Astro Visual Photography

Playing around one evening with some lights, my daughter and I decided to get a shot of her ‘driving’ her car.

Driving

OBJECTIVE:

I wanted this to look like one of those shots we see in the movies where the actor is supposed by driving along at night.

COMPOSITION:

The composition this time was created with the vignetting as much as the subject placement.

SETUP & SETTINGS:

1/60th – f2.8 – ISO 320. 51mm focal length. No filters on the lens. Hand held. No Flash.
Not wanting too much noise I kept my ISO down but chose a low f-stop to still try to keep my shutter speed above where I needed a tripod. Generally speaking I try to never use anything under 1/60th when shooting people because it doesn’t take much to create motion blur even at that speed.
The light is produced from a bright LED light/flashlight/torch sitting on the drivers floor.

POST PROCESSING:

A little sharpening for her eyes, curves to both brighten the light areas but also darken the dark areas. I may have also used a black brush to darken a couple of areas a bit more but I don’t remember exactly.

END RESULT:

I’m happy with this one. The light source has produced strong shadows but also highlights. A reflection of part of the dashboard suggests that the light source is in fact the cars dashboard lights.