from the road

Make Time For Playtime /  by Todd Henson

They’re Here!

Putting a lot of serious effort into crafting intentional and meaningful photographs is a worthy pursuit. But sometimes it’s a good idea to just relax a bit, to let go, have a little fun. Make time for playtime.

A shaky drive down 95

The photos in this post may not be spectacular in any way. But they’re an example of not taking what I’m doing too seriously, of just experimenting a little, having fun, trying things I doubt will work and sometimes realizing I’m right but still trying it anyway.

Being light painted by passing cars

Stitches in the sky

Specifically, each photo is part of a drive south on Interstate 95 after dark (yes, I was a passenger, not a driver). They are each from a phone using an app that allowed for longer exposures, most between half to a full second. Then I moved the phone/camera around during the exposure. Because of this each photo will be unique and unlikely to be duplicated (of course the question stands whether anyone would ever want to duplicate them! 😅)

The glow below the overpass

Though it was almost 13 years ago I still fondly remember creating these that night. And I still wonder what some of the people in nearby cars thought of the crazy guy moving his phone all around as he drove by? Or were they too absorbed in their own phones to notice? 😊

Ribbons of light

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A Rainy Spring Drive Over the Blue Ridge Mountains /  by Todd Henson

The glare of headlights

After a dry spell we suddenly received a large amount of rain in a short time, and sitting at home listening to that rain patter on the roof inspired me to sort through and process a number of photographs from April of 2023 when my father and I drove over the Blue Ridge Mountains on Skyline Drive through Shenandoah National Park in the rain.

Springtime rains on the road

Photographing From the Car

The day hadn’t begun raining (in fact, I’d just photographed my first white trillium flowers about an hour before creating these photos), and it didn’t end that way, either. But for parts of the day we had the pleasure of winding down the Blue Ridge Mountains through anything from a light and misty rain to a heavy downpour with gusty winds. Being the passenger that day enabled me to create these photographs.

Lichen, branches, road and rain

I would often watch the windshield wipers and time my exposures for just after they wiped the water off the windshield. This gave me the clearest view. But in some of the photos you can see droplets of water on the windshield. They create a slight blur that, when there are enough droplets, almost gives the photo a slightly more painterly look that I enjoy.

A wet and winding road

Camera Settings

From a technical perspective, it was a bit dark because of the rain and we were in a moving car so I wanted a high enough shutter speed to avoid too much motion blur (except in those instances when I played around with purposefully slowing down the shutter speed). This meant I used a fairly high ISO, between 1250 and 2000. I also used a reasonably wide aperture of f/5.0, which did limit the depth of field but helped give me a shutter speed of anywhere from 1/125th to 1/400th of a second. I was using a 16-80 mm lens (thanks, Alex) in the 44-56 mm range, chosen based on the view from inside the car.

Fleeing the rain towards a hole through the mountain

Post-Processing

I did process these photos a fair bit in Adobe Lightroom, largely dodging and burning (old darkroom terms for brightening and darkening) to highlight some areas and lessen the impact of others. For example, I liked the light greens and browns of spring so I brightened those up enough that they stood out, and I darkened wet branches to help them stand out more. I added a little contrast in some areas that had been reduced by the rain.

Follow the leader through the rain

What do you think of the results? Did I go too far? Would you have gone a little further? Let me know in the comments below.

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