Night Moves - Photographing the Blue Hour

Venus and the Milky Way shine bright over the pine uplands in Everglades National Park.
Titled "Into the Dream" - Photo © Mac Stone

Lately, I've been enjoying spending longer hours outdoors, shooting well after dusk and painfully many hours before sunrise. The cool tones of a cold night under skies peppered with millions of celestial bodies brings us into a world that is today too commonly choked out by unfeeling fluorescence. Photographing these nightscapes has doubled the size of my artistic palette while also incentivizing me to strive for multi-day trips.

By packing up our cameras after sunset, we're missing out on the most magical hours to be outside. When I was growing up, the main course of swimming and paddling was only made sweeter by the dessert of campfires, stars, and rumbling thunderstorms. At the edge of night I feel alive, and in some places chewed alive by mosquitoes. But no matter what the case, it's always worth clicking a few more frames.

In the Everglades, the difference between late afternoon and early evening can change the tone, mood, and structure of an image entirely. Photo © Mac Stone

For this image, I kept my shutter open for 30 seconds and shot at f/3.5 ISO 1250. Photo © Mac Stone

This image was really tricky to make. I was photographing this composition in Everglades National Park just as the storm was splitting apart, meaning that there were probably only a few more good strikes left to capture. I knew I wanted the reflection in the water to complete the image, but if I kept my shutter open for too long then the image would blow out once the streaks of lightning came. So, to account for this, I dramatically underexposed and consecutively took 30-second images at f/8 ISO 2500, essentially exposing for the lightning which I had to guess would be 4 stops brighter than mid tone. It took about 8 frames of total black before this powerful strike made the image, exposing perfectly. Sometime you get lucky, I guess. Photo © Mac Stone

Great egrets roost along pond cypress in Everglades National Park. Photo © Mac Stone

Camping on East Cape in Everglades National Park at the fringe of a storm. Photo © Mac Stone

A full moon lights up a cypress tree in North Central Florida just before dawn. Photo © Mac Stone

Of course things are always harder at night. While leaving Everglades National Park after shooting "Into the Dream" a rear tire blew on a loaner car. Still, not missing a beat I changed the tire and managed to make some lemonade out of this lemon of a situation. Lesson: there's always an image to make. Photo © Mac Stone

Power Struggle

"Power Struggle" - South Park Key in Florida Bay

In the still of a mauve morning, the full moon sets over the Bob Keys and a storm lingers in the west. During the blue hour of twilight, a dramatic tension fills the air as night reluctantly succumbs to the day. "Power Struggle," is the newest image to go into my Florida Bay portfolio and I can't wait to see it in a bigger format!

Frazier Springfield works a mangrove cluster at South Park

I made this image while a couple photographer friends were visiting for the weekend. Wanting a chance to shoot early morning light with mangroves and a setting full moon we boated out at 5:00 AM from Islamorada to get to our location. Since it was pitch black, finding the banks and cuts was a little difficult but we managed to make it to South Park Key at just the right time. I felt so lucky to have a full moon, lightning, morning light, and mangroves in the same image.

The predawn ambiance was spectacular and we treaded lightly through the flats spooking lemon sharks that trolled the shallow water. It was an easy place to feel overwhelmed since there are simply thousands of potential images but recently I've been trying to lock in on my spot and work it until it sings. It certainly paid off this time.