Welcome to another Nightscape Photographer featured image. This week we are featuring Ginnie Allwoods, Ant Night shift, I saw this image when Ginnie shared it to the Nightscape Photographers Australia Facebook group and thought it would make a great feature image and maybe get a few peoples creative juices flowing, all is not what it seems!
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Title: Ant Nightshift
Photographer: Ginnie Allwood
Location: Far North West NSW, near Tibooburra
Equipment used:
- Camera: Sony A7ii
- Lens: Sony 55mm f/1.8.
Settings: f/1.8 55mm 25sec ISO640
About the image:
There are lots of ways to shoot the night sky and I was keen to try something different, capturing the stars as bokeh rather than pinpoints or trails.
On a two week outback camping trip, I set this as one of my goals. The challenge was finding an interesting subject as the focus with the bokeh stars as a backdrop. Over a few nights I tried trees and stumps and stubby holders but I wasn’t excited about the results. Then I found this 4 inch metal ant in Broken Hill – it’s taken from Pro Hart’s work, which is fabulous and so fitting for the location.
On this particular evening the moon was very bright so Milky Way shots had to wait until the early morning. My travelling companions were gathered around the campfire a few hundred metres away, calling out every now and then to make sure I was still alive in the freezing desert. I found a tree that had branches that were good dimensions for the four inch metal ant and set up my tripod. I tried placing my ant in various locations above my head until I was happy with the background. The lens was wide open and pointing directly at the stars to get the bokeh effect, and the ant was in sharp (manual) focus. My favourite comments on social media were “How did you get the ant to stay still for 20 seconds?” and “National Geographic cover” and “Can I be your manager?” Clearly the illusion was a good one!
Once it was set up, it was a simple shot – because of the moon, I didn’t need to use much lighting – just a quick flash of a torch with an amber gel cover. I could just take one shot, so the picture has a very natural look – just an ant out doing the food collection night shift.
Social Media: Ginnie Allwood – @soulfire_images (Instagram)
Ginnie Allwood (image supplied by Ginnie)
I would like to thank Ginnie Allwood for allowing me to share her work here. Ant Night Shift really is a fascinating image and had me fooled the first time I saw it, yep I thought it was real too, Great work Ginnie!
Please support Ginnie by heading over to her social media and following her and supporting her work.
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Related links:
Basic night sky photography – how to
Focussing on the stars – obtaining sharp focus
Lens choice for night sky photography
