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Orion Over Michigan Central

Orion-Over-Michigan-Central.jpg Dali's Livingroom Thumbnails Train to Nowhere Dali's Livingroom Thumbnails Train to Nowhere Dali's Livingroom Thumbnails Train to Nowhere Dali's Livingroom Thumbnails Train to Nowhere Dali's Livingroom Thumbnails Train to Nowhere Dali's Livingroom Thumbnails Train to Nowhere

The Orion constellation overlooks the Michigan Central Train Station as it arches across an early morning sky in Detroit while a low lying fog amplifies the luminescence from nearby street lights providing an eerie glow to the vacant giant. I recall this chilly November night with clairvoyance. I had fallen ill with a cold due to the recent change in weather and had dealt with a bit of hesitation before I was able to force myself to suit up and leave the house when the fog rolled in. In the end this turned out to be a very productive run but it was not without its discomforts. This photo in particular, the last one I took that night, turned out to be quite difficult. I was trying to capture around a 20 second exposure, however it was just after 2 am and all of the bars were emptying out, causing light streaks as cars passed in front of me. Further more, I was standing in the middle of a street, wearing mostly black, in a dense fog, so I routinely had to retreat to the sidewalk with my camera mid-exposure when cars approached me. When I was finally able to overcome the timing of it all, I reviewed the photo to realize that I had mis-aligned my composition when moving myself and the camera in and out of the street! I had failed to notice because my viewfinder was nearly pitch black. Eventually, there was enough of a break in the traffic for me to compose and expose the image correctly, at which point I called it a night. Many of my photos that convey this type of stillness come quite naturally, and it is just a matter of picking the best of the few that I take; not the case with this image. This was the *only* successful capture I managed of this scene.