2015 by Sean_Bagshaw

Here's my first photo of 2015. I was back at the beach for New Years. A bright moon was out and the Milky Way wasn't visible, but I did find a meticulously crafted maze someone had left in the sand. For scale, I'd say it was 70 or 80 feet across. I knew with a long enough exposure in the moonlight that the maze would show up but not stand out. I decided to set up the camera with the shutter open while I walked the maze with my flashlight pointed at the ground. I hoped that this would produce a sci-fi effect and also help the maze pattern stand out. It took me several minutes to walk the entire maze. On my first few attempts I would get off course in the dark. When I did finally succeed on walking the entire maze without a mistake I found that one section was a closed loop so I didn't walk there and it didn't get illuminated. My solution was to take another exposure walking just the closed loop so I could later blend it in for an uninterrupted illuminated path. If you look closely you will see small gaps in the light path. This is where my legs blocked the light momentarily. I also took a separate 20 second exposure to use for the sky. The longer exposures featured short star trails that didn't really look right. This entire process took about an hour and I was racing against the incoming tide. Shortly after I completed my exposures the waves began erasing the maze and by morning it was completely gone. It was a bit of luck to find the maze so thanks to whoever made it. Certainly a memorable way to bring in the new year. My camera settings for the long exposure were f/6.3 at ISO 200 and the shutter was open for about six minutes while I walked the maze. via 500px http://ift.tt/1y8A7i5