Our House at Night

A couple of weeks ago, I was out at night with my camera, and I thought I would try to get a good nighttime photo of our house. So this is what I ended up with. It would probably look better if someone had cut the grass, or even better if there were actually live grass instead of the dead fall/winter stuff growing there. But that is how it is right now.

This looks even better in the large view, so be sure to click the photo to see it even bigger! And then read on below to see how it was done.

About the photo:
This photo is a bit different from what I usually do, because this isn’t just one exposure. I wanted the house to show up well, but I also wanted to be able to see the stars in the sky. The light in our front yard (seen in this photo) really lights up the house well, especially in a long exposure. But because it makes the house so bright, the starry sky doesn’t show up in the photo. So I took another, even longer exposure, which washed out the house but made the stars and the background trees visible.

After getting the exposures like I wanted them in Adobe Lightroom, I merged them together using Corel Photo Paint, using layer masks to show the parts that I wanted to show. It took a while to get the mask painted just right, but I think it turned out well.

Looking at it again, I would probably try a few different things. One of these nights when there is a full moon, I might even try turning off the front yard light and just go with one long exposure, just to see what I get. Pretty fun to go out and experiment sometimes.
Read more about the photo software and gear I use at the camera gear page.
Camera: Canon EOS-M
Lens: Canon EF-M 18-55mm

I will sing of faithful love and justice; I will sing praise to You, Lord. I will pay attention to the way of integrity. When will You come to me? I will live with a heart of integrity in my house. - Psalm 101:1-2