i find it interesting this hasn't received more comments, particularly with such strong symbolism. at any rate, dan, i've come back to appreciate this even more. super image.

Hi George. It's real. Scanned and adjusted to the best of my ability to represent what it really looked like. It is the Hale Bopp Comet. Didn't see the most recent one. That clock doesn't work btw. Drew a lot of attention flashing that clock tower with the long lens. Folks thought I was a peeper and called my buddies in the police Dept. LOL.

Hi George. It's real. Scanned and adjusted to the best of my ability to represent what it really looked like. It is the Hale Bopp Comet. Didn't see the most recent one. That clock doesn't work btw. Drew a lot of attention flashing that clock tower with the long lens. Folks thought I was a peeper and called my buddies in the police Dept. LOL.

Kadenjack- Bitterness because I posted this image or bitterness about your ratings? If it is the ratings then I should be bitter then too... but I won't be (I actually think images that have any religous symbols in them will be rated low by many). I do think comments should be made to reflect the ratings but that is becoming the norm at WS. If it is because I posted a comet image after yours well hey sorry. I had planned on entering this as my second image and I had to leave town immediately after posting it which is why there is no comment by me on yours (yet- look for it on Sunday).

Also this IS a real shot. Or as I said above as real as I can get the scan to appear but everything you see in this image exists on the negative and I guess I should add on a single frame of the negative. If I did this with digital I could have merged several exposures and I know the final image would reflect even more of the details in the scene but it wasn't.

This was taken for the paper I work for to reflect the comet in relation to the cult that committed suicide due to it's appearance. It did not run daily at the time because I had shot a (much poorer) comet image that did make the front page just a few days earlier.

This was taken on negative film, after 10pm at night (that clock was stuck at that time as it and the cross, which is supposed to be illuminated, were broken), with a tripod mounted 400/2.8. Long bulb exposure (no clue at this point) and multiple pops with a projected flash to illuminate the left side of the clock tower which didn't have any illumination. I know in this digital age capturing an image on a single frame of film that requires high technical abilities is beyond the grasp of most and perhaps that is why this image, and several others in this theme, have been questioned by those naive to the techniques of night photography. Believe it or not before digital gave us a myriad of techniques to make capturing all the detail in a difficult scene easier some of us HAD to know how to, and have the equipment to do it, and had to pull it off without being able to evaluate the images as we shot. And that knowledge and experience has carried over to today.

Further about the stars- this was taken in an urban area. Only the brightest stars are normally visible even on great nights. This comet was obvious to the naked eye. There was dodging of the comets tail and other normal darkroom type Photoshop work done to pull and hold detail on the scan. That also includes increasing the shadows in Levels to hold back the grain pulled out in the night sky (this was before noise reduction software). The comet's magenta colored is how the neg scanned and this was done before combining multiple images (or scans in this case) was common and permitted (on a journalistic level) to accurately reflect the full scene otherwise I would have scanned the comet portion for the correct color value which appeared whitish blue to the eye. This is, to the best of my ability and ethics when I too the image, the reflection of the scene in front of me at the time the image was taken and for what was captured on film.

ALL of my images posted at WS and on my websites are REAL images- I don't add or move subjects- EVER in Photoshop. I dodge, burn, use curves, adjust and manipulate white balance for emotion as well as for correct color (just like I did with Tungsten films and correction filters with film), and sharpen. I'm I journalist through and through, a old darkroom ethic type photographer, and my images reflect that. And they are all taken by me. PERIOD.

I see the comet is real. No problem, I thought of this possibility and gave high marksanyways :)

Dan, as a photographer/journalist I imagine you've had more than your fair share of brushes with the local constabulary in this post 9/11 age :-) It's interesting to learn that you took this for that particular assignment. Great choice.

Thanks for the thorough explanation Dan.

Two things:

1) My bitterness was not at you or your image. I think it's great and graded it accordingly. Had I known as much about the process, I probably would have graded higher still. I was just upset with the relevance score for my comet picture (3.54), for which you certainly hold no fault. I just don't understand how something clearly taken at night can get anything other than a 5 on relevance in a "Night" theme.

2) I've taken photos all my life, but never really seriously until the last year. I don't know many of the old film tricks/techniques, but I'm certainly eager to learn them, because so many of them are still valid in today's digital realm. When I took my comet shot, I simply opened the shutter for 30 about seconds and then I sent the film off to the lab, hoping for the best. I would have never dreamed of doing all that you did to help the image out.

Pros like yourself are exactly the kind of folks I'm hoping to learn a lot from on Weekly Shot. Thanks for sharing your process. I for one am always interested in hearing how the final product comes to the site.

"I just don't understand how something clearly taken at night can get anything other than a 5 on relevance in a "Night" theme."

That's a good point.

Dan,

do you use both digital and analogue? When íou use the latter, why? What are the advantages of a film camera over a digital one?

These are real questions, I'm really interested, and I don't know a lot about these things.

Sorry, if I'm asking stupid things :(

@ bioLarzen- I no longer use film. I don't see any advantages at all, but a ton of disadvantages, to shooting with film today since the quality of digital surpasses it in every way. I would have prefered to have shot this on digital because the detail and final quality would have been much higher. I should probably dig the neg out and rescan and re-post process it but I just hate digging through the neg/slide files and then sitting behind the scanner.

@all- I agree about the night relevance thing. Almost all the images I've rated have been 5 in that regard except for those that were sunset/sunrise or just plain off the mark entirely.

@ bioLarzen- I should add I haven't shot a frame of film in 6 years. Also there are no stupid questions!

Thanx, Dan.

I just asked because I know there are quite a lot of photographers who still use film cameras and some come up with advantages I don't understand because I don't understand photographers' talk a lot :(

But, then again, there are guys who use the camera obscura techniqe, a box with a hole, and are even happy aboput it - if one asked them, they sure would come up with "advantages", right? :))

Wow, after reading all the explanations, I'm totally not worthy. Like Jack, I'm looking to learn from WS also. Thanks so much for all the descriptions of how this was taken.

beckn32,

I think we all are (at least partly) here to learn.

Hi George. It's real. Scanned and adjusted to the best of my ability to represent what it really looked like. It is the Hale Bopp Comet. Didn't see the most recent one. That clock doesn't work btw. Drew a lot of attention flashing that clock tower with the long lens. Folks thought I was a peeper and called my buddies in the police Dept. LOL.