Bad Astronomy

Star Light, People Bright

I love unusual photographs. Sure, the advent of digital imagery has made it a lot easier folks to play with photographs, manipulate them, make them surprise or delight us. But as someone who used to spend many, many hours in the darkroom when I was in high school, I still have an affinity for just being old-fashioned clever.

That’s why I really like a lot of the shots taken by French photographer Christopher Hibbert, who is clearly very clever indeed. Check out this photo, called “Field Walk” – which he created without software manipulation!

[Click to anthropophotonate.]

How cool is that? You can tell from the stars this is a time exposure, and while the shutter was open he used flashlights to create the human figures. I don’t want to read too much into the photo, but I like the way it ties the light from the stars in with the figures made from light. After all, as Carl Sagan loved to say – correctly – we are star stuff.

This image is part of a collection on Google+ by Christopher called Light is Life, and I highly recommend checking it out. G+ is really attracting a lot of great photographers, since they can post their work in good resolution and can discuss the sets as well. I’m following quite a few now, especially since so many also work in astrophotography.

I’ll note I post things on G+ that don’t fit the blog here, or are too long for Twitter. Follow me there if you’re interested.

Tip o’ the lens cap to Robert Scoble on Google+. Image credit: Christopher Hibbert, used by permission.