Practical Photography - UK (2020-02)

PracticalPhotograPhy.com 25

PhotograPhyhasbeenused
todocumenthistoryeversinceit was
in vented.It offersa stationarysnapshot
inanever-changingworld.thememories
of buildings can be preserved in this way,
long after they’re demolished and new
ones are built in their place. When they’re
gone, the photographs are all that’s left,
giving them historic value. Keep an eye
on th e news and you’ll find plenty of
subjects to shoot, as Craig Wilkinson
(cwilkinson.co.uk) did.
“a fter hearing on the news that
Ferrybridge ‘C’ power station was due
to cl ose in March 2016, I decided to take
a journey up to shoot the cooling towers
before its permanent closure. the idea was
to capture the car headlight trails leading
up through the image. I’ve found that the
best place for this is from the bridge
overlooking the a1(M) on grove Lane.
“I positioned myself to the far left of
the bridge so as to create a nice s shape
leading in from the right. since I wanted

tocapture a longlighttrail,I setup the

ca meraon a tripodandused a wired

shutterreleasecable.With the camera set

toaperture-priorityatf/8, this gave me

a 25sec exposure, which was long enough

to capture the lights from passing vehicles.

“In the edit, the image received minor

adjustments in Lightroom, taking the

highlights down, adding a bit of clarity,

increasing the exposure in places and

using the brush tool, to balance the

lighting in the towers and the light trails.

Finally, I added a slight vignette and

cropped in a little.

“s ince taking this shot there have been

two controlled demolitions of the cooling

towers. the first was a single tower back

in July and the most recent was october,

when they demolished a further four.

during this time, I’ve been back a couple

of times to document the scene as it

changes. once all the towers have gone,

this view will never be the same again,

so I’ve documented it for history’s sake.”

Above Your choice of aperture will

dictate just how bright the light trails

will be in your image.

tip

Overlay

severalshOts

Createmorelighttrails

byla yeringimagesin

Photoshopwiththe

LightenBlending

Mode applied.

# 6 Record a change

Light tR aiL s

Canon 5D MkIII | 105mm | 25sec | f/8 | ISO 100