Caterpillar 336F Excavator

Here’s another cool light painting of a piece of heavy construction equipment! This time it’s a Caterpillar 336F Excavator! Did you know that there are a bazillion different configurations of these excavators? I have light painted several CAT excavators, and not one of them is the same model!

Here’s the setup photo, taken in light rain, of the Caterpillar 336F Excavator. It was a muddy mess, but worth it!

This one is owned and operated by Veit & Company, Inc. out of Rogers, Minnesota. I found this big rig while I was up north on Lake Superior. It was after I had finished a high school senior portrait that day, and while driving back to my hotel for the night, I saw this guy.

I just had to light paint it! Even though I was tired, and it was raining, I just had to! It was there, I was there, and it wasn’t pouring, so proceed with the plan!

The big bonus here was that there was also a Caterpillar CS56B Steamroller sitting there too, literally 30 feet off the highway! It would turn out to be a two-for-one! I’ll do a story on the CS56B soon.

Light Painting in Split Rock Lighthouse State Park

As I mentioned, it was on the North Shore of Lake Superior where I discovered this excavator. It was sitting right by Highway 61, near Split Rock Lighthouse State Park. Because it was already dark out, I had to set up this photograph using my Honda Odyssey’s headlights so I could see what I was doing. It had been raining for a while, so the area was a muddy mess! My shoes, light stands, iPad stand, and tripod all got a shower when I got back home! The Honda needed a serious carwash too!

I decided not to take on the trees in the distant background. Light painting them would have probably resulted in me ending up in the hospital, or worse. It was dark, cold, and slippery! No thanks! A pretty silhouette of the trees would do very nicely. The area right around the two pieces of equipment was nice and level. That, I could handle!

Because it was raining, the sky was pretty boring. So, in post-production, I spiced up that sky a ton by adding a photo of the Aurora Borealis! The cool thing about that Northern Lights photo is that it was taken just a couple of miles from this very location! Joannie and I captured that cool image while staying at Cove Point Lodge on a different trip to Lake Superior.

Light painted photograph of a Caterpillar 336F Excavator, under the Northern Lights, near Two Harbors on Lake Superior.

Here’s the finished light painting of the Caterpillar 336F Excavator.

Lots More Where This Came From!

If you like this, please check out our dedicated light painting website at MichaelAndersonLightPainting.com. There are tons of other cool light paintings of construction equipment, police cars and fire trucks, cool aircraft, restaurants, and other goodies, lots of Corvettes, and many, many other really cool cars, trucks, and motorcycles of all types!