Photographer Creates Long Exposures of Himself Climbing with LED Lights

Las Vegas-based photographer and rock climber Luke Rasmussen (AKA PhLuke) visited Looking Glass Rock outside Moab, Utah, and shot this beautiful long-exposure photo of himself climbing up and rappelling down the rock while wearing colorful LED lights.

What’s shown in the photo, titled “Through the Looking Glass,” is a 300-foot climb rated at a 5.4 difficulty and a rappel of roughly 120 feet.

The photo is a composite long-exposure image: using his 42-megapixel Sony a7R II (and Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 at f/8 and ISO 400), Rasmussen shot 17 separate 30-second RAW photos of himself during his 8.5-minute climb and descent, and he shot 78 separate 30-second exposures of the night sky for the 35 minutes of star trails. The photos were then stacked and edited in Photoshop.

Here’s another of Rasmussen’s long-exposure climbing photos, titled “Road to Pahrump“:

This shot is one of Rasmussen’s favorite photos thus far, and it shows him climbing the M16 route (rated at a 5.11d) of Blue Diamond Cave in Nevada 15 minutes from his home.

Here are some more examples of Rasmussen’s work:

“A Light in Every Man”
“City of Lights”
“Passing the Torch”
“Chop ‘n’ Trees”
“Caustic Peacock”

You can find more of Rasmussen’s amazing work on his website and Instagram. The photographer is also selling metal prints of his photos in a variety of sizes through his online store.

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