Petroglyphs National Monument
After you come to your senses from these otherworldly images of ancient petroglyphs, you may be thinking to yourself, "Seriously Paul? Do you ever come home?" I share your sentiment. The 38 days of travel thus far in 2009 have been jam-packed spanning across three countries (from here to Santiago - Punta Arenas - Puerto Natales - Torres del Paine - El Calafate - El Chalten - Memphis - Washington DC - San Antonio - Albuquerque - and home again), and I'm a bit tired. Makes sense, I guess. So I'll stop travelling for a bit in order to be home in Knoxville, TN. I couldn't be more excited about that.
What you see in the images above is the result of one minute exposures (ISO 3200 on Nikon's new D700) while hand-painting the petroglyphs with the touch of a flashlight in selected areas. The red glow in the starry night sky comes from the nearby city of Albuquerque. It's literally like painting a blank canvas with light as your paint source in the parts of the image where star-light does not register. This is not new to you if you've seen the cave-illuminating images that we've done in the past (see "May 2007" in the blog archives). This is simply on a smaller, more delicate scale. Keep looking below—the pics get weirder...
I want to give a special thanks to Bill Campbell for the idea to leave the NANPA convention at midnight and go make some images in this prehistoric location just 12-minutes from the hotel. When using Bill's ultra-wide 16mm fisheye lens I noticed I was accidentally in the image while testing out my exposures (top). The effect offerred me the potential for an ultra-weird ghostly image if I did it on purpose... so I did (bottom).
What you see in the images above is the result of one minute exposures (ISO 3200 on Nikon's new D700) while hand-painting the petroglyphs with the touch of a flashlight in selected areas. The red glow in the starry night sky comes from the nearby city of Albuquerque. It's literally like painting a blank canvas with light as your paint source in the parts of the image where star-light does not register. This is not new to you if you've seen the cave-illuminating images that we've done in the past (see "May 2007" in the blog archives). This is simply on a smaller, more delicate scale. Keep looking below—the pics get weirder...
I want to give a special thanks to Bill Campbell for the idea to leave the NANPA convention at midnight and go make some images in this prehistoric location just 12-minutes from the hotel. When using Bill's ultra-wide 16mm fisheye lens I noticed I was accidentally in the image while testing out my exposures (top). The effect offerred me the potential for an ultra-weird ghostly image if I did it on purpose... so I did (bottom).
Great pics. I was just in Albuquerque but didn't get to go to the petroglyphs. Instead, I went out to El Morro and stopped back by some lava tubes in El Mapias National Monument. I have pics on my Facebook page. Not like your pics but will give you an impression of the area. Really neat area out there. I have to go back this summer and hope to get by the petroglyphs.
ReplyDeleteAndy Huff