Twilight at Rockville

Posted by Stephen Phillips (San Francisco, United States) on 11 September 2008 in Landscape & Rural and Portfolio.

A car rolls by as twilight descends on a field of wheat, just outside of Rockville, California - in the Solano Valley, about 70 km east of San Francisco.

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Comments (24)

dj.tigersprout from San Bruno, CA, United States

wow -- just dynamic!! a wonderful sense of motion and fading light! of course as a texture guy -- my favorite bit here is the cracked and crumbling asphalt bits at the edge of the street!! marvelous!!

11 Sep 2008 6:08am

Kylie Greenan from Richmond, Australia

You do this so well! I love how the trees seem to bend with the motion of the lights, brilliant!

11 Sep 2008 7:03am

Vink from Grasse - French riviera, France

Excellent speed movement ! well done !

11 Sep 2008 7:06am

Observing from West Cheshire, United Kingdom

Super shot, and a sense of time shift moving from this place to another. It also looks as though it is pulling the trees with it.

11 Sep 2008 7:34am

djedfre from schaumburg, United States

really interesting shot! i agree about the asphalt - and of course the trees...
sometimes cars look best when they're only streaks!

11 Sep 2008 8:42am

Betty from New Jersey, United States

I was trying to figure out what that was when I read your comment! Nice work!

11 Sep 2008 9:38am

dogilicious from Millerstown, PA, United States

I actually missed the asphalt cracks because I was admiring the great sky and the framing of the trees. The small bit of streak is a nice touch of reality!

11 Sep 2008 11:22am

willow from Chelsea, United States

Really cool effect. How long of an exposure did you have to use to get the lights without really seeing the car? Like a phantom car....

11 Sep 2008 12:41pm

@willow: ...I will need to get back to you on this. I am traveling this week and currently about 1100 km north of the EXIF data for this image. I used a polarizing filter to intentionally lengthen the exposure - I think it was around 6 seconds. Thanks so much for your interest and comments.

hugo poon from hong kong, Hong Kong

Oh master of moving light!:-) The light has moved me to feel the dusk...

11 Sep 2008 2:30pm

Anthony Lambert from Bielefeld, Germany

Good long exposure shot,great composition as well.

11 Sep 2008 4:04pm

Michael Skorulski from Cigel, Slovakia

Excellent zoom lines and I really like the cracked asphalt in the foreground as if that's what the car is escaping from.

11 Sep 2008 4:23pm

Marcie from United States

This is beautiful! Love the lines left from the light in the car's wake. Very nice!

11 Sep 2008 4:24pm

Rui from Leiria, Portugal

Fantastic shot here. Full of dinamism. The light is really awesome.
I love long expositions and it's really possible to get amazing results with it. I never used a polarizer for long exposures, but I want to try... it's really a good idea to use it to retard the speed and get longer exposures, when the light forces to use higher speed. :)
Thanks Stephen

11 Sep 2008 4:25pm

Laurie from Lincoln, United States

Streaking headlights, cool! I like this, the lighting is soft and the car there gives the impression that the driver is in a hurry to get home! Nice pic!

11 Sep 2008 6:06pm

yz from Budapest, Hungary

I like that car in the image, cool!

11 Sep 2008 7:16pm

Thomas Griffioen from Rotterdam, Netherlands

Good choice to put the cracked asfalt in the image. Nice one!

11 Sep 2008 7:24pm

Kenton from Calgary, Canada

Great composition, well done.

11 Sep 2008 7:42pm

paulski from Muncie, IN, United States

love that motion blur to the left; excellent tones here, a very nice composition...

11 Sep 2008 8:01pm

Alun Lambert from cheshire, United Kingdom

great image, love the car lights

11 Sep 2008 8:21pm

John Maslowski from Dallas,PA, United States

Fascinating capture Stephen. Creative car light effect and great location for this image. Outstanding job!

12 Sep 2008 12:15am

One from Açores, Portugal

Great image! It seems that the trees bend to follow the lights.

12 Sep 2008 2:36am

Walter from Watkinsville, United States

Nice work. Keep them coming. I am eventually going to get some time to experiment with this type of shot.

12 Sep 2008 2:49am

Zygene from morlaix, France

Un très bel effet de vitesse.

12 Sep 2008 4:22am

@Zygene: Je suppose qu'il est bien d'être rapide - aussi longtemps que l'on est efficace. Merci pour le commentaire, Zygene.