A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to speak at the Blount County Photography Club meeting about night photography, and specifically star trails.  It occurred to me though as I was presenting that I hadn’t done a star trail shot in AGES.  I’m actually a little scared to go back and look.  I do remember where it was though… just up Tremont Road in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a clearing that looks down the river, and has a nice opening to the sky.  The problem with the spot though, as I found out, was that very little light makes it down to the river, and so you can’t really make anything out other than the trees.

Having tried and failed once before, I decided to try something a little different.  In my presentation I made that statement that playing around with light sources can be a lot of fun… so I decided to take my own advice, and took a long a camping lantern a friend of mine had let me borrow for a different project I’m working on.  Walking down to the river and holding the lantern up turned out to be just what the image needed to make that big black blob a little more interesting.  Now, if we can just have a few more clear nights this year, I’ll be trying this trick elsewhere!

Interested in making star trail photos of your own?  You’re in luck, I wrote an article on how to do it.  Check it out here: http://danandho.wwwss38.a2hosted.com/how-to-do-star-trail-photography/

 
–Dan Thompson