This Waterfall Photo Was Lit by Headlamps

Photographer Carley Nelson was backpacking at the Havasu Falls in the Grand Canyon last weekend when she asked her friends to point their headlamps at the falls while she captured a long-exposure photo. This is what resulted.

Using her Nikon D5300 DSLR and a fisheye lens at ISO 3200 and f/2.8, Nelson captured a 25-second exposure and had her friends illuminate the waterfall with their headlamps for 10 seconds during the exposure. This allowed her to properly expose both the starry night sky in the background and the waterfall in the foreground.

“Friends who will stand in the cold mist of a waterfall at night and hold completely still to help you get this shot… those are some good friends,” Nelson writes.

“This was the second attempt, and I stopped after 2 because it’s a little difficult to get 7 people to be in sync!” Nelson tells PetaPixel. You can find more of her work on Instagram.

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Image credit: Photograph by Carley Nelson and used with permission