" The following pictures of space were taken in my garage after dark, because I did not want any stray light filtering onto my setup. This consisted of a light-tight contraption measuring 2ft square, with a number of portholes in the sides that would enable me to control the light. I had to light up my objects in a manner that would replicate space (in space there is only one source of light) so no other light sources were allowed.

The box-like contraption had a bellows-like setup, with only enough room for the lens to see inside. The back was removable so that I could take it away and replace it with black card that had a number of holes punched in it, to replicate stars and galaxies.

When a planet was to be suspended in mid-air without any visible support, this was difficult, but the problem was overcome by putting a strong wire through the back of the box and attaching it to the back of the planet, making it appear to be floating in space. The only problem with this method was that it took a long time to stop swaying about - in some cases, two to three hours!

The light source was an angle-poise lamp with a long snoot that had two filters in it, each with a different sized hole in. This stopped light spreading all over the set. The filter with the largest hole was placed near the light, and the one with the smaller hole was placed farthest from the light bulb. Different sized hole made for a narrow or larger beam of light.

The camera used was a Pentax ME with a 35-200mm zoom lens. The film I used was Kodachrome 25 ISO with a blue filter (80b). An aperture of F22 was used, with the exposure times varying from a few seconds to several minutes. Zooming was a fairly hit and miss affair, but the patience paid off. "

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