Star Trail

by Chris Page
 
I had been planning this night time shot for sometime, had done a reckey for a suitable location, worked out all the kit I needed and what I was going to do and how I was going to do it, just waiting on the right weather conditions.
 
1.00 am on a fine Summers night at a remote beach far away from any disturbance I set up for this 120+ frame Star Trail shoot. It was perfect conditions, dark and clear with a fabulous display of the heavens and the North Star directly in front of me looking out to sea.
 
All was going well in the pitch blackness until about halfway through the multiple exposures when a light appeared from behind me. The light was from a bike that was being ridden over the the rough ground of the nature reserve, and it was heading straight for me. At around twenty foot away from me the light suddenly fell to the ground with a crash, followed by "Oh Shit" from a tiny female voice.
 
I pointed my torch at the tangled heap on the ground and went to help the young lady. It soon became very obvious that she was drunk as a lord as he tried to get up and back on her bike. Seeing me she then decided to wobble her way (with bike) over to me, jabbering away in her drunken dialect at me. As she staggered nearer she trip, and the bike went off on its own, straight for the camera tripod. With Cat like reactions I leaped between the oncoming unmanned bicycle and the tripod, which luckily only suffered a slight judder rather than being knocked out of position, which would have been a complete disaster.
 
As you can imagine I was far from happy and was about to give this girl (now flat on her back) a good piece of my mind when she said "A-low, what you doing?". Gruffly I said, " I am trying to take photographs and your bloody bike nearly knocked my camera over".
 
She staggered to her feet and squinted at the tripod and the camera pointing skywards and out to sea. "What you taking picture ov ?" I took a deep breath and calmly replied "The Stars". She blinked a few times as she looked up into the sky, "Ive never seen the stars before, they are beautiful ", said with a little whimper in her voice, followed by an inebriated " My Granddad is up there somewhere", and then she burst into tears. After briefly trying to console her about Granddad, I handed her the bike, pointed her in the right diction to leave the nature reserve and off she went into the dark. If you was wondering, I did make sure that the little light from her bike did go the correct way back onto the main path home, I was not being completely heartless.
 
Fortunately the shot turned out great, but a valuable lesson was learnt that nigh; all the preparation in the world cannot take into account the unexpected, so expect the unexpected! 
 
Available as “Custom Finish & Bespoke” Canvas and Photo Prints, framed or unframed. Photography created as beautiful pieces of Wall Art for you to invest and enjoy, exclusively from OPENPHOTO-STUDIO.