“405 Exposure” photo copyright Luke Vanderbroek
“405 Exposure”
The image is in Orange County California on an overpass above the 405 freeway. At the time I took this picture I was early in my photography career and was exploring what it was that I was interested in taking pictures of. In addition, one of my closest friends from middle school is just as interested in photography as I am and we were looking for good ideas of things to take pictures of. Both of us decided to explore the idea of long exposures and we went to the closest airport, John Wayne Airport, and attempted to find a place to get long exposures of planes landing while waiting for a friend who was arriving at the airport and was in need of a ride home. After multiple failed attempts at convincing difference security guards to let us on to the roof of the buildings surrounding the airport we wondered around the exterior of the airport looking for a good place to shoot to no avail and decided to head home after meeting up with our friend. On the way back to the car I noticed a small overpass over the freeway that looked pretty accessible from the street and we decided to check it out. Luckily enough for me the sidewalk on the overpass had enough space for me to set up my tripod and my lens fit just perfectly through the chain-link fence keeping people from falling off the overpass and I started shooting images. Fortunately I chose the settings that looked the best pretty quickly which was helpful since taking long exposure takes forever to find out what little setting changes does. My friend and I instantly knew we found a great image after the first preview showed up on my screen and eventually I got the perfect settings for the image I was looking for. Unfortunately at the time I didn’t have a remote trigger and was only able to do thirty seconds exposures, but I was still able to take a great image.
I took the picture on the Canon T3i with an 18-55mm lens. I was using a plane old tripod and a flashlight to see the buttons on my camera and to adjust the tripod. My settings were a thirty second shutter speed, f22, and 100 ISO. The only post processing I did was some cropping, dust removal, and a little saturation adjustments.
About the Photographer:
My name is Luke Vanderbroek and I am a current student at Northern Arizona University and was born and raised in Orange County California. I first discovered my interest in photography my freshman year of College and have been improving in my photography career ever since. I was always interested in photography as a kid but didn’t get my hands on a good camera until I purchased one as a freshman. My favorite styles consist of long exposures, macros, and landscapes. My goals in photography are to push the boundaries that many photographers don’t consider going to. I want to get to the places photographers haven’t been able to get to before or places that many people haven’t made it to and get a shot like no one else has seen before.
To read more about the Northern Arizona University “Behind the Image: Guest Blogger” project on our blog, please read the introduction at http://youcansleepwhenyouredead.com/wordpress/3rd-annual-northern-arizona-university-behind-the-image-guest-blogger-project/. Please take a minute to leave your insights and constructive comments in the Comment section below – the student would love to hear from you!