Star Trails over India, a photo from Uttarakhand, Nord

Photographer's Note

Not expected, eh? Sure, star trails over Namibia or Nevada, and colourful ghats or dramatic sadhus in India, fine. But what's this? Perhaps we need to break stereotypes in photography.

Take TWAN (the world at night) for example. It's a slightly different community of photographers - they use night landscape photography to show that we (yes, all 6 billion of us) do indeed live on the same spinning glob of dirt. To quote Sagan, "the earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena".

But back to the picture. This took approximately 240 exposures, each 30 seconds long (or a total of 2 hours). I've run a batch process to add all the exposures into one single photograph. The pole star is directly behind the tree up the slope from which I took the exposures. The streaks of red light at the bottom left are villagers (or rather, their torches) descending from a nearby village to see a local production of the Ramayana, just down the hill. The general blueish light is from the leftover light from the sunset.

Hellas, cherryripe, JT50, emjleclercq, stefpat, Angshu, CLODO, pasternak, lucasgalodoido, balmikib, chandrapranil, svefay, prashantprabhu trouve(nt) cette note utile

Critiques | Translate

DavorSt (123) 2009-11-13 18:32

Really amazing. Compliments!

Hellas (7123) 2009-11-13 22:47

Fantastic work, amazing result!

The movement of the stars was written perfectly and made terrific curves on the empyrean.

You put your ideas into practice! Perhaps an issue from your studies!

Congratulations!

Buin (42580) 2009-11-14 0:49

Haloo Biswaroop!
Fascinating, really fascinating! What a magnificence!
A fancy and most impressive photo - and technically perfect!
Greetings from autumnal Germany!
Frank

zoomer (6) 2009-11-14 16:11

Congratulations,this is great.You created the impression of island earth being the calm center of a whirling universe.Best regards Wolf.

Dashab (2564) 2009-11-15 2:13

Hello Biswaroop,
You got an amazing result! Love how the centre of the circles is in the bush on the right, with the stars "raining" on the rest of the shot. I admire your patience, sitting there for 2 hours!
TFS and have a nice day, Dasha

cherryripe (21033) 2009-11-15 4:56

Hi Biswaroop
Brilliantly done. I like the combination of the star strails and headlight trails. The trees balance the image nicely too.
Regards
Nikki

Bartleby (13552) 2009-11-15 5:32

Hi,
amazing effect here! This must have been tricky to achieve. good job!

Philippe

JT50 (1491) 2009-11-15 8:43

Hi Biswaroop,
Great creativity here. Woderfull image.
I know a photographer who left his film
based camera one whole winter night
outside with the open aperture to obtain
the same effect. You must have great
patience. Well done.
Have a nice week.
Janak

prashant29 (114) 2009-11-15 23:42

Hello Biswaroop !
So different a thought, such hard an effort...and so outstanding results ! This is wonderful and very interesting note as well. Congratulation !

Rgds / Prashant

emjleclercq (15778) 2009-11-27 23:48

A very interesting result for this patient work. I did not know you could merge so many pictures together.

All the best,

Emmanuel

imaginglife (238) 2009-12-05 1:14

Hi Biswaroop,

Hats off to you for such a fascinating shot. I am really spellbound. Would like to learn these tricks from you. Let me know next time when you come to india. my mail id is [email protected]

Regards
Udayaditya

Angshu (56760) 2009-12-06 7:45

Hello Biswaroop
240 exposures each of 30 seconds, all merged into one single shot! A Herculean effort and the result is superb. Quite amazing what I think is an example of time lapse photography. The lights from the villages seem to be an amalgamation of burning torches. Mindblowing stuff...Chitrakavya...poetry in picture, truly!
Regards
Angshu

sagar (2410) 2009-12-07 0:23

Hi Biswaroop,
This is gotta be one of the best shots I have seen in TE, and remember, I am not very new here!! Infact, it is TE from where I learnt that something called a 'star trail' exist, and this one supremely surpasses every other photo I have seen of this genre! Absoloutely fascinating nocturnal photography...enigmatic...enchanting..and glorious!
Regards,
Sagarneel.

dwaipayan0 (165) 2009-12-08 22:19

amezing...amezing...amezing
natural lighting, just FATAFATI
regards
dwaipayan

thrpy (46) 2009-12-10 10:44 [Comment]

Show Comment

eversmile (11636) 2009-12-11 6:51

Hi Biswaroop!

Awesome! And a composition of genius, with great inventiveness (and patience) in the post-processing. The result is breathtaking. I love it. So, the note, with an unexpected quote of Sagan. To which I would like to add: "The memory is as much a liar than the imagination, but far more dangerous, with its studious look"...lol... Congratulations!!!
Regards
Marine

CLODO (45116) 2009-12-11 7:48

Hello Biswaroop
My congratulations for these stunning shots assembled in one marvelous picture.
Hats off
Cheers
CLODO

Waylim (25436) 2009-12-11 10:31

Hi Biswaroop,
Wonderful effect and great result of your effort. I look wonderful and dream like quality. Congratulations.

This photo makes me think of Edward Munch's painting.

Thanks.

macjake (98262) 2009-12-13 12:39

Hello Biswaroop

Such a unique and interesting piece of work. The time you spent to create this was well worth the effort.
Very impressive star effect.
we don't see this very often.
Have a great day
Craig

devil_lips63 (169) 2009-12-17 10:53 [Comment]

Show Comment

pasternak (15185) 2009-12-23 2:13

Excellent, what an effort put into this photograph, and what a result! Very clever to combine multiple 30 sec exposures instead of a one long exposure.

Cheers
A

mkgoyal2004 (837) 2009-12-31 22:46

Hi Biswaroop,

This is a special shot, which is not expected from an ordinary photographer. To shoot stars and moon is very difficult and you should have lot of knowledge about the aperture and shutter speed. Well done. Excellent shot.

I wish you a very Happy New Year.

lucasgalodoido (27698) 2010-01-09 18:06

Hi Biswaroop,
impressive this shot, and PP, and the star movement effect was perfect. Great job!
Regards,
Lucas

Silvio1953 (220779) 2010-01-11 6:41

Ciao Biswaroop, fantastic work with amazing view of sky, I like a lot rotating stairs, superb multiple exposure, splendid light and colors, very well done, ciao Silvio

oveis_gh (59) 2010-01-11 7:01

Hi,
amazing effect here! This must have been tricky to achieve.

Congratulations to you
because Register of this work

CyrilleGrillere (425) 2010-01-12 1:05

Superbe image! le mouvement des étoiles est parfaitement réalisé!

balmikib (251) 2010-01-12 10:19

dada.......take a bow!!!! for me,this is among top 10 on TE in terms of creativity.

regards

baalmiki

mattharvey1 (1044) 2010-04-10 5:19

Hey Biswaroop - I have also been experimenting with star trails but living in London it can be a trickyt excersise to capture them due to light pollution. You have put in a great deal of time and dedication to get this shot which is really great.
The only thing I would say is that you almost have too many stars in it if that makes sense ? Maybe there is a way of making the streaks sharper as they seem to merge into each other in the brighter spots.

It's still fantastic though and gives me inspiration to try this some more..

Best Regards

Matt

tulsyan (10) 2010-04-23 8:16

Beautiful photo, all the hard work definitely paid off..
not that i understand how you did it..
reminds of Starry Night by Van Gogh

tusharkmandal (3173) 2010-07-25 0:13

Hi Biswaroop,

Very creative work. You have a lot of patience as well to get the final results. The results are obvious nice and very soothing.

TFS
Tushar

angelheart (475) 2010-10-05 12:31

Great- really fascinating! fancy and impressive photo - and technically perfect!
lu

eenabotravel (175) 2010-10-12 0:24

Wow! What an amazing photo! I haven't seen anything like this before. You did a great job, Biswaroop, and the result inspires me to try it myself!
Thanks for sharing.
Greetings,
Irina

svefay (810) 2010-10-12 0:39

good job, bravo...