As I began to process this image I experienced a flood of memories from the weekend in early June my youngest son and I spent at Cape Hatteras. It occurred to me that landscape photographers in general and nightscapers especially often have a different relationship to our images than many other types of shooters.
The post processing required of nightscapes means we will often spend hours with our images after we have come home. Not quick culling sessions or tweaks to exposure settings but time stacking and editing layer upon layer to tease fine detail from something captured in the dark.
That time spent helps to bring back all of the sensations of those hours out there in the darkness as well as the experiences that surround it. For me editing this image, more than a month after I captured it, meant bringing myself back to the beach that I love so much. I have memories of standing on this stretch of sand when I was only 5 or 6, back when the lighthouse still stood here.
This was the second night of shooting for us on this trip and we had spent several hours earlier in the day swimming in the surf just a few hundred yards from this lifeguard stand. I knew as soon as I saw it that it would make a perfect foreground and my son couldn't wait to check it out. I grabbed a couple sets of images and we headed back to the campground for another night watching the stars drift overhead as we fell asleep.
Whenever I hear people complain about post processing images all I can't think is that they don't know what they are missing. A chance to put on some headphone, listen to you favorite music and travel back to a different place and time. I miss it when I'm not out but I'm comforted in knowing that within a few minutes I can relive some small part of it again.
If you're interested in learning nightscape post processing check out my YouTube Channel here. I'm also available for private coaching zoom sessions where we can work with your own images.
Please check out my available prints here.Â
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