I first spotted this location on the way home from a vacation. I made a mental note to return when I had the time. Several months passed before I finally remembered the place. Upon arriving, the lake was eerily devoid of life. The only sounds were those of cars passing on the freeway in the distance and there was no movement, save for some cormorants in the distant trees.
I made quick work setting up the shot by wading into the mucky water with my camera and tripod. Fortunately the deepest spot on framing the tree was about chest high. I jammed by tripod into the muck to ensure it would remain in position and then returned to shore to wait for the sun to set.
This is when everything changed. A place that looked dead and left the senses rather uninterested suddenly jolted to life! Spiders began showing off their artfully designed webs and several even decided to set up shop on my camera bag. Bugs filled the sky, more than I have ever seen. Shining the flashlight produced a sort of haze because of their numbers. Bats owned the sky, feasting on the insects, and fish were surfacing everywhere, snatching up any bugs that landed on the water. Even larger fish would jump periodically and one very large brave gar decided to hang out between the legs of my tripod. I could only make out his figure with my flashlight, but he was large enough to make me a little cautious upon retrieving my tripod.
The shots themselves consisted of one about 20 minutes after sunset to get the glow on the horizon. I then waited another 45 minutes before beginning to shoot the star trails which consisted of multiple 30 second exposures blended in Photoshop using the “lighten” blend mode. The sunset show was blended in and then the image was converted into black and white. I originally could not decide between the color version and black and white version but in the end I could not argue against the black and white as the contrasts were entirely consistent with the extreme difference between night and day at this location.
The entire shoot offered many surprises but this is exactly why photography is my hobby. Predictability breeds boredom. This is currently my favorite photograph that I have taken and one of my favorite shoots.
Originally posted by Pauld 
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