How to photograph a Joshua Tree and light streaks

How do we light paint a Joshua Tree? And how do we photograph light streaks from a passing truck? Let’s have a look.

There are three components to this photo that I will discuss. Let’s go over the streaks of light from the truck first.

Streaks of light

Photographing light streaks from passing vehicles is quite easy. Basically, keep the camera shutter open and let the truck pass!

Of course, some of it is timing too. This photo was taken along Joshua Tree Highway in the Mojave Desert. There wasn’t a lot of traffic this night. So, I waited until I saw a truck coming, then opened the camera shutter. My camera settings on this moonlit night were two minutes f/8 ISO 200. But of course, just about any setting can capture streaks from a passing vehicle as long as you don’t have too bright a setting. Basically, simply determine a great setting for ambient light that is long enough to allow the streaks of light to be as long as you want them to be.

Light painting the Joshua Tree

Light painting the Joshua Tree so that it looks realistic requires some thought. Or at least solid instinct.

In this instance, I wanted the light painting to look relatively natural. Since the truck was going up the hill from right to left, light painting the Joshua Tree from camera right seems logical. Also, that’s where the moon was shining from.

I stood to the right side of the tree. I used an angle approximating the moon and “painted” a coat of light on the tree with my ProtoMachines LED2, using a warm white light, doing so for several seconds. Then, I stood back and let the truck illuminate it some more, and then let the moon bake in.

If I had light painted the tree from its left side, it would look unnatural because the other sources of light were coming from the right side. This is one of many considerations one should regard when light painting.

Star trails

To create a greater sense of movement in the photo, I also created some star trails. Since I had already determined the appropriate length of exposure for ambient light, I simply let the camera continue clicking via my intervalometer. I fired off four photos in a row, all with the same setting. In Photoshop CC, I simply stacked them and switched the layer setting from “Normal” to “Lighten” to allow the cumulative light to shine through, and all was finished. If you wish to know more about creating star trails in Photoshop, check out this article.

Above: An intervalometer set to a two-minute exposure. It’s set to fire off 10 photos in a row before automatically stopping. The intervals between photos is set to 1 second, the shortest possible to try and prevent gaps in the star trails. If you want to learn more about how to use an intervalometer, this article breaks it down for you.