LAS VEGAS WEEKLY TEAR SHEET

LIGHTNING STORM HITS VEGAS

Thunderstorms that rolled through the Las Vegas Valley Saturday night and Sunday afternoon had ignited 30 wildfires, ranging from single trees to a 40-acre blaze, fire officials said.

Lightning strikes during thunderstorms that rolled through the Las Vegas Valley Sunday afternoon ignited about 30 wildfires in the Spring Mountains stretching along the western area of the valley.

Many of the fires had been quickly doused or managed with several federal, state and local agencies responding to the flames. A total of 11 wildfires are being actively fought. The firefighting efforts stretch from Trout Canyon, 35 miles northwest of Las Vegas, to Mount Potosi, 30 miles southwest of the city.(Text adapted from the Las Vegas Sun.com by Mary Manning)

Blazed and Confused barely makes it to Nevada.

Mickey Avalon in Primm, Nevada.
Click here to read the full story about the 2009 Blazed and Confused tour Feat. Snoop Dogg, Mickey Avalon, Slightly Stoopid, Stephen Marley and Beardo.

Night photography : FIREWORKS Explode on the 4th of July

Click here to view a photo slide show from the Fourth of July Fireworks

Full page Night Photography feature in the Las Vegas Sun

CLICK HERE TO VIEW MORE PDF's FROM MY TEAR SHEETS.

Night photography blog: FULL MOON

Burning The Effigy: Dark Skies are hard to find

A crowd gather during a fire spinning display at the 2009 Dark Skies.
CLICK IMAGE TO READ MORE..

A COLLECTION OF NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

CLICK TO VIEW SLIDE SHOW

NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY: No future for Old Route 66.

CLICK IMAGE TO VIEW SLIDE SHOW

Pablo Picasso: Light painting and Night photography.

CLICK IMAGE TO VIEW A SLIDE SHOW OF PICASSO'S LIGHT DOODLES

Pablo Picasso, seen in this 1940's photograph, sketches out a light design of a bull.

Artist Pablo Picasso drawing a centaur in the air with a flashlight at Madoura Pottery. Mili visited Picasso twice – eighteen years apart – and on both occasions, while assigned to photograph the artist, he found himself involved in totally unforeseen creative experiences. One result of the first meeting, at Vallauris in 1949, is the photograph of Picasso drawing the Centaur with a “light pencil.” This spectacular “space drawing” is a momentary happening inscribed in thin air with a flashlight in the dark – an illumination of Picasso’s brilliance set off by the spur of the moment. It was during this first visit in 1949 that Mili showed Picasso some of his photographs of light patterns formed by a skater’s leaps – obtained by affixing tiny lights on the points of the skates. Picasso reacted instantly. Before Mili could utter a word of explanation, Picasso, sparkling with excitement, started tracing through the air one intriguing shape after another with his bare finger. It is interesting to note the affinity between Picasso’s first light image, the Centaur, and the shape of his own crouched body as he starts to draw. Significant, too, is the course of his action as the image progresses from beginning to end. He first describes a small hook and swings upward to delineate the left arm, then the head and horns, the right arm and then the spine; at frantic speed – which is shown by the thinness of the line – he scribbles two wavering hind legs before he slows down, almost to a stop, while drawing the soft curve of the underbelly. As if he suddenly remembers there is more to do, he swiftly shoots straight up to fill in the facial structures and without breaking the flow, signs off with a flourish. The photographic effect was created by opening the camera’s shutter while Picasso was in the dark, crouched over to begin his instant masterpiece – this static pose captured by a momentary flash. Again in darkness after this instantaneous flash of light, Picasso quickly draws his signature image in the air with a “light pencil.” This light drawing is an “instant Picasso” – vanishing no sooner than born, except for what the camera captures. Not unlike a doodle in appearance, this rendering is an unimpeded expression of the artist’s inner vision, and as instinctive as one’s gesticulations in trying to make a point. This “space drawing” highlights better than anything in clay, wood, metal, or paint the automatic link between hand and brain which is basic to Picasso’s creative thrust. (Text adapted from "Picasso’s Third Dimension" by Gjon Mili, published by Triton Press; 1970.)

Bad Water, Furnace Creek, Death Valley Long Exposures

The Date trees at Furnace Creek in Death Valley..












CLICK IMAGE TO VIEW SLIDE SHOW

Low-low light

Alice Glass, of the electronic music duo Crystal Castles, performs at Ultra Music Festival in Miami March 28, 2009.

CLICK HERE FOR PHOTO GALLERY OF ULTRA

CSI photographs evidence at the scene of a hit-and-run accident in May.

Light painting on the Extraterrestial Highway

The Extraterrestrial Highway, one of the most desolate roads in the country, has more reported U.F.O. sightings than any other road in the country.

Moon meets Venus Friday, Feb. 27.

Looking west, bright Venus, right, and the crescent Moon pair up in the western sky after twilight Friday, Feb. 27.

UK's Fused Magazine Article

LA TIMES Cover Photo

STAR GAZING PARTY IN LAS VEGAS

http://www.lasvegassun.com/photos/galleries/2009/jan/19/star-gazing-party/

Night Photography published in the Las Vegas Sun.

Digital Photographer Feature

I recently contributed to a 12-page feature on Night Photography in the international magazine 'Digital Photographer'. By far, It's one of the nicest photo mags on the market.
Click on Image to read the article.

Check 'em out at WWW.dphotographer.co.uk

A Las Vegas Timelapse

NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY SLIDE SHOW

Instead of putting up a photo gallery I decided to try a slide show. Let me know what you think.

Holiday Season in full force. Night Photography

Painting With Light

Carnivals at Night. Long exposures for dramatic trails

An amusement ride is normally found at carnivals, fairs, or amusement parks meant to appeal to various senses of the rider.

The Equipment: To Photograph carnival rides you’ll need a (SLR) camera with exposure settings of a minimum of 30 seconds, a cable release and a steady tripod. For this assignment you should not carry much more than this, when trying to shoot alot of different rides less gear would be better than more.

Using a small aperture, low ISO and a long shutter speed can create dramatic trails from the twirling lights attached to the rides. An apeture anywhere from (f 4.0 - f8.0) and adjust the shutter speed for a proper exposure.

Lunar Eclipse on Yahoo! News Photos

Lunar Eclipse on Yahoo! News Photos

Thrill-seekers are silhouetted by the full phase of the moon as they ride the 866-foot-high teeter-totter "X-treme" at the top of the Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada August 27, 2007. Later the Earth passed between the sun and the moon, creating a total lunar eclipse. The next lunar eclipse is expected in 2010.

August Eclipse visable to the Americas

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE









Eclipse:
A lunar eclipse occurs whenever the moon passes through some portion of the earth's shadow. This can occur only when the sun, earth, and moon are aligned exactly, or very closely so, with the earth in the middle.

LIGHTNING

Click Image To Enlarge









Lightning;
An atmospheric discharge of electricity, which typically occurs during thunderstorms and is one must dangerous and challenging subjects in the realm of night photography. With the excitement of storm chase, theirs certain things one must have and must know when photographing a lightning storm.

The Equipment:
1. You’ll need a (SLR) camera with exposure settings of a minimum of 30 seconds, a cable release and a steady tripod.
2. To protect your camera from any rain you can insolate your camera in a plastic bag, mount an umbrella to the tripod and if getting real serious you can get an underwater housing for maximum protection.
3. When shooting in rainy situations always carry a lens wipe and use a lens hood to minimize the rain that lands on the lens.
4. Having extra rain panchos can be the best thing you ever carried in your car.

The Shooting:
1. Shooting at an ISO of 100 or lower and keeping an aperture or 16 or smaller, will lengthen your exposure time and increase the chance of a bolt striking during the exposure.
2. Set camera to infinity to keep the camera in complete focus and have maximum depth of field.
3. Depending on the brightness from each bolt the exposures will vary in each photo, so change the shutter speed to adjust exposure accordingly.
4. Finding an open landscape with an optimum view or being high up will make it easier to see lightning.
5. Depending how long a scene might take to expose, you can turn off noise reduction maximize the amount of photos you might be able capture during a storm. Ex; If you shoot an 8 second exposure with the noise reduction on it can take up 8 seconds to process.

There’s no safe or right way to chase or photograph lightning and so just be cautious.

JULY FIREWORKS PHOTO

Click Image To Enlarge.









I recently had a fireworks photos published in The Las Vegas Sun. The photo ran with a story about illigal fireworks. This was great because it's not often that I have a night photograph published in the newspaper.

2007 PERSEID'S METEOR SHOWER IN FULL FORCE

I ended up driving about 60 miles outside of Las Vegas to a small creek called Blue Springs to see if I could capture some of the much anticipated Perseid's Meteor shower. Just after midnight their were long fireball like streaks shooting across the dark Nevadan sky. I shot with 3 seperate cameras pointing in all different directions with an average exposure between 3 to 13 minutes. Depending on the brightness of the streaks the amount of light that will register on your cameras sensor will vary. So shoot on a wider apeture(2.8 to 5.6) and bump up your ISO to about 200 or 400 and just shoot alot. Remember to always shoot on raw with noise reduction on.

Click Image To Enlarge.

PERSEIDS METEOR SHOWER TO LIGHT UP THE SKY

Thanks to the new moon their will be little interference with the yearly Perseid meteor shower, if you plan to shoot some night photography expect to capture streaks from all directions through out the weekend Aug. 11 & 12th, regardless of time zone. NASA said as many 60 meteors per hour will shoot through the sky.
Meteor showers occur when Earth moves through a meteor stream. The stream in this case is called the Perseid cloud and it stretches along the orbit of the Comet Swift-Tuttle. The cloud consists of particles ejected by the comet as it passed by the Sun. Most of the dust in the cloud today is approximately a thousand years old.

LIGHT TRAILS AMONG THE MOST POPULAR TYPE OF NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

Wikipedia's Definition of Night Photography.

Night photography refers to photographs taken outdoors between twilight and dawn. Night photographers generally have a choice between using artificial light or using a long exposure, exposing the scene for seconds or even minutes, in order to give the film enough time to capture a usable image, and to compensate for reciprocity failure. With the progress of high-speed films, higher-sensitivity digital image sensors, wide-aperture lenses, and the ever-greater power of urban lights, night photography is increasingly possible using available light.
Night photography.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

WELCOME TO THE NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY BLOG

Well this should be exciting, I'm going to attemp to piece together information about Night Photography for those who have been asking me how I do certain things. First and foremost, shall I say, I am not here to teach anyone, but to only show and explain my techniques in nocturnal/low-light photography. None of my personal images I have taken in the past or plan to take in the future have any manipulations, additional graphics, filters or image layers. I shoot everything as I see it, and thats how things looks the best to me. This blog is going to allow me to upload images quicker and I will be able to share information with people on a personal level. Over the next 4 months I will shoot projects like lightning, fireworks, star-trails, city scapes, car trails, painting with light and other long exposure assignments while documenting my methods and techniques.