Thank you Dogwood Challenge for putting the night time landscape so close to the longest day of the year! Not sure if this was down to poor planning, or if they are just trying to highlight that this is a "Challenge". I have to say though, I am grateful for this. 8yrs ago, while I was still young to photography (and in my gratuitous HDR dip), I took the same shot as above but during the day after a snow fall. I knew this would look good with a car trail, so this challenge forced me up and out to snap it.

Back up to the hills, outside of the city. 10:30pm and still quite bright, I locked my camera off on a tripod with a wide angle lens and waited patiently for a car to come by. I was waiting for a good hour altogether, which was challenging as the light was contantly changing and I had to keep adjusting my settings. I required a 30sec exposure to ensure I got a car's full journey along the road. The reason I was waiting an hour was because at that time of night, not many people come along that road!

As predicted, as soon as I packed up, the road turned into the M8.

If I were to redo, I would use a longer lens. The above picture is quite heavily cropped. I am not going to wait another 8yrs to go back though!