Moonscape: Redfish Lake

Redfish Lake Moonscape (click image to see large)

I’ve said it more than once, I miss the darkroom. I’ve been wanting to pick up a new medium format camera and work black & white film again. I’d like to convert part of my studio into a darkroom and process the film myself, but considering my studio is really a bedroom and it’s already pulling double duty as my server/network room… It’s not gonna happen, though that didn’t stop me from looking around online at how much it cost me to get a medium format enlarger, or maybe a good medium format negative scanner. But putting a darkroom in my studio isn’t feasible. Hmm, the bathroom is pretty dark already… Though I doubt that’d receive a building permit from the wife.

I took this photo a couple weeks ago at Redfish lake, it was a test shot for a long exposure star trail photo. If you look REAL close, there is one star trail in this photo, but it was only a two or three minute test to get the mountains right and set a baseline for my exposure. Many of you have already seen my snow photos from this same trip, that storm popped over the mountains about 5 minutes after this was taken. Gotta love Idaho! The sun was over an hour past set, but twilight was back lighting the mountains, behind me a full moon was rising.  I knew my window between dark enough for stars and the moon coming up to ruin the shot was going to be very short. I was hoping for a twenty minute star trail shot between the two, but the clouds gathering on the other side of the mountain wouldn’t cooperate. By the time I got back to camp the snow had started. This photo was much of the inspiration for the now infamous tweet I posted about ‘being done with color.’ I realize this photo won’t impress everyone, you might not even like it. But for me, this photo came alive in post and I instantly fell in love with it, can’t wait to get a metallic print of it. Do leave a comment here or on flickr to let me know what you think.