Canon 300D, tripod Sigma 24-135 at 24mm ISO 200 f4.5 at 25 seconds

Night time is play time

So, we round out the photo galleries with a self-portrait – sorry, but I did leave it until the end. Sometimes you need an image to promote yourself as a photographer, and this was one failed experiment, for a couple of reasons.

Let's start with the conditions. This is a time-exposure by the light of the full moon, framed to capture most of the distinctive constellation of Orion and even Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. Partway through the exposure I simply left the frame, intending to produce a ghostly image of myself while the camera remained sharp. You can see the effect faintly with the trees showing through my head, but the comparative exposure of the dark trees against my paler shirt and forehead meant that it didn't come out as strongly as I'd hoped. Also, since the camera is black, it isn't any more distinctive than my shirt.

I also wasn't wild about the dry lakeshore or the power poles in the background (which weren't visible to me in those conditions,) but they could have been cropped out. But the stars were also too high in the frame, so overall, I just counted it as a miss, though an interesting one for other purposes. Even though the longer exposure caused some very faint movement streaks from the stars, they came out remarkably distinct, and even the colors are noticeable. But for a 'ghostly' exposure, I'd have to do better.

I eventually settled on the image used here, even though I'm quite solid in the image.