Launch of a Satellite over the Indian River in 2017
5 Years
The Bill Curry Photography blog is celebrating its 5th birthday this week!
5 years ago I re-did the blog I had started working on after Wordpress and my Internet provider at the time had issues, and I lost the blog I had going for the previous 3 years. Since moving to another Internet host (I use GoDaddy and highly recommend them!) its now been 5 years of blogs with few issues at all. I love the blog in that it allows people to ineteract with me and my work, and I love it when folks take the time to comment or e-mail me about images I’ve done or things I’ve written. It makes the whole enterprise much more fun!
The image this week is the one that was the very first in the new blog from back in 2017. I quote from that blog:
“Artists must suffer for their art, it is said, and boy, did I suffer. We went to Florida to stay at my folk’s place in Sebastian, Florida, just north of Vero Beach, about half way between Miami and Cape Canaveral on the east coast. A couple of days after we arrived, there was a nighttime launch of a SpaceX rocket carrying a satellite up. A small group of us gathered along the shores of the Indian River at the dock right in front of my parent’s place and awaited the launch. Unfortunately, among the group were mosquitoes, black flies and some other weird biting insects, and as I made this image with a total of 9 images, 4 of which were 30 seconds long, my left hand was on the tripod to help steady it, and apparently was a very good landing pad for said insects. By Monday, I had to go to the Doctor who gave me two prescriptions and cut my wedding ring off, my hand was so swollen. I’m now OK, but it made me much more respectful of the , as the Doctor described it, “non-venomous insect bites” one can get in the Sunshine State!
The image is almost worth it – it’s 4 thirty second images of the launch itself, overlaid on the image of the Indian River taken at the same time, and the stars are another 20 second image all taken with my Nikon d800e and a 24mm f1.4 lens. I did some smoothing in Photoshop as I combined the images, but otherwise this is a pretty straightforward nighttime scene. I was pleased with the rocket’s trajectory, and the light and sound over the river was amazing to witness. Next time – with lots of bug dope applied beforehand! “
Looking back, this image may still be the most dramatic as far as personal health cost, but a copy of the image hangs in my study, and I do enjoy looking at it and reliving the memory – of the launch, not the bugs!
The blog will continue…
