Peachpit has been publishing top-notch books on the latest in graphic design, desktop publishing, multimedia, Web design and development, digital video, and general computing since 1986. They are sponsoring a special contest for Photoshop World attendees.

The bright lights of…Bakersfield, California are calling your name! Or perhaps it’s Tempe, Arizona. Or Butte, Montana. It’s time to capture the Neon in Your Neighborhood! Quick! Before it’s replaced with energy efficient bulbs. Grab your camera and take a few shots of your favorite local neon signs or art and submit one to flickr.

Your friendly photog authors, David DuChemin and Chris Orwig will pick 20 of their favorites to win a Phantastic Photowalk at the Neon Museum Boneyard in Las Vegas and lead them on a photo adventure that will include many more prizes and a few other great authors to help: Matt Kloskowski, Russell Brown, Frederick Van Johnson, Jeff Revell, Rick McCleary and more!

My talented neighbor, Scott Larson, and I went around Melbourne Florida taking photos of neon signs. Like most cities, neon signs are hard to find. Scott went out the night before scouting locations for our shoot. Here are a few tips from the shoot.

1. Scout ahead for locations
2. Wear a white shirt: I was heading out the door and I realized I was wearing all black. Not a good idea at nighttime. If you have a reflective running shirt that would be a better choice.
3. If people are working where you are shooting, go inside and tell them what you are doing.
4. Tripod, Tripod and….Tripod: The best way to get night shots is by using a tripod.
5. Use a remote trigger for the camera: This will lowers the chance of camera shake.
6. Experiment with a circular polarized filter and your EV mode (exposure value)
7. Shoot in Aperture priority mode using a high F-stop. (Most of our shots were F/11 to F/22)
8. Experiment with moving the camera around or zooming in or out after you press the shutter release. This will give you some interesting effects.
9. Shoot high, shoot low, take shots from all angles.: My tripod enables me to shoot at ground level. I also raised it as high as it could go and shot down.
10. Talk with you partner and give each other advice!

Camera gear: Nikon D300, Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 D lens, Nikon ED 17-55mm f/2.8G IF DX and a circular polarizing filter. Larson had the Moose Peterson’s warm circular polarizing filter.

I had to take this shot for the staff at NAPP. They seem to love Krispy Kreme. We shot at this location for a short time. We really weren’t feeling the creativity. There was a lot of street lights around and cars were coming in and out. I went inside to let the manager know what we were doing. I was tempted to grab a nice hot doughnut but the health freak Larson made a comment that he couldn’t believe the amount of people going in for junk at this time of the night! Wish I brought Reinert, he would have gone in on a few doughnuts!

To get the shot of the logo’s reflection in the window of the truck, I had to raise my tripod as high as it would go. Once I did, I couldn’t see what  I was shooting. I realized the Nikon D300 has live view. I never used it before and I heard it’s a battery killer. After Larson showed me where it was, I fell in love with it. I should add, Nikon is loaning me the D300. I normally shoot with the D200 and D2h. The point I’m making is you should know your equipment before you go out and shoot. I didn’t have the manual with me and it was too dark to see the dials. I was lucky Larson has the D300!

We went onto Checkers! I forgot to tell the manager what we were doing and they came out to inspect us. (Must have been the tripods.) I explained what we were doing and I apologized for not asking permission. She was more than happy to let us shoot. At first we shot in the drive thru and we realized that may not be the best place with the cars coming in from behind us. We moved all around the building and found the front to be the best. My tripod enabled me to lay flat on the ground.

After several traditional shots, I looked over at Larson and saw he had a blurry photo. He said he moved the tripod during the exposure. That gave me an idea. We started to shake the camera on purpose to get a few crazy shots. Back on the tripod, I experimented with long exposures using F/16 and -2 EV (exposure value). This gave me about a 10 sec exposure. After pressing the shutter release, I slowly zoomed my 17-55 in and out. I found that starting at a focal length of 55 and then zooming out to a focal length of 17 showed the logo of Checkers better. Plus it made the words “Order” and “Pick up” jump out of the frame.

I used Lightroom to boost the colors and added a -74 Post Crop Vignette. My goal was to do everything in the camera. I must admit, I did take a safe shot at first; meaning I didn’t move the lens. This gave me a fall back plan if the wild stuff didn’t work. I could have used Photoshop to get similar results, but it is always best to get it right in the camera.