What is long exposure? It is a technique used to show the passage of time in a scene. This is achieved when the camera shutter is left open for a long time. This technique is common in several types of photography, including urban and landscape photography. The exhibition record belonged to the German artist Michael Wesely: almost 5 years. However, the photo taken with the longest exposure is way behind.
The photographer
He was discovered in a beer can at the University of Hertfordshire’s Bayfordbury Observatory. The picture was taken by Regina Valkenborgh, who took it towards the end of her Masters of Fine Arts at the University of Hertfordshire in 2012. Eight years ago! It shows 2,953 arched steles of the sun as it rose and fell between summer and summer. The dome of Bayfordbury’s oldest telescope can be seen in the photo on the left. The atmospheric portico, which was built in the middle of the exhibition, can be seen from the center on the right.
Regina was interested in taking pictures without the use of modern technology. He used a beer can lined with photo paper as a pinhole camera. He put a can in one of the observatory’s telescopes that had been forgotten until September of this year. It was eventually removed by the observatory’s technical director, David Campbell.
Long time
Regina Valkenborgh said It’s a statement: «It was a stroke of luck that the picture remained intact so that David could save it after all these years. He had tried this technique several times in the observatory. But photos were often tarnished by moisture and photo paper was wrinkled. I wasn’t planning on taking an exposure that long. And to my surprise, he survived. It could be the photo taken with the longest exposure.
Regina is now a Photo Technician at Barnet and Southgate College. If you have a camera and want to break that record, now is the time to start. Perhaps we’ll be talking about you here in 2029.
