Last night, @fadetoblack and I headed out in to the Derbyshire Peak District to Bobbins Mill near to Ashford in the Water. The intention was to shoot this old mill in the dark and wave various lights from different angles to see what we could get. It turned out to be something of a soggy affair!!
Bobbins Mill
This is the headline image for the post. After some faffing with lights on my part it became obvious that the only good way to light up this scene was with Tim's backlight scanner. Tim walked through the scene with the scanner while I lit up the rear of the mill. Once Tim had got what he wanted, I stayed on and cracked out a 30 minute star trail sequence.
With the camera pointing away from the north, it's easy to get long star trails from only a short sequence.
Before the night fell, I fell in...
As usual with visits to places in the dark, especially this time of year, we arrived too early. It seems like forever waiting for the night to fall so while we waited we had a look around to see what daylight shots we could bag.
Shortly after setting up my tripod, it came crashing down and ended up in the river. I thought at first it was one of Tim's flash stands only to realise it was my damn tripod that had fallen in.
Completely submerged, I had to somehow navigate a bush of stinging nettles and reach over to retrieve my tripod. I couldn't reach so there was only thing to do; wade in up to my knees!
I then got stuck in the mud trying to get out and luckily Tim was on hand to help me out!! This is the aftermath complete with stinging nettles!
The Weir
After some cursing, shivering and thanking my lucky stars the camera and lens wasn't attached to the tripod when it fell, I pulled myself together and carried on, even if I was wet and muddy!
This is a weir upstream of the mill and focussing in on the curves was the most obvious shot for me. I kept the shutter speed fairly shoot to keep the sense of motion at 1/10th of a second.
Practising my focus stacking
This new to us location looks like it has lots of potential. We'll definitely be coming back in the dark. Maybe with waders next time.
This is a 3 image focus stack shot. Focus stacking is not something I've done a great deal of but it's good to practice. I shot a total of 9 images for this scene bracketing exposures focussed in three places. It turned out I didn't need to bracket exposure and just used three of the nine. Practice makes perfect and I still need to practice....
Going for subtle
As I get older I find myself going for more subtle lighting. Less and less about explosions in paint factories and more about lighting stuff up in a more sympathetic way to match the scene. Here is a shot as the light was fading with Tim walking through the scene with his backlight scanner.
I found myself hating the sky in this one and decided to add a star trail sequence as the top photo in this post.
Alternatives
When I arrive home at 1am after a night in wet clothing, I found myself unable to resist the urge to process the star trail images from the night. This was the first version of the star stack and couldn't decide if I liked the colour at 2am. Roll forward 14 hours later and I found myself liking the colours even if it does look a bit autumnal.
We'll be back here again sometime soon; it's great to discover somewhere new to us and even better knowing there's more images to be had from here!
About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; please don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like to create art.
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