Hope - that I can find my way back out...
by krazy

Comment by JJ1026:
oohhh how funny! a dog with a head lamp - next time take a pic of that too!!!! great pic - very interesting.

Hope - that I can find my way back out...
by krazy

Comment by krazy:
Wow! I wasn't expecting this photo to do so well.

To answer a few questions right off, the location is an abandoned silica mine somewhere in the midwest area of the US (sorry, I need to be vague to protect it from vandals). The mine has about twenty miles of passages that we have been mapping. A usual trip involves about a half dozen people with headlamps, plenty of flashlights, snacks, and water. On this particular trip, our map was fairly complete and we were much more relaxed and able to spend a lot of time at our base camp deep in the mine. The faint foreground lighting (orange) is from a few candles that were lit around base camp behind the camera. They provided enough light for the people in camp to see what they were doing (and not have to use other lights) and just barely enough light for me to have half a prayer of where I was walking out in the view of the camera.

I locked the shutter open with a cable release and walked out into the dark junction room with an off-camera flash. I fired about six flashes from various points around the room, trying to mentally choreograph how the shadows and lighing would look when I was done. Overall, the shutter was open for 49 seconds. The white squiggly line at the bottom of the frame was the dog (more specifically, his headlamp). Mr. Brown was having a blast running around in the dark mine with his own light surce, and me managed to get into several of my shots that weekend. I thought about cropping off the bottom of the frame, but decided not to for the sake of adding a bit more mystery to the photo.

Hope - that I can find my way back out...
by krazy

Comment by nsbca7:
Timed exposure. Nice effect. What is that little white line in the foreground?

Hope - that I can find my way back out...
by krazy

Comment by phoensoul:
Is that big white dog hair the flashlight as you went to your first spot? You know, I kindof like it. It would be neat if we could see the trail the whole way. Of course, without would still be better... I'm very impressed with the even illumination you got on the cave walls and roof.

Hope - that I can find my way back out...
by krazy

Comment by Ironworker:
Love the shot. 10

Hope - that I can find my way back out...
by krazy

Comment by ssengupta:
very ghostly

Hope - that I can find my way back out...
by krazy

Comment by coolhar:
looks like you used a long exposure and a constantly on light source near the cam, might have been better with the movable light alone; I hate seeing so many footprints undeground

Hope - that I can find my way back out...
by krazy

Comment by zagreus:
Very neat multiple exposure, really gives it a neat atmosphere.

Hope - that I can find my way back out...
by krazy

Comment by caba:
Cool, nice work

Hope - that I can find my way back out...
by krazy

Comment by computerking:
Great use of long exposure! Great location, Funny idea.