Cliche, but okay...

[Efergoh]

Alright, it is almost Halloween, and my photo instructor gave us a "long light" assignment. He wants us to display the passage of time in a single frame. Most students are shooting street corners at night going after the light streaks from tail lights.

I went to the cemetery...an old cemetery with stone ranging from late 18th century to this past Friday. the stone here are from 1861 - 1889. A friend of mine loaned me his wife for a couple of photo shoots. I put her in a black floor length duster and a black cowboy hat.

the total exposure was 4 minutes. She stood in the frame for one minute, then I exposed for the remaining 3 minutes. This is obviously just a poor scan of the negative that I inverted in Roxio, but I was too excited to wait until I printed it.

I think I nailed it. I'll be sure to repost when I print it...

Post edited, neg scan pulled, this is an actual print. It is not a final print, but this is it.
(edited to correct grammar and spelling errors caused by posting at 2 o'clock in the morning)

The neg scan is still here: http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/gunnfixr/photography/photo051b.jpg

 

[gizmo2071]

She did a good job at standing still for a minute, can barely see any movement around here.

I think you did an excellent job aswell.
Really cool idea and capture.

bravo!

 

[Efergoh]

thanks, I really enjoyed this shoot. I felt like a kid.

We shot several more with different "spirit images" in different period clothing. I'll post more when they are done, they didn't come out real clear in the neg scan, but I'm hopeful for the prints.

 

[LaFoto]

Oh yes. Do make sure you show us the scanned print, too.
This scanned negative is beginning to give me the idea (which is great! Wow!), but I would like to see the final result, too!

 

[DeepSpring]

I really like it I think you did a great job on it.

looks like something fun to try

 

[morydd]

Hmmm... another cool idea would be if you could find an area with several headstones of distinct times and have people in appropriate period costumes near "their" headstones, and do the same effect.

If your instructor doesn't give you some sort of recognition for being much more original than the "cars going by", that would be a bit sad.
Congrats.

 

[Corry]

Great job! I've done the ghostly affect before (digital, though)...it's a lot of fun, and I plan to do more someday. I think you did an absolutely wonderful job.

 

[pursuer]

Very nice, I will also be waiting to see the print. Great concept and well executed. My only criticism is that it is slanted, was that intentional?

 

[Efergoh]

Didn't get to that one in today's printing, but it is on the top of the list for tomorrow.

The camera was perfectly level, the shot was on a hillside.A lot of those stones have begun to tilt, too. When I print, I'll print it to the spirit image is standing straight up.

 

[Jeepnut28]

good job on this. i really like where you took the assignment.

 

[Fate]

Really cool shot. I need to do a similar sort of thing for my AS photography. Was wondering.... how dark was it when you did this exposure and, also, after your model had done her bit, did she just run out of shot... or did you double expose the frame?

 

[Efergoh]

We started just after sunset, and shot until it was so dark the bats was running into each other. The frames were double exposed, but if your camera doesn't have that capability, your model can just run out of frame when the exposures are a goodly length like 4 minutes.

The biggest pain in the butt when doing this is not disturbing the camera when resetting the shutter for the second exposure. about 1/2 of the "ghost pictures" took, have drunken double vision because the camera was bumped at some point.

 

[Flash Harry]

I dont see a reason for double exposure, a single with the model walking off would produce the same effect, I've done multis but with flash, also long exes with flash firing multi to record model movement. The scans are bad though, invest in a duster. I would like to see the prints to see if the exposure of the background is better, if its as dark as your saying you may need to increase expo time to make a good print with lots of detail.

 

[Efergoh]

If the exposure time is too short, wouldn't the model walking off frame cause a blur?

 

[LaFoto]

It is interesting: my son tried hardest to create a blur in a 15 second exposure of him sitting on the sofa and then VEEEEEERRRRY slowly getting up from there and moving himself out of the picture and he expected a big long blur of himself creeping out of the frame and it did not happen... The main thing to be seen always was his see-through sitting self.