Gus the Bus

Image A

            Sitting in class last Monday, my instructor gave us the next weekly assignment. “Light painting is this weekly assignment, and you just heard Tyler inside say 'yippee,'" said my instructor as he looked at me, grinning. He knew that light painting was a passion of mine. Light painting is exactly that, essentially taking a light source and using it to illuminate an object. However, to me, it is so much more. Like the sculptor Michelangelo, one of the greatest artists to ever live, once said, “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” If we think of the night or the darkness as the stone and our lights as a hammer and chisel, then like Michelangelo, we as photographers need to carve the night away to reveal what lies underneath. Shortly after the assignment was assigned I knew exactly where I wanted to do this pulchritude art form.

Image B

            A classmate, Jaime, turned to me and asked if I was interested in joining forces with him. I agreed and we decided on shooting this past weekend. I also told him about a location I had in mind, an old bus that I had stumbled upon one day while driving down an old country road here in Asheboro. So after we both decided that would be a good choice, we drove and asked the property owner, and he approved of our coming out late at night to photograph it. Everything was set!

            Sunset on Saturday night came in a hurry. Soon Jaime and I found ourselves spending a lot of time, eight hours to be exact, from sunset to sunrise, with these inanimate objects and a curious horse. I decided to photograph a bus that I later named “Gus.” Inside the cab of Gus, he was gutted with no seats, except for the drivers, seat which was occupied by a plastic Santa Claus/ As seen in the image (taken by Jaime Robles,)

Photo By Jaime Robles

the inside of the bus was used to store scrap metal and other things. Also, a few wasps called this run down bus home. So one can imagine how precarious and nerve-racking it was to crawl in a bus and fire a flash 90 times. However, it was so worth is so worth it! Overall it was a very productive shoot, and I was very pleased with results.

Special thank you to Mr. Adam for allowing us on his property and also thanks to Jaime Robles for sticking with me, even till sunrise.

Image A:

Shutter Speed: 15 minutes

Aperture: f/11

Focal Length: 22 mm

ISO: 100

Image B:

Shutter Speed: 15 minutes

Aperture: f/11

Focal Length: 19 mm

ISO: 100