For the one person that couldn't as...
Anonymous on
NYC – Kamil Needs Some Help
Never Saw This Light Before
I have been having a couple of conversations with various e-buddies about laziness, inspiration, cameras, film, and just getting off my ass to make some images. One of the reasons that I don’t do much commercial work any more is that it is so easy to become jaded with photography. Once you feel that you can make a picture of anything anytime you want because you have to it is easy to slip into a place where you have no desire to.
Over the last week or so I have been making and effort to go out and make at least one reasonable image every day. Even if it is in my own neighborhood. You know what? I have had a blast doing it. No schedule, no production planning, no models to deal with. Just me an whatever camera I feel like grabbing. Taking a walk is nice, being outside in June here is nice and I am actually doing scenics – I am not a landscape guy. I am going to do my best to make a reasonable image every day.
If I can keep it up and really make a commitment to it I am thinking about starting a little flickr group for all of us here that are interested in each others images and hoping to get some others off of their collective butts and photograph their neighborhood and local surroundings in new and different ways every day. Along with some group sharing, therapy, and collective motivation, I have also discussed an open, honest, critique group. Let me know who might be interested. I may make it private to keep out the riffraff, we’ll see.
Now to the real topic of this post. I happened to be out shooting a couple of images of my little neighborhood harbor last evening and saw the light/atmospheric effects in the image at the top of the post. Barely visible to the naked eye or casual observer but I saw it. I cranked up some various color filters and boosted contrast to make it pop in this black and white conversion. I have never seen anything like this. No it’s not “god rays” of the sun coming down through the clouds and lighting up mist. No it’s not photoshopped in. Think about this for a moment. This is at dusk and the sun is at the horizon almost directly BEHIND me NOT in front of me. and the rays seem to be emanating from the far horizon.
Anybody know what the heck this is? What causes it?
It’s not some weird lens thing going on – I have torture tested this lens trying to get it to do strange flare-y stuff and strange aperture stuff in all manner of conditions for years AND I saw the effect with my eyes too.
RB
I think it is the same refraction you see splitting the sun sometimes at sunset, the light waves bending when they enter air with a different density.
Great photo. I have been enjoying your site and learning from it. The Aperture articles have been a help.
Stephen,
Glad you got some info out of the endeavor. Any chance you are interested in the flickr group?
RB
Ps. I totally understand the words that you said explaining the light but… the sun is behind me. Where the F is the light source coming from that seems to be behind our planet? I have been taking images for a long time, I have been a human for a long time but If someone else were to show me this I would swear it was photoshop.
Have you seen anything like that?
RB
RB
It still looks to me like the sun hits the front edge which is bright as you would expect, but as it hits the rear clouds (which look like they are heavy with moisture ((and maybe even reflecting off the bottom)) bends downwards and then is brightened by the sun (again!?) as it nears the horizon (and then shines on the water?!).
So what time of day was it taken?
I remember being tempted by the flickr group, but for get exact (or not) direction of it.
RB, dunno about this one. Maybe smoke or dust near the far shoreline or behind it reflecting the sun behind you? Streaks are from shadows created by the clouds between you and the dust?
See how much fun you have shooting landscapes instead of fine art?
Count me in for the Flickr group. I welcome positive criticism from knowledgeable people. I don’t have a Flickr account and wouldn’t want one unless it could help improve my skills.
RB, Beautiful
Here’s what I think is happening, though its hard to tell on the web. You have the great mottled sky, you have hard raking light from behind you, you have end of day thermals rising off the water and evaporation creating mist or very light fog, if you look at the sky there are many small breaks in the clouds allowing the still very bright blue sky behind the clouds. I would guess that these bright patches are enough to “shine” through these openings to create the ray effect similar to the sun. Additionally if the clouds are layered the low angle sun could very well be reflecting off the edges of higher clouds through those breaks in the lower clouds (high gain reflectors in the sky) You were there, does this sound plausible?
Alien landing craft are also a possibility
Apropos of nothing, But interesting
PhaseOne and Leaf employees Buying Leaf from Kodak
http://www.phaseone.com/apsis/PressRelease_LeafImaging.pdf
Here is a thought. I took this on or one day after summer solstice – any strange solar wrap around effects?
Here is another thought that I will go check out on the interweb real quick – could this be a moonrise?
I know it is hard to see at 700 px wide but the light really does appear to be coming from behind the horizon that is opposite the sun. I just printed this image at 13×19 on a paper that I used for the first time over at a photographer buddy of mine’s place – he also shares my opinion that this is not light coming from above the clouds.
RB
Ps. the paper I just tried and by far it is the best paper I have ever seen for BW (have not done color yet) was Museo Silver Rag – Un-freaking-believable.
Well, what are the possibilities?
1 Light source above the clouds, sky, reflection of the low sun by clouds, the moon (position can be calculated)
2 A light source or reflection from below the clouds but above the ground ??
3 A light source or reflection eminating from the ground (very low sun hits reflective objects on the ground–4 white boats in the distance?)
4 No light source other than the sun (sun reflects off rising thermals)
Any other possibilities?
I do see how it almost looks like its coming from behind the hills (what’s back there -anything reflective? the sun is still higher than the camera and could illuminate stuff that the camera doesn’t see.
If you figure it out, let us know.
Can you post a higher res detail of the center?
Michael,
The moon is some where between 25 and 30 degrees above the horizon according to my calculations based on the time and date of the exposure – the web says 8% illumination at the time and latitude. Unlikely candidate for the effect.
There is water beyond the horizon in that direction – multiple bodies of it. Including the Atlantic Ocean between this shot and the atlantic is the Delaware bay. The atlantic is about 80 miles in that direction the delaware bay is about 25 miles.
Thoughts?
RB
The Moon couldn’t be bright enough to cause reflections bright enough to see in bright sun.
If I had to guess, I’d go back to my original one holes in the cloud cover exposing really bright sky. Another way to say it would be the Dark “rays” are cloud shadows.
What else is there?
Know any meteorologists? Send a copy to the weather Channel and allow them to use it with credit if they can explain it.
Found your website looking for images made with Kodachrome. I love the idea you have about one image each day. You might just have inspired me to to the same thing. Wonderful website, by the way – thanks for sharing!