Afterglow

I have important business to attend to tonight so it’s vital that I stay awake and alert.  After a busy Monday mopping, dusting and polishing furniture my time is limited so I set up my camera during the blue hour (1 hour after sunset).

The only cluster of lights in sleepy hollow is across the pond from the Mall, not exactly Broadway but it’s all I’ve got! 

For my second shot I decided to do some “light trails” which I attempted on the bough on the railway bridge, not too much traffic was about as it was well after rush hour and most people were getting sorted before the lights went out at eight.  So there I was all set up, with high expectations when the first vehicle spotted me and thought I was a traffic officer with a speed camera! Traffic ground to a virtual stop and everyone hooted and one or two motorists even showed me the finger!

Load shedding was fun during the first few weeks, a month or three ago, we romanticised it and thought about all sorts of fun things to do.  Now I can’t find the matches, the candles have burnt down to the ends of the wick, my bathroom wall is covered in soot so instead of a romantic bathroom scene it just looks dirty with a sooty patch on the tiles, which has to be cleaned every other day.  In the Kalahari I look adventurous with my pink headlight on, here I look ridiculous even the book club girls burst out laughing last week when I pulled it up over my neck, switched it on and the light lit up the ceiling and then I got glares when it blinded them!

My beloved has slinked off to bed with low blood pressure before my laptop’s battery failed.  That’s why I decided to give the stars a go.   After renewing my batteries for the headlamp, setting up my tri-pod I set off.  Well, I couldn’t focus on anything in the pitch dark; fortunately I had the headlamp which I used on the trees. At least one can see the Milky Way (more or less)

“Star photography is the mysterious world of creating art somewhere between Science and Maths” Basie van Zyl. 

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