Well, part three happens to be the end of this year’s display of the “Tribute In Lights” and it marks a few firsts for me..
I made a somewhat spontaneous decision on Thursday night, abandoning my previous game plan, and electing, instead, to attempt to create a time lapse “montage” of photos of the display..
I will admit, that while I’m pleased encouraged with the results – I made a number of mistakes in hindsight – some of them the result of overthinking the project and thus talking myself into one setting when another would have worked better – and others just in the course of it being a “blind date” of sorts.
In any event, I’m now planning to make another stab at it with a bunch of lessons now learned..
I’ve embedded the video below – you can also find it on YouTube (another first for me!)
Please, let me know what you think.
Special thanks to Michael Lawlor, Ryan Krieger and Drop Thud Oops, a portion of whose “Phrygian Waltz” is featured as the sound track..
Hope you enjoy the show..
WTC Memorial Waltz by MDAVIDLEEDS
For those unfamiliar with YouTube, if you’d like to see the video full-screen, simply click on this button: 
(in the video viewer above)
If you have comments or questions, PLEASE let me know. Thanks! mdl
A few photos from earlier this evening.. I was starting to make dinner for Molly and I and was keeping an eye on the storm clouds that were making their way across the sky… I was thinking about the lights.. would they be on tonight? Better get ready, I decided.
I got the stuff on the stove situated for a break and grabbed a D3 with, an old favorite, a 105mm 2.5 MF lens that used to practically live on an F3.. due to the dinner prep that was underway, I didn’t want to stray far and elected to just sit (ok squat) by our windows and see what would develop..
This is one of the first exposures I made, I intentionally underexposed the frame in order to make the clouds darker and try to make the lights stand out a bit – it was still fairly bright out.
World Trade Center memorial lights on for test run on Wednesday September 10th. Photo by M David Leeds ©2008 All Rights Reserved
I continued shooting for a few minutes, since I was on the move to catch the fleeting light, I didn’t stop to grab a cable release so most of the time was spent waiting for the timer to count down – which is a great trick if you’re shooting with a slow or long shutter release and are concerned with camera shake.. (just set the camera on a tripod or sturdy surface and use the time release function) – anyway, while I liked the composition with the 105mm, I saw some more clouds approaching which I thought might pass through the beams of light and maybe give a little accent to the photograph… So, I made a quick decision to switch to a wider lens as the clouds looked like they were too high in the air to be visible even if I went vertical with the 105.
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