Tip of the week: Remember that the camera sees differently from our eyes, so experiment with a wide variety of shutter speeds, apertures, ISO, and extra lighting to create a scene that is wildly different from our perceived 'normal' vision.

These photos were taken towards the end of 2013 in Greene County. I left the shutter open to allow for the ambient exposure to build in the sky. While the shutter was open, I would walk through the scene and highlight various objects with a combination of electronic flash and flashlight. Our 'normal' vision would only see the objects the flash or flashlight was currently focused on, however the camera was building all of the highlights and mid-tones within the image as they were illuminated. Many photographers like to call this technique 'painting with light' since the 'brush' would be the flashlight and the scene through the lens is the canvas. For best results, I would recommend setting the camera up on a tripod and experimenting with various shutter speeds over five seconds. Most DSLRs have shutter speeds up to 30 seconds with a 'bulb' option for longer exposures. If the exposure last for more than a minute, be aware that the image will probably start to get noisy due to heat build-up on the camera sensor.

The shutter speed that you will have to use will vary depending on your ISO and f/stop used. For these exposures, I wanted to show the stars in the sky without the streaking effect caused by the earth's rotation. For this to happen, I had to keep my shutter speed under a 30sec exposure. I raised my ISO and opened the lens wide open to allow in the maximum amount of light. Focusing is another tricky thing to undertake when shooting in the dark. I had to use live view on the camera and shine a flashlight on the distant trees to give a contrasty edge to manually focus on. Once focus was set, I made sure to turn the autofocus off and to trust my original focus with the flashlight.