The Main photo shoot at Wheal Betsy 12th May 09

I decided to use the mine shaft which I previously visited at the end of April as my foreground interest for this evening's star photography. As the cloud moved away during the late afternoon I prepared my equipment so I could easily jump in the car and head up onto the moor and produce a good photograph.

The mine shaft is around 30 minutes drive from my home in Plymouth so I left at around 10pm to arrive at the location at 10 30pm when the dusk light will have dissapeared reveiling the full extent of the stars above.

I arrived and parked my car on the farm access road and made my way up the hill to the disused tower to set my equipment up on the South facing side, facing North. As always, setting up the equipment was difficult with only torch light to help me so I had to be careful not to move things too far from where I was working as to not forget about them and lose them.

I decided to shoot my sample image as always and here it is below:

Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 4 minutes
Aperture: f4.0
ISO: 1600


The image shows that the standard period of time will be fine for exposing the full image stack, while I also used the sample image to check focusing and composition which I have changed slightly in the following image, show with the same settings, but just to check the composition was acceptable:


I was happy with this composition so I moved on to start the 8 minute exposure and then follow it with up to 20 4 minute exposures which wouldgive me some long star trails in the sky above:


Unfortunately around 20 minutes in, a quad bike made it's way straight through the image, so essentially meant I had to start over after seeing how this problem affected the Haytor images I produced. So I decided to continue with the 4 minute exposures for around 45 minutes, until i noticed a cloud drifting over from Plymouth towards the stars I was shooting, which was guaranteed to ruin the photograph. I took steps to try to complete my shoot by 12:30am as I predicted the cloud would take this long to approach.

I started by upping the ISO number to 200 instead of 100 and also shooting my 8 minute foreground exposure before I ran out of time!

Eventually the cloud made it's way over the composition and I was forced to stop shooting for the night, but I did manage to get enough photographs to work with so I was pleased I hadn't wasted 3 hours out on the freezing cold moorland.

Anyway below is a stacked image featuring all the photographs shot after the quad bike came through:


It is again, well composed but lacks any punch so I need to put it into photoshop and see if I can bring some more colour and kick out of the image through use of the different adjustment masks.

Photoshop
This section looks at how I edited the final image above into something with much more depth and colour rather than just the ambient lighting in the background, so here is how I did it all :)


Curves
I again used the Curves adjustment to increase contrast within the image and bring out the deep blue in the sky as well as bring out details in the building, all these changes gave the photograph more depth and clarity than before:


Hue/Saturation
I used this adjustment to knock out some of the Red in the photograph, as the ambient light took on a different tone than previously in other photo shoots. So I went ahead and reduced the saturation of the Red channel to -60 reducing the incredible colour cast on the whole image:


Again I did some changes with the Blue channel and increased the saturation in the blues, although this wasn't required as much, due to the changes in Contrast which I made earlier:


Final Image
Below is the final image! the result of the editing above which is clearly very different to my initial stacked image from earlier.

I am very happy with it's appearance since I have edited the image as the stars now stand out but still sit behind the silhouette of the old pumping station, so they aren't too prominent, they appear about the same as the building.

I really like how the shape of the building adds mystery to the photograph and how there are no lights in the building, clearly showing that it is lonely and derelict in the mass expanse of the moorland around us.

The star trails behind the building show how the structure stands through time without any change, even the 'slouch' in the chimney will probably remain for hundreds of years to come before it finally falls down. But my image does lead the viewer to think about time and how many photographs don't capture it... if you would like to know more about this, take a look at my blog entry about Time :)

The composition also follws in line with the previous image of Hound Tor where the foreground subject features on the right, with the star trails able to fill the other three corners of the image. I am aware of the continuity but I think it is important for my photographs to follow this rule because then they will portray a much stronger message.

Hound Tor 9th May 09

The sky was clear yet again so I packed up all my equipment and headed up onto the moor, this time I went over to Hound Tor, very near to Bowerman's Nose, in fact, from the top of the Tor I can imagine the Nose would be visible, although at 10pm not very much was visible to me.

Tonight I was also joined by Alex who helped carry a few of the bits and pieces up to the tor from the car park, we also brought some drinks and food to keep us busy while the photograph was being taken.

The video below discusses Hound Tor and the positioning of the camera and North Star:

For this photo shoot, I did bring a Hasselblad 500CM with me to try to get a photograph of the stars as well, I set the camera up with a 50mm wide angle lens which easily allowed me to get the whole rock face in which I could see with the Canon Digital Camera. I used another tripod to support this camera and loaded the film into the cassette at the back. More about this later.

Anyway firstly I shot some sample images with my digital camera to make sure the lighting and exposure were correct so that I could begin the long process of shooting for stacking.

Here are the tripods, one which has the Hasselblad on ready to shoot, while the other tripod was being used for the digital camera:


A closer image of the Hasselblad:


Sample Photos

Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 5 minutes
Aperture: f 4.0
ISO: 1600

This image was shot using the standard sample photo settings although it has been overexposed, all the details in the sky have been lost, while the composition of the foreground rock is quite poor, so this sample image gives me a chance to change these errors so the photos taken for the stack, will look the best they can:


I did a few variations on the standard 5 minute exposure to find out if I needed a slightly different setup. For the image below I used the following settings:

Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 4 minutes
Aperture: f4.0
ISO: 1600


These settings gave me a better image, which has also been edited in terms of composition, so that the rock is more prominent in the foreground of the image. I used the following table to understand how long the exposure would need to be, based on the ISO number:
ISO | Timescale
100 128 minutes
200 32 minutes
400 16 minutes
800 8 minutes
1600 4 minutes

For this particular photo shoot, I decided to go for the full 128 minute exposure time, as it wasn't too bad an evening and I believe it would be worth the time. As the moon was rising quickly I decided to get going with the stack images.

The video below briefly talks about how the Moon can have an effect on my image shooting throughout the night:

Starting the Shoot

As I am following some of the rules I read back in the article I added about stacking images, I shot an initial 8 minute exposure to give the foreground some more lighting which would help it stand out in the final stacked image at the end:

Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 8 minutes
Aperture: f4.5
ISO: 100

I went for the slightly smaller aperture to reduce the overall exposure slightly, as I still believe it is slightly overexposed according to the 4 minute test shot I did earlier.

After completing the 8 minute exposure, it was now time to continue with at least 15x4 minute exposures which would form the image stack later in Photoshop, here is a sample 4 minute image, bearing in mind the others look exactly the same except for a marginal star movement above:

The Hasselblad Medium Format Camera
I did try to use this camera while I was up at the rock, unfortunately it was just too difficult to get any decent results with the camera, I couldn't properly make out what was being framed in the focus square and I had to concentrate on the photos being taken with the digital camera, so unfortunately, I had to let the Hasselblad fall by the wayside as I concentrated on the digital camera. Although by no means do I think the Hasselblad isn't up to the job, I just think it requires more attention than I could give it, in order to produce an amazing photograph, I will still be using the medium format camera in the future to shoot star photographs.

As i sat and waited for the photographs to be taken, I was talking to Alex about the conditions on the night, they were excellent, exactly the right brightness, not too much interference from the moon as yet at least and it wasn't too windy or too cold for a change!
I also got talking to him about how it is such a timeless environment which isn't affected by time at all, the only way anyone can tell that my photos are shot over a long period of time, is how the stars rotate in the sky, as these photos can well be mistaken for photos taken during the daytime if they are overexposed. The idea of 'timeless photography' is being presented through my work as the artifacts I am using to act as foreground subjects, have stood for many years unchanged by any humans. The artifacts are protected for people in the future to enjoy, which leads me to consider how my photos could be seen in the future? Will they have a place in the future? Will we need photographs? I will look into this deeper in a Thoughts.. Blog entry after this one.

The Stacked Image
Now it is time to gather my images together and create an image stack with them. By using the exact same technique I mentioned earlier in the blog, i will proceed to add all the images into a single image:

Below is a contact sheet, showing all the images I shot on the night to make up the sample images and the stackable images:





The result of the stacking is shown above, a very dull and 2D image which is very well composed and exposed, but simply lacks any 'kick' and doesn't stand out, so this is where Photoshop comes in.

The image below has been edited using Photoshop, changes are described in more detail below the image:

Curves
Firstly I introduced a Curves Layer Mask to edit the contrast within the image, the print screen shows how I changed the Curves below:


I created a 'S' curve which heightens the contrast in the image giving it more 'punch' and depth than it previously had. I also selected the Blue Channel to further improve the contrast in the image and bring out the blue colour in the background of the image.

Levels
To increase the lighting in the photograph, which has been knocked out by the curves editing, I moved the right hand slider towards the left to increase the lighting in the image and give it some more depth:


Hue/Saturation
This also needed a little bit of work. Take a look at the original image and you ll be able to see the heavy yellow colour cast over the rock face, this is apparent in many of the shots I have taken on the moor and this is an easy way to correct it.

I used the Yellow colour channel and dropped the saturation of yellow out to zero and also gave the overall Master channel a slight drop in saturation as the colours just looked to 'over the top' or too punchy:


Final Image
Below is the image after the editing I did above, as you can see, I haven't changed or cropped any features in the image as I did my very best to make the composition the way I wanted it to be, on location.


This image shows how the technique of stacking has come into it's own and given me this amazing image!
I am very impressed with this result and I am also glad I didn't leave it as it was and that I did have a go at trying to change the image with Photoshop.
I love how the deep blue sky above contrasts with the rock formation and also how the white star trails are very punchy and stand out in the void that is the sky at night.

The composition is the best it could be, if the image included anymore of the ground, it would reduce the effect of the vortex above and if there was to be any less of the Tor, it would have the illusion of floating in the foreground of the image which would also look incorrect.

This image has really inspired me that star photography is possible. I have had many setbacks such as the shoot at Bowerman's which failed due to the camera steaming up, this really deflated my hopes of ever getting a decent image, but since shooting this image I have high hopes for the next several weeks when I will try to get some more equally amazing images.

The Barbican, Plymouth 6th May 09

As a totally separate project, I decided to visit the Barbican, which is a location in Plymouth near the Hoe and also the harbour. The reasoning behind wanting to visit this location is because I have been considering how my star photography could be related to activities in the centre of a metropolitan area. Basically so the two completely different settings would contrast with each other and create a good mix of night time photography to show in my final show in Summer 2009.

With these images I wanted to show built up areas with all their artificial lighting still feature the massive expanse of space above which is largely unexplored by us, while we all go about our daily lives in these small areas such as on the Barbican in Plymouth.

As for composition, these photographs would again be shot in a portrait style with the sky above featuring in at least 1/3 of the image and the port area featuring in the bottom proportion. The area of man-made structures will feature many artificial light sources such as lamp posts, interior lighting and other light sources on at the time.

Here are some of the images which I shot to try to get to grips with how the idea would pan out:

Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 10 seconds
Aperture: f8.0
ISO: 100

This image only shows the buildings and the artificial lighting being produced by them, which doesn't show the expanse of the sky above, so doesn't fulfill the idea I discussed above:


Whereas the image below, does begin to fulfil the idea as the moon can be seen drifting in and out from the cloud cover above while the foreground subject is overexposed due to the ambient light, so getting a photograph which makes the most of both the sky and the foreground is difficult:


Composition
I did decide to move the camera slightly to make the most of some foreground interest which I found nearby, in the shape of these railing shown in the photograph below:


Having shot the photograph, I found it very difficult to get a medium exposure which took into account the foreground and background of the image, as now it featured three different elements: the railings, the buildings and the sky.

With the image below, I tried to bring out the details in the sky by capturing the moon when it appeared from behind the cloud and followed it through till it went behind the clouds again:


Then for my final attempt, I allowed the shutter to stay open for a little longer to get more detail amongst the clouds above giving me this effect below:


The Vibe Cafe/Bar
I decided to move locations and see what I could get from a slightly different angle, I found this bar a little way from where I was originally stood which gave off a different lighting than your normal orange glow so made about composing it into an image with the moon in the background:


I tried some different photographs as shown above, which were taken from the bottom of a stairway outside the bar, I really do like the composition in the photograph but I just can't see now how it would work with my star trail photography, it is completely different.

Unfortunately with these photographs taken on the Barbican in Plymouth, i couldn't really see how they would fit with my other images of the star trails, so I have decided to cease my development of this idea as it simply doesn't sit alongside my star trail photography. I may well choose to look at this in the future as I can see, with a little more work, I can produce some good images here, however for now I am going to stick with my star trails to make sure my project doesn't lead off on a tangent.

Haytor Star photography 3rd May 09

I decided to try a slightly different location than Bowerman's or the Hound Tor area by going for the most popular visitor's site of Haytor. I discussed Haytor as a possible site for photography in my previous blog entry ' Choosing the Foreground Subject' which me
ntions Haytor's popularity and also whereabouts it is.

So I set off at around 9:30pm to make it up to the moor for around 10pm, I set about looking for a decent angle to photograph the rocks, but one problem I found was that I simply couldn't compose the 'sisters' of the rock, the East to West sides which make the rock recognisable as Haytor. Unfortunately this view could not be composed into my image as I needed to look North, so one irritating problem to deal with there.

I solved the problem by finding a particularly interesting trail of rocks which lead the eye to the top of the Haytor rock, as you will see in my sample images and the more final ones; I have tried to create a pathway which leads the viewer's eye straight into the vortex which will be the star trails above.

Anyway here are some of my photographs from the location with detail about the photographs:

The image below is my standard sample photograph, which I used to get an idea of the lighting conditions on the night. I can clearly see that it is overexposed to a massive extent, where the rocks look like they are being lit in a daylight scene, which is not the effect I wanted. Unfortunately there was a pretty much full moon on the night which didn't help as far as lighting was concerned.


Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 5 minutes
Aperture: f 4.0
ISO: 1600

As these images were going to be part of the new technique called 'stacking' which I have researched in the previous blog entry, I will be shooting an initial exposure at 8 minutes in length which will be followed with as many 4 minute exposures that the conditions would allow, variables such as battery life, cloud cover and appearance of other light sources are among some issues which could arise throughout.

So firstly I shot the 8 minute exposure, the purpose of this image is to give the foreground subject some lighting, as the moon was out it did come in handy to give the rock a decent all round covering of light.

The idea behind the stacking process is to try to reduce noise within the photographs and also help to prevent external light sources from ruining a photograph, as if a person walks into shot with a torch, the exposure in which this person is, can be knocked out of the stack, whereas in a singular image, this would completely ruin the photograph and would mean the waste of around an hour's work.

Here is the first 8 minute exposure:


Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 8 minutes
Aperture: f 4.0
ISO: 200

I have kept the aperture at f4.0 to make sure the maximum amount of light will enter the camera and as a result, the foreground will be lit brightly and accurately, as for the ISO number, I have dropped this to ISO 200 to reduce noise in the image as it will eventually be stacked with many other images, so additional 'lighting' from the foreground of the other images, will supplement this image.

The image above makes the most of the composition which is possible at Haytor when looking North at least and the exposure of the image is about spot on to what I want the final image to look like, except I will stack many more images with additional star trails in them.

After successfully shooting the slightly extended exposure above, I set about shooting the 4 minute exposures; I wanted around 10 - 15 of these to make a decent star trail, here are a few selected images:

This image was shot for 4 minutes, but I did change the aperture setting to f6.3 hoping to reduce the effects of the ambient lighting from the moon which appears to have worked in this example, although it is a little dark, when stacked with other images, it should appear correctly exposed:


The image below shows exactly what can happen during one of these photoshoots, dam people with torches! Saying 'Oh what's that over there?? lets point the torch straight at the camera to find out!'. Fortunately these people didn't stay for long, they realised it was freezing and left like sensible people while I stayed to capture some more star trails.

If I was shooting a long exposure, single image at this time, the image would be completely ruined, however because I was shooting short images for stacking, I decided to continue and see if I could shoot enough images afterwards to make an image which would exclude the images with the torch trails:


Photo Factfile
Shutter speed: 4 minutes
Aperture: f6.3
ISO: 200

Below is a contact sheet from the whole shoot, which shows all the different photographs which I shot on the evening. You will see that many of them are the same as they are shot with exactly the same timeframes in mind to gradually build up the star trails to a final stacked image, which will also be featured here:


Below is a stacked image consisting of all the images which were shot prior to the knowledge of the torch beam being pointed at the camera:


Evaluation and a final Image

As for the shoot overall, it didn't go too well, firstly because of the lighting conditions. These were hindered by the incredible brightness of the moon, which caused photos to overexpose very quickly and as there were clouds in the sky, the moon would go behind them every now and again, making it incredibly difficult to check how long to expose an image for.

The second issue I had was with the people going onto the Tor around 30 minutes after I started shooting, which ruined many of the shots I took at the initial stages for the image stack. Although they arrived, I still managed to pull an image out which is usful for my project as shown below:

About the Image
This image has been edited to become the above result, firstly the image was stacked using 16 images shot on the night, including the ones with the annoying torch light in them, I used the normal stacking technique to do this by opening the files into the statistics window, then the image appeared as a mash of all the CR2 (RAW) photographs which I took.

When complete, the whole stack is shown as a Smart Object, to which I am in Photoshop, then click (Layer>Flatten Image) to make the stack become a static 'Background' on which I can work.

Photoshop Changes

Below shows the slight alteration with the Levels Adjustment Layer, where I moved the right hand slider inward to increase the lighting for the picture as a whole:


The next image shows a screenshot of the alterations I did in the Curves Adjustment Layer. Here I created some more contrast in the image by dropping the line to a lower position, I also went into the Channel Selector and chose Blue, to which I did the same to increase the saturation of blue in the image itself:


Next I used the Hue/Saturation Layer to remove the bad yellow colour cast on the rock face as it distracts from the sky above, I removed it by reducing the saturation to zero:


Cloning
The most important step was to remove those unsightly torch markings that can clearly be seen in the stacked image higher up the page. I simply used the Clone Stamp tool to remove the sources of light from the image, although being a fairly tedious task, it is worth it to get the final resultant image which may not have come about if I hadn't persevered and used the potentially ruined images.

Conclusion of the photo shoot
The shoot as a whole was pretty difficult for me, but did inspire me to continue with my work as I did see several shooting stars out in the sky, which gives me that interest to keep going and stay on the moor for longer and capture a truly amazing image.

I believe I now have the technique nailed, I just need to work on composition and make sure to visit the moor on a good clear night with minimal ambient light, then I should be able to produce an amazing image for my project.

Bring on the next photo shoot!

Bowerman's Nose Shoot 30th April 09

I decided to visit Bowerman's Nose for another photo shoot, to see if I could further improve on the photo shoot I did several weeks ago on the 4th.
I left for Dartmoor at around 10pm to arrive at Bowerman's for around 10:40pm to set up all the equipment I needed to take the photographs, I began by checking all of my equipment to make sure it was all charged and ready to use.
Unfortunately the night was particularly cold, much colder than the previous night I visited the Nose, so my equipment did suffer from the rapid change in temperature.

Here is a sample photo I shot on location:


Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 5 minutes
Aperture: f 4.0
ISO: 1600

I found the light situation to be very different on the night, as it gave this photograph, which was shot at exactly the same settings as the one I did previously at Bowerman's Nose around 3 weeks before, so clearly another element of light had a play in this result.

The Moon
The moon was out when I visited this time which has clearly had an effect on both the foreground subject lighting and the exposure of the star trails, as a result I had to alter some settings to enable a good photograph to still be taken, and make the most of the excellent evening conditions.

Photograph 2
For this one I made a few changes to the initial sample photo settings as the image was overexposed, so I knocked a minute off the total exposure time and went for another try, here is what I shot:


Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 4 Minutes
Aperture: f 4.0
ISO: 1600

The exposure has improved since I dropped the shutter speed back to 4 minutes although the moon is still causing the star trails above to become dimmer and not stand out as much as they did on my initial visit.

Anyway I decided to go for a longer exposure and see what sort of result I could get:



Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 12 minutes
Aperture: f 8.0
ISO: 1600

I wanted to do another test to see if closing the aperture slightly would help to reduce the ambient light which was in the sky due to the moon being to the left as this time.
After looking at the image above, I can see that it would be difficult to try to reduce the effects of the ambient lighting and that the aperture changes are just making the process take longer, rather than reduce any impact of ambient lighting.

Photograph 3
As for the next photograph, I decided to revert back to the standard f 4.0 setting to allow as much light into the camera as possible so I could see many more star trails above, the photo below was shot at these settings:


Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 35 minutes
Aperture: f 4.0
ISO: 200

This photo can't be used for any presentation unfortunately, because the camera misted up while shooting the image, as the temperature dropped away so much after dusk, the camera steamed up and produced this image.

As for the calculations for ISO and shutter speed, these are shown below:

ISO |Timescale
100 80 minutes
200 40 minutes
400 20 minutes
800 10 minutes
1600 5 minutes

I decided to go for the 40 minute wait time as I was concerned about the longevity of my battery due to the cold conditions, however after remembering how over exposed the initial photograph was that I did for 5 minutes, I decided to cut the exposure short to 35 minutes, to try to prevent any overexposure in the image.

Unfortunately when i went to review this image, I saw the misty image and put the shoot down to an experience building exercise as the image was/is useless to me.

This is how the camera looked afterwards:


Evaluation of the Shoot

As for the composition of these images, the previous Bowerman's images do have the edge, because of the reasons I discussed in that blog entry but these ones here, simply do not present the Nose in the correct position, so I am going to look back at my other photographs and attempt some different locations with a new technique.

I will also be taking temperature more seriously now by getting my camera ready for the low temperatures by loading it into the boot of my car around 2 hours before I head out on a photo shoot.

As for the photo shoot as a whole, it didn't go very well, it was too cold for the camera and the composition was poor so the image didn't come out to the standard that I wanted, so I am just going to write it off as an exercise, as it was still useful to me to build my knowledge and skill of star photography.

Wheal Betsy, Mary Tavy Recce Shoot 31st April 09

I have only known about this building since around February time when I drove to Barnstaple from Plymouth directly, by using the A386 North to Okehampton, I travelled to Barnstaple as planned but on the way back I spotted this amazing structure just off the side of the A386 as I headed into Mary Tavy.

Anyway I decided to do a bit of background research into the building to find out what it was,why it was there and more importantly, if it would work well as a foreground subject for my star photography.

History
The pumping station called Wheal Betsy, was believed to have opened in 1740 and worked land in a surrounding 3/4 mile radius, yielding lead, zinc and large amounts of silver. Smelting occurred on site to separate the silver from the other impurities, which after a great deal of smelting, silver was left in the base of the 'hearth'. Smelting is a very complicated and 'energy hungry' process which lead to the burning of peat from the surrounding area. Although it was worthwhile as the silver from the area was plentiful and of a good quality.

The mine closed in the late 1700s and then was re opened in the 1800s and begun to produce more silver and other minerals, although the second time around, profits were fluctuating and dropped to an all time low in 1877 which meant the mine was closed for good.

Unfortunately much of the workings were demolished when the site was given over to the army in 1954, but thankfully due to some protesting by A.K Hamilton Jenkin and some other campaigners, the site at Wheal Betsy was saved and taken care of to this day by The National Trust.

Background information: www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk

The photographs

These are a few from the Legendary Dartmoor Website, as they give more general views of the surrounding area as opposed to my close up recce shots lower down:

The image below shows the quite significant lean on the chinmey stack, as is also shown in my recce images:


This image shows the surrounding landscape which consists of many trenchs and gravel stores where old pieces of machinery used to stand in the past:


The image below shows an OS map from 1888/1893 which clearly shows all the different buildings and the main road (A386) which runs to the West of the mine:


My Recce Photographs

Now it's time to take a look at my recce photographs from the site and see whether the old pumping station fits my requirements for a foreground subject:

The photograph below shows Wheal Betsy looking North West, it clearly shows that the building is a skeleton and has no construction inside the outer walls; from this angle, the leaning chimney cannot clearly be seen:


The image below shows the extent of the leaning chimney and how precarious it looks, when I was there, I didn't even notice the chimney, then I looked up and saw the lean on it and thought it was going to fall! but luckily it didn't, as it has been this way for years, anyway in this photo I wanted to see how the building would look as a silhouette on the background and it does look very effective, possibly some food for thought when I consider a main shoot at this location:


Another silhouette image but this time the moon is featured in the background; looking completely the wrong way for a night shot, but as the stars were being momentarily covered by clouds, I decided to see how the moon would look in an image featuring the view looking South West of the tower:


This image shows the chimney from a close up angle, the lean can clearly be seen above. But I did take this image to get more of an idea of how the texture of the surface would work with the lighting conditions, bearing in mind, these shots were taken at dusk, they do not represent how the light would reflect from the building, at the sort of time I would shoot photographs:


Was the Recce Useful?
The recce was extremely useful, as I have never physically visited the mine before today, I had only seen it from the main road so it was certainly useful to see how far it was from the road and also check for some decent angles and compositions in which to place the tower.
Whilst visiting the site, it did have a certain degree of 'spookiness' to it, which was quite interesting as it was only a building, however the shape of it and position does give an idea of some sort of haunted building or something, which gave the building a little bit more of a mysterious feel to it.

As for composition material, I felt confident that the tower would act as an excellent foreground subject, which would work well with the star trails to be composed in the background. I couldn't see a perfect location to place my camera, so I decided it would be best to consider this on the night as it will become quickly apparent as to where my camera should be positioned; on the Southern face looking North.

I worked out a decent place to park which wouldn't involve leaving my car at the side of the busy A386, as there is a little farm on the neighbouring slope to the tower with a road leading to it, near the base of the hill there was a good space to park my car safely.