Car Light Trails

I wanted to try car light trails since it's been years since I haven't done any and also I've never blogged about it. So my friend and I went scouting for a location. I did have a place in mind but I didn't know it would've been difficult to get there.

There's a railroad bridge just going over a 4 lane road but there's fencing along with it. We could've climbed over but we finally found an opening. Once on the bridge, there was a small ledge just in the middle of the road. Timing the cars so both lanes had cars going by was rarer than I would've thought. There's a light in front of us and one behind us. Both had to turn green so that both lanes would have cars.

This shot was with my Fujifilm X-T3 + Fujinon 27mm F/2.8. This is out of camera raw with Lightroom presets (Adobe Color):

The first thing I wanted to fix was the yellow tint everywhere because of the street lights. Even though it's reality, I didn't like it. I played a lot in the HSL table to adjust the colors and also I added some color grading for the highlight and shadows (blue). There are also local adjustments for the grass (color), car trail lights (highlights), and beside the road (shadow).

 

27mm 20sec F/11 ISO 160

I know I've said this before but even though this is a cliché shot, do it anyway. It's not about the end product, it's about the whole process. Thinking of the idea, looking for a location, walking/driving there, setting up/composing, trying different things, and post-processing. The main person who should derive pleasure from the picture should be you.