"Keeper of the Night II"

[jsecordphoto]

Some of you may remember my last photo from this lighthouse. It was such an amazing experience to be able to shoot a location that had never been photographed at night before(at least like this with the Milky Way). Seguin Island Light is 2.5 miles off of Popham Beach, Maine, and has the last original Fresnel lens in the state.

While it was amazing, it was also- quite frankly, a pain in the ass to shoot. Chest high grass everywhere except for the mowed paths, the constant light was giving me some pretty bad lens flare, and there was just enough of a breeze so getting the foreground grass to be sharp was impossible. There was also some scaffolding on the side of the Keeper's house, but you can barely see it in the photos. All challenges of shooting a location we couldn't scout before actually going out there for the night. I still feel very lucky to do something that had never been done before, and it was a night I'll never forget.

 

[Pejacre]

Fab - love it.

 

[jsecordphoto]

Fab - love it.

Thanks!

 

[dan_j_photography]

Beautiful! The only thing I would change is the grass.. Looks a bit off, perhaps slightly over saturated. But then again youre obviously the better photographer so I'll let you make those calls..

 

[manaheim]

Wow, that's wild. Not my cup of tea, really, but neat.

Though, I do feel like I can see your hand in each of the components. The blending isn't as smooth as I would like. Probably in part because each element is pretty extreme.

 

[jsecordphoto]

Wow, that's wild. Not my cup of tea, really, but neat.

Though, I do feel like I can see your hand in each of the components. The blending isn't as smooth as I would like. Probably in part because each element is pretty extreme.

yeah, a pretty tough scene to work with. This is 3 exposures- One for the sky/part of the lighthouse, another just for the roof of the keeper's house which had super blown out highlights from the light being so close, and another long exposure for the foreground.

 

[jsecordphoto]

Beautiful! The only thing I would change is the grass.. Looks a bit off, perhaps slightly over saturated. But then again youre obviously the better photographer so I'll let you make those calls..

nonsense, this is art and everybody's taste is different- you have just as much right to critique as anyone else. I will say that this is one of the few photos I didn't add 5-10% of vibrance/saturation to, the bright light made the grass look very green

 

[snerd]

That would be a hanger for me. Nice!

 

[jsecordphoto]

That would be a hanger for me. Nice!

Thanks! Just had someone order a 12x18 metal print, excited to see how it looks

 

[HL45]

Brilliant!

 

[ceeboy14]

I think I could sort of like it if the lighthouse light was toned down - a bunch. It's not my cup of tea either but I can appreciate the editing you did to make the image and for that, "thumbs up!"

 

[HikinMike]

It generally isn't my thing either, but I like this.

 

[Msteelio91]

Excellent work as always man!

 

[JustJazzie]

I remember (AND LOVED!) your last shot. This one is fantastic as well. Definitely one I would hang on my wall!!!

 

[jsecordphoto]

Thanks everyone!

Like I said, I could only look at pictures I found online of the place and at google earth before going out there, and there were few pictures I could look at. Once it got dark enough to see the Milky Way and how bright the light was, my heart sank a bit. I tried so many different exposures, bracketing a ton, it was just a tough scene to work with. I did try blending a few exposures to tone down the light a bit, but with the distinct rays coming from the lighthouse it made it look unnatural to blend in a frame exposed for just the light (hope that makes sense). This was probably my 10th attempt of processing this photo and not being completely ​satisfied. I do appreciate the feedback though- good and bad. After a certain point I had to just put this photo out even though it still looked a little off to me.