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 -insertnamehere-
 
Location: CO
Gender: Male
"...We're taking photos" ... "PHOTAHOES?!?!?! ?!"
 |  | How to make Tunnels...interesting?
< on 10/15/2010 7:23 AM >
|  | | | I'm a big fan of going underground in drains and such, but I'm always disappointed with the results of all my long exposure shots I take down there. Do you all have any tips for "spicing up" long tunnels and drains?
For example, here's a few i shots from my last trip to a tunnel built by the USBR in 1948.
1.
2.
3.
4.
I'm just not intrigued by any of these...
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ghost6
Location: R'lyeh, North Carolina
Gender: Male
| | Re: How to make Tunnels...interesting?
<Reply # 1 on 10/15/2010 10:04 AM >
| | | | spraypaint graffiti? Alot of folks on here are going to disagree, but an abandonment or tunnel in an urban industrial area just dont seem right unless gangbangers and hoodlems have tagged it. Some graffiti i find quite entertaining. Not that I am advocating such, only a friggin moron would tag the letters UER all over the place.
Alligators might spice things up a bit too, or get skateboards like the Ninja Turtles, maybe bmx bikes or dirt bikes would be kinda cool also.
The nightmare corpse-city of R'lyeh…was built in measureless eons behind history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars. There lay great Cthulhu and his hordes, hidden in green slimy vaults. |
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Sceptic
Location: In the Dreams of a City that Never Sleeps
Gender: Male
120
| | Re: How to make Tunnels...interesting?
<Reply # 2 on 10/15/2010 2:51 PM >
| | | | Posted by ghost6
get skateboards like the Ninja Turtles
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THIS!
"Instinctive forces influence the activity of consciousness. Whether that influence is for better or for worse depends upon the actual contents of the unconscious." |
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redSky
 
Location: Seattle (formerly ATL)
Gender: Male
SPECTRE Vanguard
| |  | Re: How to make Tunnels...interesting?
<Reply # 3 on 10/15/2010 3:13 PM >
| | | | I would say light painting or fun with glowsticks. If you have a pro photography shop in your town you can buy colored filter gels by the sheet for a few bucks each. Grab yourself a good flashlight (the brighter the better, most filters darken a light significantly) and duct tape a portion of filter to the end for color fun.
Another cool trick along the same lines can be had using filters and the white balance on your camera. Most digital cameras have a white balance setting for fluorescent lights, which pumps up the purple to compensate for the green light of a fluorescent bulb. If you set your camera for fluorescent and then get a daylight to fluorescent filter for your off-camera flash, wherever you pop the flash will be exposed with normal color, and wherever daylight hits will be an odd purple color. The same technique can be used with other color balance settings (ie set your camera to incandescent and it will turn daylight blue).
If you want something a little simpler, think on this: If you're doing, say, a one minute exposure in a dark tunnel, anything that doesn't stand still will disappear. This includes you. Try starting your shot, jumping into the shot for 30 sec (aka half the exposure) while starting perfectly still and then hopping out. This will create a semi-transparent 'ghost' of yourself in the shot. Similarly, if you run around the tunnel waving a flashlight for that same minute all that will show up is the light with no sign of you.
Or.... bring a keg.
SPECTRE - Repariamus Urbes Occultas |
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dsankt
Location: live and in the fresh
| |  | | Re: How to make Tunnels...interesting?
<Reply # 4 on 10/15/2010 5:22 PM >
| | | | Brick.
sleepycity.net: watch out for the third rail baby, that shit is high voltage. urbex and urban exploration photography |
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AnAppleSnail
Location: Charlotte, NC
Gender: Male
ALL the flashlights!
| | | | Re: How to make Tunnels...interesting?
<Reply # 5 on 10/15/2010 6:39 PM >
| | | | Fire, texture, lighting.
Achievement Unlocked
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rob.i.am
   
Gender: Male
Carpe noctum
| | | Re: How to make Tunnels...interesting?
<Reply # 6 on 10/15/2010 7:25 PM >
| | | | Posted by ghost6
spraypaint graffiti? Alot of folks on here are going to disagree, but an abandonment or tunnel in an urban industrial area just dont seem right unless gangbangers and hoodlems have tagged it.
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Uh, no. Not necessary.
Check out this kid's stuff. Three words: lighting, lighting, lighting.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rob666/ |
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Therrin
This member has been banned. See the banlist for more information.
Location: North of Chicago, IL
Gender: Male
*Therrin puts on the penguin-suit
| | | Re: How to make Tunnels...interesting?
<Reply # 7 on 10/15/2010 8:06 PM >
| | | | ^^^ WOW!
He makes a really good point there. Damn. That's incredible!
Give a person a match and they'll be warm for a minute, but light them on fire and they'll be warm for the rest of their life. =) |
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hydrotherapy
Clever Girl
Location: Circle of Least Confusion
RPS is inside all of us
| | | Re: How to make Tunnels...interesting?
<Reply # 8 on 10/15/2010 8:13 PM >
| | | | Photoshop.
Or, y'know. Don't go in drains.
Get down, girl, go 'head, get down. |
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dsankt
Location: live and in the fresh
| | | | Re: How to make Tunnels...interesting?
<Reply # 9 on 10/15/2010 8:41 PM >
| | | | Trains.
sleepycity.net: watch out for the third rail baby, that shit is high voltage. urbex and urban exploration photography |
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Therrin
This member has been banned. See the banlist for more information.
Location: North of Chicago, IL
Gender: Male
*Therrin puts on the penguin-suit
| | | Re: How to make Tunnels...interesting?
<Reply # 10 on 10/15/2010 9:27 PM >
| | | | Trains make tunnels fascinating! As do drain-bats, and other creatures of the underworld.
Give a person a match and they'll be warm for a minute, but light them on fire and they'll be warm for the rest of their life. =) |
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kowalski
| | Re: How to make Tunnels...interesting?
<Reply # 11 on 10/15/2010 9:53 PM >
| | | | 
1. Careful composition. You need to compose the photograph in a way that is interesting, balances the lit part of the photograph with the shadows that will probably be around it, and doesn't distort the shape of the tunnel in a way that looks 'wrong'.
2. Lighting. Multiple lights, varied colour temperatures (see comment above about gels, or combine halogens with LED or fluorescent lights), different directions (backlighting + lighting the foreground enough so that your shadows aren't impenetrable + good lighting on whatever the focus of your shot is + whenever possible light from above). Avoid lighting the centre of your image from behind the camera, this basically never looks good.
3. Remote shutter release. The only way on most DSLRs that you're going to get exposures longer than 30 seconds, which will make it a lot easier to consistently to get well-exposed, low-noise, interesting photos, but will drive your fellow drain explorers crazy when photos that used to take you just a few minutes to set up and shoot now take 20 minutes or longer to bracket and perfect.
4. Friends who don't go draining in hoodies. An under-recognized key to successful underground photos is the need for interesting-looking models. If your friends are going to look jarringly out of place in your photos, you're either going to need to start dressing in an interesting way yourself or you're going to need to get good at lighting these photos without a recognizable person in the frame.
5. Copy everything done on these sites:
Under Montreal
Sleepy City
Siologen
Sub Urban
Mortimer
Exboration
Inventor 77 (already linked above)
(and you can go look at mine too, vanishingpoint.ca)
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-insertnamehere-
Location: CO
Gender: Male
"...We're taking photos" ... "PHOTAHOES?!?!?! ?!"
| | Re: How to make Tunnels...interesting?
<Reply # 12 on 10/17/2010 5:51 PM >
|  | | | Thanks for all the great advice and examples!
I tried a couple new techniques last night, and I think I'm starting to get somewhere with these!
| (and you can go look at mine too, vanishingpoint.ca) |
By the way, your site is amazing. In-depth History, Detailed maps and stunning photos. I think that's an example for all.
anyways, a couple new photos:
1.
not sure quite what to think with this HDR. probably overdone...yet again.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Thoughts / Suggestions?
I Think I should start lighting my photos a little bit more, but I need to bring along my shutter remote next time to do that.
[last edit 10/17/2010 6:01 PM by -insertnamehere- - edited 2 times]
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CatalogOfCulture
Location: All over the northeast
Gender: Male
| | | Re: How to make Tunnels...interesting?
<Reply # 13 on 10/18/2010 12:06 AM >
| | | | 7 is damn cool
If it rusts I will find it |
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PositivePressure
Location: High and low where most don't go
Gender: Male
Set your Tesla coil to broil
| | Re: How to make Tunnels...interesting?
<Reply # 14 on 10/18/2010 1:36 AM >
| | | | Your latest photos turned out really good! I'm sure this is a definite personal preference thing, but I think they may be a little dark. You have these great focal point areas, such as where you're using the fire in #2, and the lit portion of #6, but the surrounding space is pitch black. I might suggest using something like a small flashlight or a headlamp to just kick a small bit of light into those dark areas and lead the eye to your focal point - maybe something with a contrasting color to the main light source. I find that most LED headlamps give off a nice cool color temperature that plays nicely to contrast the warm tones of fire or a lot of the bigger spotlights. Many headlamps also have a red light that I love using for accent.
You can usually pick up small sample packs of theatrical lighting gels at some photographic/theatrical supply stores which work great, and are the perfect size to attach to hotshoe flashes or flashlights, as I think was already mentioned. They have pretty much every color you could ever want, and then some.
In #6 you've got this great purple light in the background combined with the orange foreground light spilling out of the pipe into the main channel. That's the type of thing that always works in drains and dark underground spaces - creating separate lighting zones that tie the whole image together. Once you get the hang of it, its actually really nice lighting pitch black environments because you don't have the pesky daylight to contend with.
I have always found that when shooting underground (or anywhere, really, but underground especially) lighting for texture creates a great deal of interest where there may appear to be none otherwise. Try positioning lights at extreme angles to the camera so that you create lots of sharp edge shadows and really bring out the textures present in the environment. Backlighting is awesome for that. You'd be surprised how interesting a moist, seemingly flat concrete surface can look when it gets lit well. The worst thing you can do is light from the same axis as the camera (ie, from behind it), as Kowalski mentioned, as this will create flat lighting reminiscent of a point and shoot camera.
You can check out my site if you'd like, for some ideas about using off-camera lighting for underground spaces and otherwise. Pretty much everything I do involves at least some form of added light off-camera. Feel free to shoot me a PM if you've got any questions, as I'd be glad to help out.
http://jspyker.com/index3.html
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-insertnamehere-
Location: CO
Gender: Male
"...We're taking photos" ... "PHOTAHOES?!?!?! ?!"
| | Re: How to make Tunnels...interesting?
<Reply # 15 on 10/18/2010 4:59 AM >
| | | | Posted by PositivePressure
You can usually pick up small sample packs of theatrical lighting gels at some photographic/theatrical supply stores which work great
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Coincidentally, I work on the musical theater tech crew at my school. We have a lot of old gels that I think I might be able to use. I already have a plan for making interchangeable filters for a light, but we'll see how that turns out once I actually do it.
Whoa. Ridiculously awesome website and photos.
(Not to mention the Niagara confluence tunnel pictures. That's my holy grail location at the moment, so I'm just slightly jealous)
Thanks again for the tips! I really appreciate the time you took to actually look at my photos!
[last edit 10/18/2010 5:00 AM by -insertnamehere- - edited 1 times]
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redSky
Location: Seattle (formerly ATL)
Gender: Male
SPECTRE Vanguard
| | | Re: How to make Tunnels...interesting?
<Reply # 16 on 10/18/2010 5:14 PM >
| | | | #7 is fantastic! #5 would be really cool if you went vertical and recropped to show more of the water between the camera and the sparks.
And possitivePressure, your site is great, and I love the fact that you have weddings and tunnels in one site, you should try to sell someone on a wedding in a tunnel. You could even do it at Niagra for extra wedding cheese!
SPECTRE - Repariamus Urbes Occultas |
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jinx13
Location: Peninsula, San Francisco Bay Area
Gender: Male
| | Re: How to make Tunnels...interesting?
<Reply # 17 on 10/19/2010 8:14 AM >
| | | | Oh wow, these are all awesome. Noob question, is there a particular kind of lamp or lantern that works particularly well? I've been thinking about buying the UER flashlights but would those be bright enough to do things like this?
Gravity, it's not just a good idea, it's the law. |
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haveg0als
| | Re: How to make Tunnels...interesting?
<Reply # 18 on 10/19/2010 12:27 PM >
| | | | Another solid tip is to simply try things. The pic below was the result of about a dozen shots where I incremented the exposure time and did headlamp fills until it was just right. Some might consider this shot dark, but it really captured the way this spot looks and feels.
Drain pics here: http://www.flickr....otos/53054264@N08/ |
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.sarge.
Location: Born in Virginia, Hearts in Washington, live in North Dakota.
Gender: Male
Dammit why didnt I bring my camera
| | Re: How to make Tunnels...interesting?
<Reply # 19 on 10/19/2010 8:21 PM >
| | | | I think some good Depth of field could make tunnels and drains pretty interesting...
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