Star trail photography is only for the brave hearted photographer, particularly at this time of the year. You have to be out in the cold and the dark and take exposures or compositions that take up to an hour or more. Also, due to light pollution in built up areas it’s standard convention to go out in to the middle of nowhere in the countryside to get away from the urban ambient light and capture as much of the night sky as possible. Well, that’s the standard convention.

Local photographer Andrew Whyte enjoys bucking that convention and is out and about in and around our city experimenting with capturing star trails but within an urban environment…breaking the rules and coming up with some stunning and unique images. I’ve been following Andrew’s Flickr for some time and the other day Andrew posted up a photograph taken up on Portsdown Hill overlooking the motorway and city. The photo also captured the movement of the stars and a light aircraft seemingly mapping the city in parallel lines, resulting in a fascinating and unique image of our city at night.

To see more of Andrew’s work check www.longexposures.co.uk and Andrew’s Flickr.

Andrew has been kind enough to exclusively offer the readers of Strong Island this photo as a wallpaper for your computer, simply click on the photo below and then save to your desktop, etc.