Here’s your chance to earn a free print from me of an upcoming, unreleased launch image.

I believe the most challenging aspect of photography is filling the frame with interesting and eye-catching things, from foreground through to the background.

It’s easy to find a nice sunset sky to put in the background or a subject in the foreground but putting them together or even finding an interesting middle ground element can sometimes seem impossible.

Ever since I made this sunrise long-exposure image of the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch in June flying over a pair of palm trees in Titusville:

I’ve thought to myself, what else in the area surrounding Kennedy Space Center / Cape Canaveral could I subject (foreground) in front of the launch (middle ground), and sky (background).

For the launch of the Parker Solar Probe, I watched and photographed from a certain beacon of light and aid to navigation on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Any ideas what it could be?

Since I was on the Air Force Station, the photographs I made are subject to approval from the 45th Space Wing Public Affairs — which has taken a while.

In the downtime, Mike in my official Discord chat asked: “could you do a poorly drawn recreation of the photo?”

So I did. I took a screenshot of a white background and opened markup on my iPhone and sent it to the Discord:

After John R. made it his computer wallpaper:

Denise remarked: “We should make a competition who does the best paint drawn shot gets a free print of the real one”

YES!

Drawing prompt: long exposure photo of a rocket streaking over a beacon of light at night

Here’s what you need to do to earn a print:

  1. Draw, paint, illustrate or otherwise bring to life your own rendition of what you think my launch long exposure will look like.

  2. Become a Patron ($5+)

  3. Join my Discord server (If you’re already a Patron or not not sure how to join, click here to learn more)

  4. Take a picture/screen shot/etc and submit your drawing here by 11:59 PM (midnight) on Sunday, August 26th (EDT)

That’s it!

Three prints will be earned. I will personally be selecting two and over on the #contest channel in the Discord server, you can vote for the third (fan favorite).

Good luck!

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Some of my Patrons have already submitted theirs: