Island in the Net

• Aperture—ƒ/6.3
• Camera—NIKON D5100
• Taken—15 September, 2017
• Copyright—© 2017 Khürt L. Williams
• Focal length—35mm
• ISO—100
• Shutter speed—20s

My initial thought after Frank posted this week’s photo challenge and seeing his photo was, “go grab some shots of the Shea Rowing Center.” The centre is lit at night and I thought I would get some good pictures of the lights of the centre illuminating the darkness along Faculty Road.

My plan was to leave work and head to Troon Brewing, have dinner next door at Brick Farm Tavern, get home change my clothes and head out to Washington Road for some night photography at the C. Bernard Shea Rowing Center.

I parked on the eastbound side of Washington Road just past the bridge. One thing I had considered was how dark it might be along Washington Road. I took a headlamp with me to light my path as I walked along the road to the bridge. It was dark but I was surprised by how many cars drove by at this time of night. It was after 9 PM.

I set up my camera halfway on the bridge. It was challenging to focus in the dark. I took a few test shots and started to regret that I did not setup earlier when the light was good. Eventually, I got an image sharp enough. I captured a few images, experimenting with shutter speeds between 15 to 30 seconds. I was disappointed by the results when I chimped on the back of my Nikon. The images were not sharp and the composition was “meh“.

Frustrated, I turned around to watch the cars go by. What was I going to do? This field trip was a bust. The marching band would soon be back from supporting the football team at the game in Franklin and my daughter would be calling me to pick her up from the high school. Time was running out. My inner voice said, “photography what you see”.

So I did. I experimented with varying the shutter speed and the timing of the triggering of the shutter for the arrival and departure of the cars. And then I went home and imported the images into Adobe Lightroom.

My initial feeling was correct. My images of the boathouse were uninteresting. I didn’t like any of theme. I deleted them all except for this one. I wanted to show you what the boathouse looks like.

The C. Bernard Shea Rowing Center is the boathouse for the Princeton University rowing programs. Located on Lake Carnegie in Princeton, New Jersey, the center consists of the Class of 1887 Boathouse and the Richard Ottesen Prentke ‘67 Training Center.

• Aperture—ƒ/8
• Camera—NIKON D5100
• Taken—15 September, 2017
• Copyright—© 2017 Khürt L. Williams
• Focal length—35mm
• ISO—100
• Shutter speed—30s

However, I was very happy with the images of the light trails. I picked my favourite one, tweaked a few settings in Lightroom and the result is what you see in the post header.

Sometimes photography is like that. I have a vision of what I want to achieve. But either because of poor planning, less than ideal conditions or lack of knowledge, I don’t get what I want. Sometimes, I have to make the best of what I have in front of me. Step out of the creative darkness and into the light.

Created by photographer Frank Jansen, the Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography.