APAD 44: Plan B

"Neon signs from local stores blend together while driving my Honda Accord in the parking lot of a shopping center near the corner of S. Buckley Rd. and E. Quincy Ave. in Aurora, Colo. on May 6, 2008."

So this isn't exactly the photo I had planned to post today but I'll have to do with plan B. The weather forecast for the day called for scattered thunderstorms throughout the metro area so I decided that I would pack all my rain gear and go storm chasing in hopes of getting something like this. I drove all the way out to the Denver Tech Center hoping to find a tall parking structure that would allow me to get a high vantage point overlooking the city. I searched around for a little while but I eventually found a seven level structure with an open top. I put on all my rain gear and climbed the seven flights of stairs because I couldn't get my car past the gate without a code.

Atop the structure I had a pretty solid view in all directions to shoot from. I set up my tripod and camera just as the rain began to fall. Although my camera was covered in a special rain cover I still got little droplets on the front filter of the lens. I tried to dry it off but it was just leaving streaks of moisture on the filter and making the pictures blurry. If that wasn't enough of a headache the wind was blowing and shaking my camera just enough to blur the images. I won't bore you non photo geeks with the technical lingo but basically the wind wasn't playing nice and didn't allow me to get the photos I was hoping for. However the biggest problem was that there wasn't any lightning to shoot. Sure I know that it probably wasn't a good idea to be outside on top of a seven level structure hoping for lightning but I wanted to make some cool images. I waited as long as I could but nothing happened. On to plan B...

I didn't shoot anything all day because I knew what type of image I was going to shoot. The problem was that the sun had already gone down which mean that I didn't have any light. When that happens the camera has to be steadied by some solid object to prevent the camera from shaking and producing blurry images. I decided to create an image that had both movement and still life. For the image above I mounted a camera to the passenger seat headrest, set it to a slow shutter speed (1 second), and triggered it from a remote in my hand. By leaving the shutter open for a long time everything outside the car appears blurry but because the camera is stable inside the car, the interior is tack sharp. I also turned on my blue neon lights that I have mounted under my seats to add some mood to the image. Yes, I had a Fast and the Furious phase in high school, get over it.

Photographers always have to have a plan B because just like one of my colleagues Trevor experienced something will almost always not go to plan.

-JCE