Pillars of the Stellar Community, chasing landscapes in the night

I've been a bit quiet on Hive lately thinking I don't have much content to make a post. Turns out I may have been wrong; I have been visiting quite a few places near-ish to me and I seem to have a boat load of night landscape images.

This is a slightly random collection of recently shot images at night. I don't normally have a plan when I go out in the dark and I like to make things up as I go. I find that turning up with a rigid idea of what I want leads to a lack of creativity on the scene and more often than not I come back with a photograph I end up being disappointed by. Better to be spontaneous and react to the surroundings and take it from there.

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Pillars of the Stellar Community

Plan A was clouded over so a quick search on Google Maps informed me Harboro Rocks was only 20 minutes away and seemingly with clear skies.

We arrived in plenty of time just before nightfall and set up for this shot with a spot of lighting from two LED panels.

This is 56 x 30 second exposures at f2.8 and ISO 320.

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Birchinlee Viaduct, exposed

A great night out this evening with friends, one of which is particularly handy with a drone. This is a railway viaduct normally submerged in the middle of a reservoir but with drought conditions through the summer, the pillars became exposed.

The Birchinlee Viaduct, also known as the Ouzelden Viaduct, was a temporary wooden railway viaduct built in the Upper Derwent Valley to serve the construction of the Howden and Derwent dams in the early 20th century. While the village of Birchinlee that housed the construction workers has been submerged by the reservoir, the remains of the wooden viaduct, including stone supports and wooden piers, are occasionally visible during periods of severe drought when water levels in the Derwent Reservoir drop significantly.

This is lit with a combination of drone light and moon light.

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Rockley Engine Tower

This was my first visit in the dark to the overgrown Rockley Engine Tower in South Yorkshire. It wasn't easy to light being surrounded by the green stuff.

Rockley Engine Tower once housed an early 19th century Newcomen atmospheric steam engine for pumping water out of an ironstone mine. The tower is a scheduled ancient monument.

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A view never to be seen again

A month or so ago, these cooling towers at Cottam Power Station in Nottinghamshire were blown up in the name of the environment. Never again will I be able to shoot this view!

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North Leverton Lighthouse

The title here is a bit of a mistake. We visited this working flour mill in the dark and for some unknown reason, probably due to age and senility, I kept on referring to the mill as a lighthouse. But with the full moon as it was, I may not have been wrong when I lined up the moon over the mill (and not lighthouse)

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Beacon

The Aurora forecasts weren't looking great and I wasn't expecting to catch any colour at all. So it was a nice surprise to catch a bit of pink / red diffuse glow with the beacon as foreground interest.

Shot last night well after midnight on the cliffs at Flamborough Head in East Yorkshire.

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Flamborough Lighthouse Rays

I've shot this lighthouse many times but never seemed to have captured decent rays. This time there was just enough vapour in the air to create the haze. Pity about the clouds...

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Flamborough Aurora Borealis Panorama, August 2024

Just occasionally I learn something new in Photoshop. I dug out 7 images of a vertical panorama from last year's fabulous Aurora and reprocessed them using what I learned. And as I write this, I can't remember what I learned, oh well!!

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Monolithic Nights

I spotted these 2 metre + concrete pillars on a rare daylight trip to the coast and knew I needed to return in the dark. The pillars reminded me of the monolith from the 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. The only thing missing in the shot is the monkey since he was stood behind the camera!

The pillars were once part of the Chain Holme Radar System dating back to WW2.

This is not the shot I was going for but due to the gusty winds I settled for this.

A great night out in the dark alone in the middle of nowhere on the edge of a cliff.

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About me:

I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in landscape, urbex and artistic model photography. I like to collaborate with other photographers and occasionally shoot outside my comfort zone.

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