The Amazing Technique of Image Stacking

As I continued my research, I came across a different technique which other photographers were using to produce their long exposures of the stars above.

The technique is called 'Stacking' which is where multiple, single images are placed on top of each other to create a final image consisting of many photos shot at the same location.

Things to remember when stacking images are:

• Do a test shot initially to work out the ISO number, shutter speed and aperture required for a correctly exposed photograph
  
• Remember not to change the composition during the photo shoot, as any movement will cause the stacking technique to fail and overlap incorrectly
• At some point during the capture, a double timed photograph needs to be taken (so in a collection of 4 minute exposures, an 8 minute exposure) to give the foreground subject more illumination.

I decided to research online to find some instructions on how to stack images correctly and came across these by Harold Davis on a digital photography website:

Shooting the Photographs

Here's what he had to say about stacking as opposed to a single long exposure image:

A set of exposures that can be composited together to create an interesting star trail image is not always the easiest thing to achieve. But the technique does have some potential benefits compared to a single very long exposure.

Here's why stacking a number of "shorter" exposures may work better when photographing star trails than one longer exposure:

• A stacked composite image is less noisy than a single very long exposure.
• The effective exposure time possible with a single battery is extended by segmenting the exposure (see my comment about long exposure noise reduction below).
• Single captures that contain disturbing elements such as airplane trails or light from the photographer's headlamp can be eliminated from the stack if desired. In other words, stacking gives you granular control over the time slices.

Here are some more details about how Harold composes and shoots his photographs for the stacking technique:

The most important thing when attempting to photograph star trails for stacking, of course, is to find the right view. Ideally, the scene should be free of ambient light---this goes for moonlight, city light pollution, and car headlights. Since my star trail images include a landscape in the foreground, I like to find a location in which the general scene (and not only the night sky) is interesting. To get the effect of circular star trails, your camera should be pointed north. Polaris, the North Star, will be stationary in the center of circular moving stars.

In addition, the wider the angle of the lens you use the greater the curvature effect in the star trails. I exclusively use extreme wide angle lenses for these images, most of the time my 10.5mm digital fisheye lens. The trick to exposing the multiple images is to expose for the starlight itself. This means at ISO 100 each individual exposure should be about four minutes at f/4 or f/5.6.

Harold now goes into more depth about the shooting times for the technique:

If you stack 12 four minute exposure times you get a total elapsed time of about 48 minutes. To achieve this, you need a sturdy tripod and a programmable timer. In this example, you put the camera on manual exposure and Bulb. Next, set the time for 12 exposures, each of a duration of four minutes, with a four minute and one second interval between the start of each exposure.

One important point that Harold Makes here:
It's important to turn in-camera long exposure noise reduction off. As I noted earlier, this gains you battery life (and noise reduction for the four minute exposures wouldn't help you much with the star trail portions of the images)

After reading through the techniques used by Harold, I now want to customise the technique for the equipment available to me, so this next segment looks at how the photographs will be shot, specifically to my equipment:

Location

Choose appropriate location with good foreground interest which will rise up into the photograph and supplement the star trails. This could be a building or stone structure, maybe something on Dartmoor, but it just has to be clear of any ambient lighting or nearby towns or cities.

The location also needs to have a good view, from the South side, looking North as a location may be good from one angle but not the Southern angle, so this needs to be taken into consideration aswell.

Camera Setup

The camera will be setup on my tripod facing towards the subject, where the subject occupies around 1/3 to 1/2 of the lower part of the photo and the stars occupy the rest. Polaris needs to be positioned to one side of the subject to allow space for the trails to move around the foreground subject.

The example I drew on the right shows roughly how the composition should be, where the camera should be roatated to the portrait style and zoomed out to full wide angle to get as much in as possible.

The tripod needs to be as low as possible as I do not have a fish eye lens, fortunately my tripod is able to be lowered due to the flexing legs so I can get a lower angle on the subject.

I need to connect my remote shutter release to the camera and then choose my shoot settings:


Test shot
I need to do a test shot to gauge how much time it will take to correctly expose the star trails, so the settings are as follows:

Shutter speed: 4-5 minutes
ISO: 1600
Aperture: f4

This setup should give me a good idea as to how long to run the total exposure for when taking the photos for the image stack.

Okay so that is all the detail about setting my camera up for shooting, now all I need to do is go and shoot some more images ready to stack together...


Stacking in Photoshop
As for the technique when you get the pictures home, this is how to do it quickly and efficiently with the statistics tool in photoshop.


Harold Describes how the different stacking techniques affect the final photo produced:

Within the Photoshop Statistics script, the default setting, Mean, produced some kind of average sampling, not a very striking result. Standard deviation was interesting, but not ultimately satisfying. Range was good, but Maximum was best. My assumption is that this blended in the maximum value for every sampled point, so it makes sense that it produced the brightest star trails

Below I have described a step by step process for the stacking of images:

• Firstly open Photoshop, then once opened move the cursor to File> Scripts
• Then over to Statistics on the pop out menu
• A dialog box will appear, in the top scroll down list, choose 'Maximum' for the Stack Mode
• Click 'Browse' to choose the images to be blended into the single photograph (RAW images or JPGs can be used for this)
• Click OK then wait until the process completes

The video below shows where the menu is in Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended and how to use it with CR2 RAW files from my Canon SLR camera:

Bowerman's Nose - The Main photo Shoot 12th April 09

This was the big one, where I was going to try to get a good image which I could use for my summer show, so I headed out at around 9pm with Alex up to Bowerman's Nose. As usual it was freezing, so we had to dress up warm for the walk up to the pinnacle.

It's only about a ten minute walk from the car so we were there in no time, I went about setting up my camera for the photo shoot at about 10:20pm which was literally just as the sky become completely dark and revealed all the amazing stars up there in space.

The following photographs show the camera setup on location with Bowerman's Nose just in front of the camera although not fully visible in the photos due to the weak flash on the compact camera:

The the photograph below, it shows my camera setup on the tripod with the legs spread slightly to allow for a more stable support of the camera, while I also had the camera angled at a portrait composition so I could easily fit the Nose and the star trails into the single composition:


The next photo shows how I angled the camera, looking at the setup itself the camera does look like it is at a bit of an awkward angle, but the photographs below show how the composition did work as it is set up in these photographs:


The photo below shows a close up of my camera and setup, you can see the cable release connected to the camera which allows me to start and stop an exposure without jogging the camera and losing sharpness within the photograph:


The Photographs

The photograph below is the sample photo, which i now take without fail, to measure the conditions at the location; basically to tell me what settings I should use, what ISO number.. How long the exposure should take and overall, what the photo will look like after I have made changes.

I can use the sample photograph to check:

• Composition and positioning of the foreground subject
• Focusing and sharpness for the foreground subject
• exposure of the image as a whole (as I mentioned under a previous shoot, the shutter speed relates directly to the ISO setting which I use: so say 5 minutes at ISO 1600 relates to 10 minutes at ISO 800 etc)
• Check for any ambient light which could be cropped by a small movement of the camera

Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 5 minutes
Aperture: f4
ISO: 1600

Anyway here is the sample image below:

In my personal opinion I like the exposure of the image, the star trails are short as it is only a 5 minute exposure, however the lighting is about right, it matches the amount I require to show the depth of the stars behind, while also giving some outline to Bowerman's Nose in the foreground.
I also like how Bowerman's Nose points the viewer's eye straight into the sky towards the stars, as a result I decided to keep the composition like this and go for a longer exposure, details are shown below.

The next photo was taken over a much longer period of time as mentioned in the photo fact file below:

Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 19 minutes
Aperture: f 4.0
ISO: 400

I shot this image for a cautious 20 minutes which gave me considerably more star trails, although I still wanted to test the conditions with this photograph by using ISO 400 instead of 200 or lower, which resulted in an image which was relatively noisy and unsightly when viewed closely, but the exposure as a whole, does follow the test photograph perfectly, as the lighting is exactly the same.
I am impressed with the result and also how closely it follows my sample image, meaning that the sample photograph is definately worth doing for each photo shoot, to make sure I allow the correct time for exposure.
As for the star trails, they are a little bit short, but certainly do create an excellent vortex around the Nose, giving an amazing background to the ancient stone structure, while almost creating a 'timeless' photograph.

Now it's time to see the final photograph I took that evening:

Photo Factfile Shutter Speed: 40 minutes
Aperture: f 4.0
ISO: 200


For the final image of the evening, I went for a long exposure of 40 minutes, to maximise the length of the star trails above and make the most of this excellent evening of photography.
While I was there I produced the image above, which builds on the star trails produced in the 20 minutes exposure.
One small niggle with this photograph, is the plane which flew through during the capture, you can see it to the right of the Nose which has left a white vapour trail through the photograph. it may be possible to edit this away and produce a decent image to print for the final display.

Image Stacking
I'm going to have a go at stacking the 20 and 40 mintue exposures into one image to see if I can extend the length of the star trails at all, here is the result shown below:


The image stacking for the image went really well, as it has increased the length of the star trails and given some extra brightness to the moving star in front of the trail behind, giving that 'swirling, racing' effect I wanted in the vortex itself. A small amount of cloud has shown through the image which may affect it at larger sizes, but I will have to edit the image slightly to make sure this problem is resolved.

Evaluation of the Shoot
I had lots of fun trying to shoot these photographs, as it was one of the first shoots where I managed to get some decent results by using techniques which have improved dramatically from my first few outings. My ability to achieve a consistent result by controlling the ISO speed has helped a great deal by giving me a more reliable timescale to the photography.

I am very impress with the composition of this photo, as it fits exactly to the idea which I want to present, which is to show how there is a massive expanse of open space above us by using the foreground subject to point the viewer's eye up into the sky, the viewer will then notice the vortex and be pulled into the centre to see the North Star.

As for improvements, as far as the composition is concerned, i think I made the most of the location and got the best I could from it, although i would have liked to stay longer, the battery on my camera is only capable of around 2 - 2.5 hours of shooting time before it dies and also some clouds began to roll in after around an hour which tended to reduce the brightness of the stars above.

Time - The Fourth Dimension

Many photographs show a scene in 2 dimensions, where the subject(s) are flat on the paper , it is possible to have a 3d image which has elements which are embossed onto the page to give the illusion of a 3 dimensional scene, although this is only an extension to a 2 dimensional image.

While working through this photographic project, I have discovered a deeper meaning in the photographs I have produced; this is where the fourth dimension comes into play, through the element of Time...

Presentation of time through photography
There are many different ways to present time through photography, one is to feature the same subject at different points throughout the same composition, I looked at this technique in my previous project for Surrealism and include some of the images later in this blog post.

Anyway my objective for that project, on which this one builds in real terms, I wanted to show how time can be shown in a single image instead of through a video clip, simply showing moment of an individual through a particular scenario from one side of the composition to the other. My inspiration for these initial ideas came from some up and coming photographers online which showed me some interesting techniques through the use of a flashgun.

I did enjoy doing this project but I wanted to shift my idea so that it included elements of nature; things which I am interested in as a landscape photographer. Firstly let's start by checking out some of my work from the previous project, to see how I moved from these ideas into my new idea:


This is one of my images from the Surrealism project which shows Alex gracefully moving through the church graveyard from the wall to the ground, a movement which may occasionally be captured in a single still photograph, but is not often caught as a series like this one, without any Photoshop trickery I captured a portion of time within a single frame which stretches out over a much longer period of time than a standard capture.

When I began this project I gave a great deal of thought to how photographs interpret time, the continuous idea I saw, and still see is that they capture a 'window' of events in a split second, meaning that no movement or anything is captured, just the event as a still image, which in my opinion is appropriate for most photographic purposes, but I wanted to push to the next level and capture an ongoing event which would 'wow' viewers.

Why the stars?
As I come from a family who seem to have particular interest in astronomy, particularly my dad and my grandad, I think some of the interest has rubbed off on me as well which is good as my family are keen to see what I have seen through my photography when I arrive home. I pay particular attention to events happening in the sky, such as meteor showers and alignments of certain constellations which may result in a more amazing image than normal.

My interest in the night sky paired with my knowledge of some interesting foreground subjects around Devon make a perfect pair to provide me with some excellent compositions for this project.

The stars and time
The night sky acts as an excellent time to shoot photographs for long periods of time, as the sunlight simply provides too much light which would cause overexposure of any image after around 20-30 seconds. Whereas if you shoot the same image at night, you can keep your shutter open indefinitely, as long as the camera is not pointed into a light source, your photo will not overexpose.

As for my choice of subject, it requires a great deal of thought, as I described in the 'Choosing the Foreground Subject' blog entry, it has to be interesting, easy to light using stray bits of ambient light/ moonlight or star light. The subject also has to be away from any strong ambient light as this will ruin the star trails.

So far I have produced a few images which show my experimentation stages, although I am now ready to go for some full length images which should provide me with some amazing star trails and also some interesting foreground subjects.

Thoughts
When I'm out shooting these star trail photographs, I do get a great feeling of being 'at one with my environment' , a very cliche line, but it really does! This is probably because everyone else is in bed or out drinking in town, but I do start to unwind and experience some amazing sights such as shooting stars and other things, which I simply wouldn't see if I didn't force myself to stay up into the early hours of the morning.

Most people think i'm mental or something but I don't mind as I get to see some amazing things when I am out and when i show people the images I have taken so far, I do get positive feedback and many people ask 'How do you do that?' and the likes, which boosts my confidence to continue the project until I get something amazing.

As for capturing time in these photographs, they do take a considerable step onward from the photographs I produced for the Surrealism project, as these ones show time in another scale in comparison. In these photographs I want to show how the sky above is not changed by time in any way, as the stars will continue to rotate around the North Star..forever.. It doesn't matter whether I'm there or not, whether I get my model to jump off the wall or not, the stars will continue going round and round, forever.

In my photography I hope to bring the night sky to the daytime by photographing it and printing it so that all of my friends and family can experience the period of time which is often spent doing other things than being outside.

I also hope to present how the foreground subject links to the stars themselves, as for example, the Tors on Dartmoor have been there for many thousands of years, so each of the subjects stand as a monument of time, while I use a very modern piece of equipment to capture these amazing monuments of time which have been there for millions of years before me, and will be there for millions of years after I die.

One person who considered time in a very different way is Salvador Dali, shown below is one of his most famous paintings called 'The persistence of Time' wish literally depicts time 'melting away' through the appearance of melting clocks in a landscape


Image source: http://www.artquotes.net/masters/salvador-dali/the-persistence-of-memory.jpg

The painting also symbolises how time is frozen forever within this particular canvas painting, although in my images I have physically captured a change in time with the movement of the stars so my work contrasts completely with the message this image is trying to portray to the public which is that time is frozen in this image and doesn't seem to feature time, rather it features time in a still form, it has been fixed for the purpose of this image.

As I continue with the project my interest is building as I move on to new foreground subjects, but still try to maintain the same background setup, anyway time to stop talking and shoot some more photographs!

Photoshop and the Stars

As I begin to look at editing my photographs with Photoshop, the question arises 'Why not use Photoshop to introduce the stars into a night scene?' as I'm sure this is possible to do with enough skill and determination. Many different things can be edited,deleted or swapped around with the program which means any photo can become a masterpiece of design with some good computer skills.

Using Photoshop
For example Photoshop can be used to change exposures within a single photo, I have experimented with this technique below:


The technique is called exposure blending, which essentially allows you to use different parts of differently exposed images, together in one single image, resulting in an image which has the correct exposure across the whole image which simply isn't possible to shoot in one go.

I have had a go at the technique here but haven't completely finished the transformation as it will be very complicated with the brush strokes around the foliage behind the tower. The images from which the exposure was created, are shown below in there original appearances:

So if Photoshop can be used to do this, then why not use it for the star photos?

I will be using Photoshop to help make the best of the image as it is shot, but I won't be using it to introduce anything that isn't there initially. I have always been like this when using Photoshop as I do not like to 'cheat' I have to say I am very much a purist to photography and would be unhappy with an image which has had a considerable amount of alteration carried out in the program.

Many of the images I have looked at on the internet do not appear to have had elements added to them such as the star trails behind, although they may have done a very good job, I will never know, but all that I know is that I will not be using Photoshop to add elements which didn't exist on the night.

More thoughts and Artists

The project is going really well and I am happy with the image I produced a few days ago at Hound Tor. That night has to have been the most successful evening so far giving me a photo which looks good against some of the research photographs I looked at back along.

While I have been shooting photographs, I haven't really had much time to check out the work of other night time photographers so i just wanted to add this blog entry as a bit of a quick glance at how some other photographers have presented the night in their photographs.

The first photographer I want to look at is Chrystel Lebas who is well known for her photographic work of the night:

She has her own website which i decided to visit called www.chrystellebas.com
The website itself simply consists of PDF format 'portfolios' which include work from different shows and events she has displayed work for; for my interests, I decided to open the project called: Timeinspace, which appeared to feature work of relevance to my study.

She added these quotes and details to her PDF presentation on her website:

For the Greeks, Night (Nyx) was the daughter of Chaos and the mother of Sky (Ouranos) and Earth (Gaia) [...] She also engendered sleep and death, dreams and anguish, tenderness and deceit. Novalis, in his Hymn to the Night, celebrates Night, symbolised by sleep and dream, as a triumph over time: Aside I turn to the holy, unspeakable, mysterious Night More heavenly than those glittering stars we hold the eternal Eyes, which the Night hath opened within us. Farther they see than the palest of those countless hosts... Needing no aid from the light, they penetrate the depths of a loving soul that fills a loftier region with bliss ineffable.

Some amazing depth is given to the meaning of the sky at night by these extracts. I do find it amazing how people are equally passionate about the sky like I am which gives me additional motivation to go and shoot some beautiful photographs for all to see.

Here is another extract from her PDF portfolio:

Each series offers various types of travel to the viewer. Travel through space in search of a specific location; travel of the mind through sleep; time-travel involving a set period of time from point A to point B: from nightfall to daybreak, or from the start of a journey to the final destination. Taken from a rooftop in the middle of the city (London), this series evokes contemplation of the night and the intimate relationship between interior and exterior spaces. The roofs form an island which allows the viewer to distance himself from the scene, and to observe the untouchable city. Long exposures taken with a large-format camera record traces of the movement of the moon, stars and aeroplanes, giving to this nocturnal space a sense of human appropriation of the sky and landscape. Exposures of 30 minutes, during which time I had to stay next to the camera, gave me the opportunity to contemplate this dark city and the intimacy of its windows of light. In the dark, nearly black foreground of these photographs, the viewer can discover a few human traces: washing-lines and gardens.
Chrystel Lebas

Her photos are given a great deal of depth by the way in which she talks about them, as above, she talks about the rooftops of London, providing a viewpoint into a city which cannot be touched by himself. This idea is very true, as the viewer can clearly see the area and go into the city, but simply cannot interact with it or really touch it, so it is very much a separate existing object.

Lebas has also done a few photographs which feature the blue or 'Azure' that is the night sky, whereas she has shot her photographs on film for between 2-6 hours, in some cases seeing the light disappear and then reappear at dawn!

Here is an example of her work showing the movement of the Moon through the shot:


Image sourced from PDF Portfolio @: www.chrystellebas.com

Just before these images depicting the Azure, Lebas makes reference to 'the passage of time' in the portfolio, as in this extract:

The panoramic camera is used here for technical reasons. The lens rotating on an axis turns upon itself, its continuous movement across the area to be photographed records the landscape in the form of multiple exposures. The long exposure times, from 2 to 6 hours, illustrate the passage of time, moving from day to night to day again. The 146-degrees rotating-lens, the arc travelled by the lens rotation, is close in its range to the field of vision of the human eye. Seen in an exhibition context and enlarged (2m. long), these images give the viewer the feeling of being absorbed by the colour surface where shapes appear slowly from the shadows.

She uses a panoramic camera to allow her to capture a fully wide angle photograph while the extensive exposure time allows the viewer to experience the passage of time, she also discusses how she prints the photographs up to 2 metres long which would be appropriate for my photographs although I am simply not sure my digital files would allow this. It may be worthwhile looking into an analog option if this is the case.

Lebas' work is very thoughtful and packed full of meaning, although the images themselves show very little, they do inspire the viewer to think about the landscape in which they live, after looking at the bibliography at the back of the portfolio, I realised that some of the photos were taken in neighbouring Cornwall, which surprised me as I simply couldn't tell from the image alone.

With my own images I want to inspire thought in the viewer, make them think about their surroundings and what they miss out on while they sleep and I shoot photographs, this interest will extend until I get a truly amazing photograph much like some of the previous photographs I have seen, mostly taken in America. I want to shoot one which features part of my local landscape.

Linda Connor, Star Photography

Linda Connor has perfected art of shooting star photographs in this image she produced back in 1991:

Image sourced from: www.afterimagegallery.co.uk

She uses the shrubs and rocks to represent the earth and it appears the photograph was taken over several hours as the stars have rotated in the sky. She also has personal skills in illumination and this has come into play in this image as the foreground subjects are well lit ( the shrubs and rock) to give the image some more depth.

Some extracts from: The Photo Book (Phaidon)

Again from the book: 'she remarks that creative energy is an elusive force which it is her privilege to 'serve and transform''

From this quote I read that Connor is a very thoughtful photographer who is at one with the environment, much like I consider myself to be, wish allows her to produce images which are simplistic and have a deeper meaning, which pairs the background star rotations to the complexity of the earth below.

It is clear after looking at several different photographers that they all tend to be very considerate of the landscape in which they shoot photographs and that even the most basic landscape features, can prouce an amazing photograph when used correctly at night.

Bowerman's Nose + Giant Chair Recce Shoots 4th April 09

To further prepare for shoots from now on, I have decided to carry out some pre shoot recce trips which will help me understand the proportions of the different subjects I want to feature in my photographs, and also see how they look when composed as if I were to be looking up at the North Star.

The Giant's Chair - Widecombe In The Moor
I have only known about the Giant Chair of Natsworthy for around 6 months even though it has been there since back in 2007, anyway I did some research into why the structure is there in the first place.

I visited www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk and found an article about it's existence which is shown below:

Some background as to why the chair is there:

It appears that the chair is classed as a sculpture and the whole purpose of it was to create a landmark which celebrated the natural environment. In addition it was hoped that the chair would provide an opportunity for the appreciation of the special qualities of the local landscape and to engender a sense of joy and laughter for anyone seeing it. The intention of the sculpture's design was for it to be harmonious with the landscape. Only locally sourced, hand hewn green oak was used for the 6 metre high chair which was jointed using the old, traditional mortise and tenon joints. The location was chosen because it provided a spot where people could stop and stare at the wide-spreading moorland landscape below. As with most works of art there is an underlying message and in this case it is one of ambiguity, that being the unattainable. The sculpture can be recognised as a chair but because of its size it is impossible to sit upon it.

The article goes on to talk about the allowed planning permission and visitor rights of the structure:

The Giant's Chair appeared sometime in late 2006 and went before the Dartmoor National Park Authority's planning committee as a retrospective application on the 2nd of March 2007. The committee expressed some concern insomuch as they thought the sculpture may result in traffic congestion caused by visitors and that their numbers could impact on the area. In view of this the sculpture was granted planning permission for a period of two years with 3 conditions attached. Firstly, the sculpture must be removed by the 2nd of March 2009, secondly, the timberwork should remain in its natural condition which means the wood can't be treated. The third and final condition was that there is to be no means of access to the site which includes any form of gate and stile, in other words, visitors cannot get anywhere near it.

The chair is located North of Widecombe and provides a view right down over the valley towards Widecombe itself, the map below shows Widecombe and the chair is around 2km from the village:
Source: Google maps

An aerial/satellite view of the chair:

Source: Google Maps

Below are several recce photograph I took of the chair on the 4th April 2009, they show the chair from many different viewpoints which has helped me to understand the land form around the structure as well as see how to compose the chair into a possible photograph at nightfall.

Here is my first image, showing the chair looking in a South Easterly direction towards Haytor in the distant background:

The next image below shows the chair from a closer viewpoint, this time looking Eastwards:

The image below shows the chair at a wider angle than above, again looking Eastwards:

The chair is now shown looking North Easterly:

A north Easterly view of the chair from a lower viewpoint, starting to see how the North Star could fit into the composition:

The image below shows the chair looking North where there could possibly be space for the North Star to feature above, although it is relatively difficult to guess where the star would be. Though I do believe if I am to shoot the chair, I would need to compose my photograph in a portrait style in order to fit the whole subject and North Star into a single frame:


Thoughts about the Recce and The Giant's Chair
The recce shoot was worthwhile so that I could get an idea of the scale of the structure and where I should sit/stand to compose my image. Although having done the photo shoot, I am concerned that I just cannot get low enough to get both the chair and the North Star into a single frame, it will definitely be necessary for me to set my tripod to a low position or even lie down on the floor so that I can get some decent star trails captured.

I will certainly consider the chair as a location for a photo shoot but Bowerman's Nose, which is around 1km away, does appear to be a more obvious choice for the star trail photography.

Bowerman's Nose - Hound Tor

The Nose is located near Hound Tor as shown in the map below, you have to drive down a narrow road to a gateway which you can open to gain access onto the moorland with your car, the stone structure can be seen from the road and is around 10 mintues walk from the road below:


The stone structure has some interesting folklore tied to it, feel free to have a read below, it's a pretty good story :)

The story of Bowerman goes back into a time when witches and witchcraft were rife on Dartmoor. In these times there lived man called Bowerman or to give him he full title 'Bowerman the Hunter'. He was a tall man with the strength of ten. The moorfolk knew him as a kind, generous and jovial person and so he was much respected and liked. He lived on the Eastern side of the moor and his passion was as his name suggests - hunting. He owned what was reputed to be the strongest pack of hounds on Dartmoor, they were relentless in their pursuit and merciless at the kill. Both he and his dogs could often be seen drawing the clitters and the mires in search their quarry.

As mentioned before, witches were rife on Dartmoor. They would meet at secluded spots to make their potions and spells and the local folk held them in awe and fear, all except Bowerman that is. Whenever talk came around to witches he would just laugh and say how he was "afraid of no one, not even the Devil himself' he would then explain that the moorfolk should not "a fear the crones for they were jest ole hags a 'mumbo jumboing' to 'em selves". Naturally this got back to the local coven who were not best pleased. Firstly that Bowerman was not in fear of them and secondly he encouraged the moorfolk to be the same. The lack of fear made them less plausible and so the power they held over the moor dwellers was lessened. Although they would not admit it, the witches were secretly scared of Bowerman, after all he was a strong man that always had a fearful pack of hounds at his side. So there was a kind of unspoken and uneasy 'live and let live' arrangement. The witches carried on ' a mumbo jumboing' and Bowerman carried on hunting.

However, late one Autumn evening as Bowerman was leading his pack homeward a large hare bolted out of some clitter and sped off down the hillside. With a whoop of delight Bowerman urged his hounds on and baying eagerly they chased after the hare - the hunt was on. It didn't take long for the huge dogs to close in on the beast, but just as they were going for the turn the hare veered off into a small wooded valley. It took a second or two for the dogs to regain direction but soon they were in full cry down through the tree lined valley with Bowerman at full gallop. Suddenly the chase came to a clearing and Bowerman could see ahead of him a coven of witches all crouched around a bubbling cauldron. The hare darted through the middle of the assembled hags closely followed by the hounds and Bowerman. As his mighty mount leapt over the tangle of crones, cauldron and heaven knows what else Bowerman yelled in delight "mumbo jumboing now who's all a muddling".

The witches were incandescent with rage, they spat, they cursed, they shrieked and they wailed but all to no avail Bowerman was long gone.

After gaining some composure the coven reassembled around the cauldron and all agreed that Bowerman had gone too far and it was time for him to learn a lesson. There was one witch among the coven who had, in return for her soul, been given the power to turn herself into any animal she wished. The witches all knew that there was only one way in and one way out of the valley and that was the way Bowerman had charged in. So it was only a matter of time before he had to return back past the spot where the coven was amassed. A cunning plan was hatched, the one witch would turn herself into a hare and lead Bowerman and his dogs on a chase across the moor. Meanwhile the rest of the old hags would lie in wait to spring their trap.

As thought it was not long before the hounds could be heard coming up the valley, the witches vanished all apart from the one who transformed herself into a huge hare. It was not long before the dogs picked up her scent and were on her heels in full cry. The hare gave the hunter a chase like he had never seen before, they went across the moor, through bogs, across streams, up over hill after hill, around tor after tor and back down through mires, quakers and stables (types of Dartmoor bogs) and still the hare sped on. Finally, Bowerman and his hound were completely exhausted and it was only sheer determination that kept them going. As they crested a large granite topped ridge the hare slowed down enough for the dogs to gain on it and just as the lead dog went to flip the hare it darted off behind a tor. Bowerman and his pack followed and charged right into the witches trap, for behind the tor were the rest of the coven and a few witches extra for good measure. They encircled the hunter and shrieked and cursed in unison. Such were their numbers and such were their powers that Bowerman was helpless, both he and his dogs stood transfixed and helpless. The spell the witches cast was that of petrification and to this day you can see the result for Bowerman and his dogs were turned to stone. Bowerman became a huge granite figure-like outcrop and his hound the large boulders at his feet. It is aid that on some dark, misty, moonless nights Bowerman and his dogs come back to life and can be heard chasing some quarry across Hayne Down.

Sourced from: www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk

It is always interesting to find out about the history of the different tors on Dartmoor, although unfortunately most of the stories are fictional and the reason why Bowerman's Nose is here today may never be known. But the story does make for an interesting read for a few minutes and certainly gives the stone formation a much more mysterious and spooky background.

As for trying to photograph it, on the same day as the recce for The Giant's Chair, I took a trip over to Bowerman's Nose to get a few recce photos.

Shown below are a collection of the photos I took:

This photo is taken from the Tor side of Bowerman's looking West over the valley


The photo below shows Bowerman's Nose looking in an Easterly direction, unfortunately the 'Nose appearance' isn't very evident on this side making the rock look just like a stack of graite rock with no nose resembling aspects:


This image looks North showing the full extent of the nose appearance on the rock stack, coinicdentally the best view of the rock is from the Southern side looking North which is perfect for some star photography, it also appears that I can get low enough to feature the North Star above:


Here is a closer image to show the very detailed granite rock which needs to be exploited so that the final photograph takes on a certain degree of texture as well as mysterious effects:


Thoughts on the Recce shoot for Bowerman's Nose

The recce shoot showed me an excellent location to shoot a photograph, the viewpoint looking North with the Nose as the foreground subject, would work perfectly in conjunction with the star trails behind.
As for access, it is only about 10 minutes from the road and the footpaths are easily navigable after dark with a torch.
All I need to do now is pick a suitable evening and come up to give it a try!

Choosing a foreground subject?

This is going to be one of the most challenging tasks of my project, besides getting the camera set up for the photograph, choosing appropriate shutter times, apertures and ISO numbers, I also need to choose a good foreground subject which will rise up into the sky. The subject must allow me to get close to it and also have an area in the immediate vicinity which is low enough, allowing me to aim the camera upwards then frame Polaris, plus large amount of stars which will then rotate around it.

I have considered lots of locations already and below are some of my initial ideas with a photograph where available from my back catalogue or the Internet:

Haldon Belvedere

What?
A small folly/castle with three corners, windows on all sides with a large grassed area around the perimeter, with trees and undergrowth surrounding the green area.

Where?
Dunchideock near Exeter, just off the A38 at Haldon Hill, the map below shows the tower itself:
Why?
The location has provided me with many amazing photographs throughout my life as a photographer and I believe it would act as a good foreground subject for photographs of the night sky and the stars, here is a photograph of the building itself.

Here's another looking at the Belvedere looking Northwards:
As I said above, I have used the Belvedere as a subject for photos in the past and have watched the area change dramatically, the building has been painted several times, trees have been cut down and planted, making for an interesting foreground subject which will be perfect to feature in one of my photographs for this project.

One of the problems I will have is getting close enough to the building so that most of it features in the photograph, but I also allow enough sky to show the star trails in the sky.
I could use a fish-eye lens at this stage, but the problem with one of those is the lack of quality from the lenses that could be available to me.

Rame Head

What?
Medieval building/Chapel

Where?
Rame Head, Whitsand Bay - Right at the bottom tip, around 30 minutes from Plymouth City Centre, the map below shows how secluded the location is:
Why?
Again this location has been the end of many a drive during the last few years, it'sa great location to get away from all the noise and stress of Plymouth City Centre and photographs of this location always portray this 'exclusion from reality'. This is the type of 'story' or contextual background I aim to achieve from my photographs produced for this project.

To give a little more background...
As the modern world more interested in getting things done quickly and efficiently, there is often no time to take a back seat and look at the area in which we live, as many of the students I know have never been anywhere other than, say the City Centre, or their own home town! Which I think is quite terrible, but then again I am a keen traveller and some people may not be as keen as me. But anyway, the point I want to make is that it is important for us to appreciate the world in which we live and by shooting these photographs of the night sky, I hope to present a part of our world which isn't normally seen by many people at all, as they are out enjoying the night life in whichever city they live in, or are sleeping up for the day ahead.

Again I have some photos of the building which I shot last year just to give an idea of the location and area around it:

A view from the bottom of the hill looking approx. South West direction:
A view from the side of the building, looking approx. West direction:
An obvious flaw with my photographs, is that they don't show the building from the Southern face, which is where i will be facing to take a photo of the North Star, unfortunately, back in WW2 a concreted area was built, appearing much like a platform, which ruins the appearance of the building, although a photograph may be able to be composed, cutting out the platform and jsut featuring the top of the building and the surrounding cliff faces.
Light pollution will also not be a problem in this area as we are around 20miles from any large scale civilisation.

Photographs shot by: Matt thorne 2008

Haytor

What?
It is an outcrop of rock (a Tor) on Dartmoor, made of Granite which portrudes from the landscape into various knobbly shapes of rock.

Where?
Just off the B3387 heading toward Widecombe in the moor, from Bovey Tracey, the rock is shown on the map below, on the left:


Why?
I want to shoot some photos at Haytor as it is the location of many a family day out for me and it has a place in my childhood memories. I also believe the location is high enough to avoid any light pollution and will tower up into the sky and fill the frame as I compose the photograph to feature Polaris.
The location is very popular for visitors to Dartmoor which means the area is well recognised by most people locally, so my task is to capture a rocgonisable shot of the Tor itself.

I don't have any general photographs of the rock formation at the moment so I conducted a search online for some and came up with these, just to give an idea of the shape of the rock:

This image shows the rock looking in a Northerly direction

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon

This photograph below shows the rock looking in a South Westerly direction, showing the full extent of the knobbly pieces of rock which makes Haytor so iconic.

Source: http://graemesdesigns.com/lsdartmoor.html

Research
To help me with my technique and research, I decided to have a look at a book called ' The Complete Guide to Night & Low Light Photography' by Lee Frost which had some details about how to shoot night photographs and what sort of composition to create, which would be most effective for the final image.

I flicked through the book, to page 156-7 which gave a good account on how to shoot star photographs with an example taken at the writer's house. His image shows the house and the star rotations above which was shot on ISO 100 film, for 30 minutes at f4.0.

His image shows that the technique works better if you use a wider angle lens, as you can get more into the image and get a larger vortex created by the stars above.

Lee goes on to discuss the best choices of subject and positioning for the camera, which is to choose an interesting foreground subject and point the camera ideally towards Polaris to get the best image.

Thoughts about the project so far...

I am happy with my progress so far and have learned lots about astronomy as well as how to shoot photographs at night, having almost no experience in the field of photography, I believe I have started to make considerable progress in developing some good quality images of the night sky. I am starting to understand that this type of photography is difficult to do, as conditions are always changing, elements such as the moon, the length of the days and also the temperature and cloud cover, all impact on my ability to shoot a good photograph of the stars at night.

The first test shoot gave me an excellent opportunity to get out there and see what it's like after dark and the results I got were of a good quality considering I didnt have a great deal of knowledge about night photography.

The next stage is to do many more shoots after dark to see if I can capture a decent star rotation and foreground subject to go with it.

Just before going out to shoot some new material, I decided to visit the PCAD library to see if there were any books which could possibly give me a bit more information about how to shoot some night photographs which include the stars above.

I loaned out the following books:

Lighting the Landscape: Roger Narboni - Berkhauser 2004
The Complete Guide to Night & Low Light Digital Photography: Micheal Freeman -Ilex 2008

Although unfortunately after flciking through the books, I simply couldn;t find anything which was relevant to the star photographs which I was shooting, I saw many good images which featured foreground interest at night, but they simply weren't very relevant to my search for information.