Day and night. They're two polar ideas—complete opposites. But the following photos capture day and night simultaneously, two times occurring in the exact same spot. How is this possible? Some say sorcery. Others, simply GIMP.
Winner - Morning Lights
I finally broke down and spent the money for a DSLR and was really excited to participate in the next photo challenge. I was even more excited when I found out that the subject was day to night because I knew the perfect location for such an endeavor: a restaurant called Cha Cha Coconuts on the roof of The Pier in downtown St Petersburg, FL. They have an amazing view no matter which direction you look and tables set up against the railings that make it the perfect spot for setting up a shot like this one. I went with some family and friends and we ate, drank, and had lots of fun toying around with the shot possibilities. Merging the two photos using gimp was tedious to say the least, but I think the end result was worth it! Canon Rebel T3i, 18-55mm kit lens @ 28mm, ISO 400, f/22, night shutter speed: 20 sec, day shutter speed: 1/400 sec
-Christina Crowner
Natural Energy
I've been wanting to take some pictures of this brand new wind farm about a half hour from home and this seemed the perfect opportunity to do something different. I took the day shot around 10:30 AM and returned that night around 8:00 PM. Amazingly this just happened to be the time a storm was passing though about 20 miles to the north and I was lucky enough to capture some nice lightning bolts. They seem to add a nice symmetry with the amazing power of nature on one side and our attempt to harness it on the other. I used a gradient mask in Photoshop to blend the two together and corrected the color of the lightning a little since it tends to be a little too purple. Other than that and a little boost to clarity in Lightroom I didn't have to do any adjustments to the raw files. Day: Pentax K10D, ISO 100, 18mm, f5.6, 1/1500 second exposure Night: Pentax K10D, ISO 100, 18mm, f3.5, 8 second exposure
-Chris DePrisco
Bikers
I've taken so many pics from my parents' balcony that looks out at the bay. I was a little worried because the amazing sunrises are during the winter and we've had a lot of fog over the past week that is so dense you can barely see the trees. I woke up at sunrise and that was very much a failed attempt. The sky was blah and then the fog rushed in. The sun came out for a couple hours and that's when I got my day time pic. Unfortunately, the sunset left a lot to be desired but night time was actually clear across the bay. It was quite a yo-yo, however I did learn some new things which I'm quite psyched about. Canon T2i, 18-55mm lens, Vanguard tripod, GIMP (mac) for post production
-Wai-ling Quist
Time Travel
Two walks across town, counting pavement stones to shoot from *exactly* the same spot and "hunting" for driving by cars - this was definitely a lot of fun :)!
Pictured: a Renauzda (part Renault, part Mazda) driving out of the night, on "Plac Dąbrowskiego" in Łódź. I took over 30 shots at night and 50 shots the next day to be sure that there will be a matching pair of cars. A rear-curtain flash made the back end of the black car visible at the end of the trail of it's lights. Nikon D3100, 1/3 sec @ ISO 800 for the night shot, 1/200 sec @ ISO 100 for the day shot, stitched together in Pixelmator.
-Mark Bączyński
Bridge Abstraction
I was on a work trip, sitting out late together with a colleague and a couple of beers at the University of Jyvaskula/Finland, when we looked up at the arcs of the bridge connecting the institutes. Looked like a great shot. So I took a couple, putting the camera on the floor pointing upwards.
Varied F-stop and ISO settings and used mostly autotimer. Chose the position of the camera so that some characteristic stones on the floor were adjacent. Next noon, took the day shots at ISO 400 with autotimer and was worried because no sun came out. Now I think it was great - the grey rainy sky gave this composition its space-station-like look, I liked best. All postprocessing done in GIMP - essentially only shot-matching & transparent gradient overlay. Camera: Canon EOS 400D, Lens: Standard EFS 18-55
-Christoph Baumann
The View
I had spent the better part of an hour trying to decide whether or not to go with a horizontal or a vertical gradient for this shot, when the song "Where Is My Mind" by the Pixies got stuck in my head. "With your feet in the air and your head on the ground..." Those words pretty much describe how I see this picture. Taken from the 20th floor of an apartment building in Crystal City, Virginia, with the help of a new Sigma 10mm Fisheye lens. Day: 1/80 exposure at f/8 and iso 100. Night: 6" exposure at f/4.5 and iso 100.
-Mike Hodges
The Hancock Divide
So let me first start off with…"it's like wicked dahk down there, you can't see a thing - how's it going, Bob?"(Nemo) When I took these photos the other day it was extremely windy!!! Windy like, awesome, sand particles + electronics= Uh oh divided by particles in the eyes with a remainder of "wait that's sand in my mouth"(beach was behind me). Anyways, this is my beautiful home, Chicago. Let's get to photo settings shall we? Everything was shot with a Canon 40D with a mid range 35-155mm Canon lens. The day image was shot at a 1/50 sec, F/22 and ISO of 320. Night shot at 6 sec. exposure, F/22 and ISO at 640. The edit was just a basic overlay, with a vignette and about a +8ish saturation. I hope you enjoy the photo because it was a blast to shoot!
-Nick Duel
HDR Double Down
The shot is of Canary Wharf from the south side of the docks. This shot is composed of 2 HDR shots, created using 6 individual shots each with one exposure comp stop processed in PhotoMatrix Pro. I then used GIMP to merge the two images to create the day and night shot. This is my first day and night shot. I am old school so I like to do things manually sometimes not out of choice. I rigged up my tri-pod cracked open a couple of beers and let three hours pass and created this beauty. Nikon D3100 , Standard lenses 18-55, Aperture F9, Shutter Speed 1/6
-Navinder Singh Dhaliwal
I can't believe how many of you gave up such a huge chunk of your holiday weekend to participate, but I think the results were more than worth it. Judging this week was nearly impossible, with a lot of great entrants not highlighted. Check out the full gallery below and wallpaper-sized shots on flickr.
Mark Wilson is the founder of Philanthroper, a daily deal site for nonprofits.