Pixel Darkroom Photography

I’ve been planning this one for some time. It took careful planning of the route as follows: four daylight dry runs to check for small bumps in the road that may affect the stability of the car at speeds higher than 210km/h, checking the timing of the stop lights, two Valentine One radar detectors inside the car, a few cones to divert traffic on three intersections where traffic was minimal and flaggers in place at each of the other intersections and two hidden driveways. We had one major intersection blocked 1.5 minutes by a fake police car where I had someone manually trigger red and blue gelled 580′s via Pocket Wizards from inside an ex-RCMP Ford Taurus. Since the run wouldn’t take long, we planned for the best timing when we predicted that the least amount of cars would be present, to minimize the risk of injuries in case anything would go wrong or to have the least amount of witnesses besides the people involved, whom I shall leave unnamed for obvious reasons. Here’s “220 km/h on Day 220.”

Note: Do NOT attempt this! This was done by a professional driver on a closed circuit.

220km/h

Disclaimer: regular visitors of this website are familiar with stories of the same or similar credibility levels. Please use your judgement before jumping to conclusions.

I know I know, it’s been done before. I think I got cooler images than this one tonight but they probably have been done before even more than this one. It started raining towards the end and I didn’t feel like experimenting too much. Truth be said I did see a great image that with all the expertise I could not capture yet. It has to do with balancing high ISO with the shutter. Maybe some other night… when it’s not raining.
There goes day 86.

night traffic

Today I drove all the way to Christmas Way, and no, there was no Santa Claus there, no snow, and not many people. I did have to stand in the middle of the street in order to take some of the shots, but since today is Christmas Day, there were hardly any cars on the road. I drove around a little bit afterwards. It’s amazing how deserted everything is, and if you think that less than 24 hours before taking this shot the whole city was crazy and packed with shoppers and cars, it makes you realize how commercialized this celebration has become. Why were there so many people around yesterday and why is there nobody around today? I think we all know the answer. Merry Christmas.

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas.

I thought it’s about time to hit the road some more and get some shots outside. I got some other great images tonight but in the end I chose this one.

pedestrian bridge

Strobist info: 30″ exposure with two 580 EX II CL full power manually triggered on the rocks. AWB. No gel on the flash. I did cool it down a few degrees in Lr.

Some guy driving some huge truck got pulled over in front of me while returning home. It wasn’t too far from yesterday’s spot and I decided to pull over in front of him and take a shot. It was dark and rainy so I didn’t get the best view. You can read below for details and setup shot.

some guy got pulled over

Strobist info: 580 EX II with bunch of red and blue gel behind the truck, on the ground fired manually on two channels with the TEST button of the PW during 1’6″ exposure (blue, blue, red) and $2 LED flashlight handheld and hand snooted to get some highlights of the truck. Modified setup shot here. Between you and I, this was by far the hardest shot so far.

I had the chance to take some photographs from up high tonight. I found this image the most interesting because it gives the impression of a comic book layout or something from Richard Scarry’s children books where you can see the top floor, the bottom floor and the basement in the same time. I love the composition here. It feels like the houses are under the highway.

This was shot from quite far, with a telephoto lens. If you see a little wave in each blur on the highway it’s not because the pavement is uneven and the cars were driving on bumpy roads; the cool effect is created by my expensive tripod that starts shaking as soon as the LED light from the camera starts blinking.

Underhill