Close to Home - Cocktail Lounge & White Bear

I live by a lot of great signs, as the sun was setting it was the perfect evening to capture the glow of the signs with the slowly darkening sky behind them. It was also a great time to play with longer exposures and to see how that affects the neon.

The cocktail lounge sign that you see first, is a sign that I had photographed during the time that I was working on my first Motel Signs project.( An original scan of an image from my July 2011 Series seen below) Many of the lights were burnt out at that time. Cocktail was out on one side and Lounge was out on the other. It warms my heart to see that this sign has been repaired and is now in it's full glory.

In the background of the photo on the right,   you can see that this sign is in very close proximity to The Northernaire Motel sign that was replaced. 

The White Bear Shopping Center sign is one I had never seen until this night.  After photographing the Cocktail Lounge sign, I decided to keep driving. This is what I found, and I was very glad that there was still light in the sky to help define the shape of the sign. I shot many long exposures, 4+ seconds of this sign to capture different car trails. I like how the car trails mimic the look of neon, and therefore compliment it nicely.

.