# @noahwetzel on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/C2d3V_ruDfw
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/59723772-noahwetzel-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/411b3947aa.jpg
- **Posted:** 2024-01-24T02:42:20.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Noah Wetzel (@noahwetzel) — https://gondola.cc/noahwetzel

## Caption

Stoked to finally reveal and add Grizzly Canyon Glow to my artwork portfolio, an image I created/captured in December of 2022!

This is a two-minute single-frame exposure with aerial lighting on the trees via light painting with a powerful headlamp attached to a drone. The yellow light you see is light pollution from the townofaltaut and saltlakecity_utah . Swipe to view my test exposure. 

This photograph took 2-3 years to conceive, plan, and pursue, roughly 50 hours total. First back in 2019 scouting locations for perfect compositions. Then returning to shoot sunrise imagery in 2020. In 2021, I began to utilize aerial light painting techniques, and that’s when this idea came to mind. Next I had to wait, I would need a huge winter storm to stack these trees without wind, and an untouched foreground with no ski tracks in it. 

Finally conditions aligned in December 2022, and I invested three exhausting and painful nights. Waiting hours on end for clouds to clear, one of the nights not even pulling out my camera… just hiking back and forth to stay warm. This was captured on the first night, I was pursuing a slightly different composition, but the clouds wouldn’t clear. Then I decided to work with them, to change my composition/exposure and see what I could get. 

I only get a few attempts per night with the drone batteries. Everything must be precisely executed. From pre-composing the image before the drone is in the air,  to the toe warmers and revving the drone rotors to help internally warm the batteries so the drone doesn’t fall out of the sky… I’ve learned a ton through trial and error, expensive errors. Also, the headlamp needs to be angled slightly outward and not straight down, so when I toggle the drone controls to rotate the drone left and right in the air… I can paint light with it, yet still have a very studio esque straight down lighting. In this image, there are about 5 sections of trees that I paint light with for 20-30 seconds each. 

#fineartphotography #behindthescenes #interiordesign #interiordesigner #utahart #utahartist #fineart #utahinteriordesigner #utahdesign #artinstallation #artinstagram #artinstall #altautah #skiart #skiing

## Stats

- **Views:** 0
- **Likes:** 486
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- **Comments:** 31

## Tags

interiordesign, altautah, artinstallation, artinstagram, skiing, utahinteriordesigner, artinstall, utahartist, fineartphotography, utahart, interiordesigner, behindthescenes, fineart, utahdesign, skiart

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