When inspiration hits, it can be such a cool thing, and I love it.  While I was working on shooting last week’s image, I thought to myself, I wonder if there is something cool I could do with Daisy Town, the restored section of the old Elkmont homes.  When I finished up the chimney project I decided to take a walk through there – a place I’ve walked many times before – but this time, standing at the end of the street and looking up the hill in the dark, it occurred to me, I wonder what it would look like with all the lights on.  That was the genesis moment of the image you see above, one of my favorites of this entire series.

The image you see here is actually the combination of a bunch of different images – essentially one image per house, an image for the lights at the end of the street, and then one for the sky.  I only had two lights with me, so that mandated that I light each house up independent of each other, and I was by myself, which made it especially entertaining.  I went one by one to each house, got it lit the way I thought it needed to be, and then walked back to the camera to make sure it was the way I wanted it, making adjustments when necessary.  I’d then take the picture, and go move the lights; rinse and repeat all the way up the street!  I don’t know how many steps I got in that night, but it was a bunch!  And I have to say, it was oh so worth it.  I mentioned last week that I never know how these things are going to look exactly until I get home, but flipping through the images on the back of the camera, watching the homes light up all the way up hill, I got very excited.  I had a feeling I was on to something neat, and I was not disappointed when I got home and saw it all put together!  So much fun to do, really.  For a final touch, I decided to put myself in the image, at the end of the street, as a signature of sorts, and to give some interest to the end of the road, which was feeling like a black hole to me as I was looking at it in the camera.  Featured in the night sky is the Orion constellation complex, with the rosette nebula just behind the trees, drifting out into the cone nebula that you can see to the left of Orion.

More next week!

–Dan Thompson