While I may not be the dimmest bulb shining, this photo below clearly illustrates I am definitively no where near being the brightest (click for slight enlargement):
What the hell is that, you ask? Fair question. And the answer is that it is a three-minute exposure of the planet Venus — and no, it’s not a handheld one. I utilized a tripod that held the camera perfectly still. I even triggered the shutter using the Canon’s wireless remote control.
Then what the hell went wrong, you ask? Another fair question. And the answer is that I failed to take into account that while the tripod performed flawlessly in keeping the camera it secured entirely motionless, the prevalent fact I failed to give consideration to was that the tripod was stationed upon the deck of a ship. A ship on the water — the open Adriatic Sea, specifically. A ship that was moving forward through said water, while also being moved up and down and sideways by said water — and while I’m after-the-fact’ing it, let’s not forget the orbits of Venus and Earth as well as the rotation of the latter might have a weeeeeee effect on it as well.
Yes, that’s right. Mesmerized as I was by how brilliantly bright Venus was in the night sky — like a mini moon, actually — I went to the trouble of setting up the camera on the tripod on the balcony of our suite aboard the Regent Seven Seas Navigator and then leaving the shutter open for a full three minutes, all the while mentally blind to the fact that this would be the result.
I am not proud of this. But neither am I so ashamed or humorless as to fib and say I was expecting it to look like this…. that this image is what I was going for. Nope, instead I’ll just shake my head and segue into why I’m posting this farce of a photo in the first place. See, my wife has been awesome in getting a lot of her vacation photos up onto her Flickr account. Me on the other hand, not so much — and for that I am ashamed. I don’t know what it is but where I’m super quick in getting photos online of a night bike ride or a walk around Silver Lake, I just can’t get my ass in the same gear about more monumental happenings. And as such, every now and then she’ll wonder aloud and in my direction when I’m going to post them. Guiltily this weekend I finally promised I’d get it going on, and I have.
This is not a sampling. I’m talking bulk shipment here. There’s more than 500 pix up from our days in Venice that I got up yesterday and I just finished transferring almost 200 more from our brief time in Dubrovnik (and the nearby island of Lopud). Enjoy them or don’t, they’re for you if you want them but more importantly they’re for my love.
So why announce the endeavor with this craptastic photo? Very fair question. And the answer is I shot this the night we left Dubrovnik and it appears in the files immediately following our last shot in that wonderful place. So I decided to stop and use it as a marker of sorts before moving on to the hundreds of snaps that comprise our record of being in Rome for a sixth of a day.
Plus I thought you could use a laugh at my expense. I know I can.
UPDATE (7.03): I can’t thank Clifford from Asymptotia enough for telling his readers today to come take a look over here at the reasons behind this picture. I appreciate you stopping by. Stay tuned next week when I attempt a five-minute exposure of Uranus from the new submarine ride at Disneyland!
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