2015 52 Week Project // Week 19: Happy Accidents (With Before & After)

So, just so everyone is clear: none of the elements in this photo are added in Photoshop. What you're seeing above, is what came straight out of the camera, and what was the result of some super simple color and exposure adjustments in Lightroom.

Crazy, right?

Astrophotography definitely isn't my profession, and compared to the people who do it full time, I'm not nearly as good as they are. However, I'm never unimpressed when I venture out to shoot the sky. 

Last weekend, I spent the day photographing a friend's car. The last shot I had planned was to take it out to Greenbluff, where there would be minimal light pollution, and do some shots of it under the stars. We brought Jasmina along with us, and so when I'd gotten a few shots of the car that I liked, we decided to play around with some portraits. 

This final shot is only made with the following items: a camera, a tripod, and a flashlight. That's literally it. I had my shots running at 30 second exposures, and so I asked Jasmina to shine her flashlight up at the sky and hold still for a half a minute. The results were insane! It actually is that easy to take amazing shots at night!

On top of this, we watched the moon rise. Yes, people, that is a real thing, and its one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Out of nowhere, this huge, orange moon began to appear over the horizon and I didn't even have words to form to describe how awesome it was. Such a cool moment!

We had a ton of fun playing around with the moon and the flashlight, and we even experimented with throwing some dust and dirt around, trying to create other cool effects. This is what photography is all about; expanding your creativity and having fun doing so! I love shooting the stars, and what I love even more is doing it with people who can share the excitement.

Here's one of me holding the moon!

With all that said, I hope you all have been enjoying my project so far. This weeks portrait was a little different, but I want to start branching out my shots to involve something other than just fashion or lifestyle. The whole idea was to push myself this year, and since I decided I wouldn't be able to shoot 52 different people, it's time to breathe some new life into this thing, and bring in some different stuff! They will continue to all hold the the common theme of being portraits, but get excited to see some different stuff coming your way.