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Tag Archives: night
Tanker By Night
A gas tanker that was sitting just off Green Point. While I was photographing it some local residents stopped to chat and told me it had been there for two weeks, but it seemed to be getting underway so may have been preparing to leave Cape Town.
Fire in Gordons Bay
When I woke yesterday I saw that there was a big fire over the mountains in the Overberg and as the day went on it seemed to be moving further away. Last night I was away from my computer and other news sources until late. When I finally logged on, Twitter was all atweet about the fire, which had turned and had been raging out of control along the mountain side above Gordons Bay. Fromtheold had been reporting via Twitter and via photos on his blog. Just after midnight I decided to go and take a look, grabbing my camera as I headed out the door.
When I got there I discovered that police had blocked access on both the upper and lower roads into Gordons Bay. I stopped before the roadblocks to take a few shots and found that the wind was blowing a gale, clearly what lead to the ferocity of the fire; this made taking photos in low light conditions difficult.
After taking these shots I noticed that one of the narrower residential streets was not blocked off so I started making my way towards Bikini beach, stopping along the way to take some more photos.
I eventually found my way onto the lower beach road inside the cordoned off area, from where I went to Bikini Beach. The photograph on the left below is roughly the same view that Fromtheold posted, where the fire had burned right down to the waterline. The other photo shows a few remaining hotspots on the mountain side above Bikini Beach.
The sky was cloudless but filled with smoke, giving the moon a red glow that reflected on the water.
There were still many flashing red lights from fire trucks along the mountain side and with access being restricted, darkness hiding the costs of the fire and the wind making photography difficult, I headed home; but will return later today to see what daylight reveals.
Conjunction of Moon, Venus & Jupiter with clouds
The phenomenon of apparent close proximity of heavenly bodies is called a conjunction. Tonight there was a rare treat, as Jupiter and Venus both appeared in close proximity to the moon.
Houston, We Have a Problem
People have been asking how I did this and I should probably have explained when I first posted it, so I’m editing the post now to add a description.
In order to achieve an effect like this one simply needs to use a zoom lens and make a long exposure, zooming out during the time the shutter is open. In this case I used a five second exposure and zoomed in tightly on the green spire. After tripping the shutter I counted four seconds and then zoomed out during the last second. As the lights below were much brighter than the spire, the result is that there is little or no visible light from the spire captured while zooming, leaving the top of the frame nice and dark and getting light trails below.
Posted in Photos
Tagged Cape Town, light trails, lights, long exposure, night, South Africa, V&A Waterfront, zoom
craniac's place 