didn't find the ruin between two trees so appealing because too little of the starry sky was visible. So I adjusted the camera so that I pushed the dead tree on the left into the picture and had a clear view of the sky. Now I just had to make the stars dance.

Below is a picture with a shooting star. You can make a wish. 😉 But it was no use: the auroras didn't want to show themselves that night, so I stopped the action at three o'clock in the morning.

As always at this point, it remains to list the tools used. This is very easy in this case. I illuminated the building with an EMISAR DM18 on the lowest setting. I illuminated the inside of the ruins with a CONVOY S2+ with a red LED. Well, it wasn't really possible to illuminate it because the building is full of undergrowth.

I hope you enjoyed this post. Next Sunday I'll be reporting on another light painting, so stay tuned!