Starry Nights

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  • Vyraj

    Vyraj

    (Received Third Prize in the International Garden Photographer of the Year "IGPOTY" 13th edition and is displayed at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in London. https://igpoty.com/competitions/plants-planet-13-single-results/) I had seen some phenomenal pictures by great artists like Marc Adamus, Ryan Dyar and Miles Morgan that involve a very photogenic cactus called Barrel Cactus (Echinocactus polycephalus) which is also referred to with a few other names and one of which is totally inappropriate. So my goal was to find a cluster of those cacti to photograph especially for the night sky. So I stumbled up on this cluster of Barrel Cacti during the day while scouting with Wisanu. I can’t remember a time previously I worked an image so much in the field. I must have spent a good one hour fussing over the composition. Eventually I settled upon a vertorama or a vertical panorama of three horizontal frames. The sky frames were stacked to improve signal to noise ratio where as the ones for the middle ground and foreground were focus stacked for increased Depth of Field. Overall, 25 shots went into this panorama. Alabama Hills on the foothills of Sierra Nevada near Lone Pine, California is a landscape photographer’s delight while also being a great dark sky location. Unique compositions can be and will be found. One has to just look for them. Ah! about the caption, this location took me to a meditative state. While Nayana was resting on the rock to my left patiently waiting for me, I was immersed in nothing else but capturing the otherworldly beauty of his place. Vyraj (Belarusian: Вырай, Polish: Wyraj), Iriy, Vyriy (Ukrainian: Вирій, Russian: Ирий, Ирей, Вырий), or Irij (Croatian: Irij, Czech: Irij, Slovak: Irij, Serbian: Ириј), is a mythical place in Slavic mythology where "birds fly for the winter and souls go after death" that is sometimes identified with paradise. It was said that spring arrived on Earth from Vyraj. Initially, the Early Slavs believed in only one Vyraj, connected to the deity known as Rod—it was apparently located far away beyond the sea, at the end of the Milky Way. Sony a7RII Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2 ISO 10000, 10s at f/2 Sky: 10 exposures stacked in Starry Landscape Stacker Middleground: 5 exposures focus stacked Foreground: 10 exposures focus stacked

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  • Cowboy Church

    Cowboy Church

    Landscape astrophotographers are more often than not, kindred spirits. Who else would sacrifice their sleep and go to new places and shoot pictures in challenging conditions? One such kindred spirit is my friend Joey Burns. Though we met through a local photography club on Facebook, we never got to meet or shoot with until now. Joey shares the same passion for finding new places and compositions and not more of the same that most people are content to shoot. When Joey shared a picture of this unique chapel, it brought back memories of the Chapel of Transfiguration in Grand Teton National Park. Now, this being Texas, there are no jagged peaks or mountains to form a background. Nonetheless, at a whim Joey and I decided to take take a quick trip to The King’s Trail Cowboy Church in Whitewright, Texas a rural community about 50 minutes drive northeast of us. Both of us having never been there at night, arrived to very bright lights in the parking lot cloaking the entire scene in light more suitable for a movie set. To the left hand side of the frame, there was a Rodeo Arena befitting the Texas cowboys and country folks that the church primarily serves. The frogs croaking in the pond behind the church provided some background music. As I took my first test shots, it became apparent that the clear Milky Way that I had hoped to find was more of an ethereal presence. To capture any details in the skies meant that we had to forego any of the standard practices for shooting a usual Milky Way shot. A whole lot of creative experimentation in the field and careful processing yielded this image. When we left the church grounds around 3am, we left happy that we came away with something satisfying. And for me the best part was I finally got to meet Joey and his wife Cindi along along with their very sweet dog, Lakota.

  • Star Trails over Mangalam

    Star Trails over Mangalam

    Capturing Star trails is a little tedious affair with many hours of shooting followed by processing hundreds of exposures to get one single image. Sometimes however, it feels worth it like this one, especially as I set this camera first before moving on shooting the Milky Way from the otherside of the Dome at Chinmaya Mangalam, a spiritual retreat in Barry, Texas. 388 exposures of 30 seconds each represent the motion of Earth relative to the heavens in the form of star trails around Polaris, the North Star. The colors in the star trails are real but slightly exaggerated for artisic effect. Does anyone know what the Red Star is on the far left? For more info on color of the stars visit this website: https://www.universetoday.com/24640/color-of-stars/

  • Airglow - The Green sheen of the night

    Airglow - The Green sheen of the night

    Night sky pictures such as this sometimes have some green sheen in them which often is mistaken for at best Auroras (northern lights in the northern hemisphere), camera noise or worse, bad post processing by the photographer. Unless you are the northern latitudes, the chances of capturing Aurora Borealis is like finding a Polar Bear in the Texas Hill Country. It ain’t happenin! More than likely it is a phenomenon called “airglow”. Airglow’s subtle radiance arises from excitation of a different kind. Ultraviolet light from the daytime sun ionizes or knocks electrons off of oxygen and nitrogen atoms and molecules;  at night the electrons recombine with their host atoms 80km or higher, releasing energy as light of different colors including green, red, yellow and blue.  Aurorae are at similar heights and are also the light of excited atoms. There is a difference, however, auroral excitation is by collisions with energetic particles whereas daytime short wavelength solar radiation produces the airglow via chemical excitation of which electronically excited oxygen atoms are the main component. A couple of months ago on a night when I tried out a few combinations of my camera gear and lenses at Chinmaya Mangalam, a spiritual retreat in Barry, TX, this one stood out for its tell tale green band above the tree line on the left of the dome which is about 10-15 degrees above the horizon where you would normally find airglow. But this image was shot 60 miles from the heart of Downtown Dallas. I have not seen airglow in pictures shot so close to cities that too one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States. I wanted to be doubly sure what I was seeing here was indeed airglow. So, I started reading about it and found that one of the most renowned researchers and experts in the Airglow Imaging Studies is right here in Dallas. Dr. Brian Tinsley, a native New Zealander is Professor Emeritus of Physics at University of Texas at Dallas and for 50 years has been actively researching Aeronomy. After a couple of email exchanges, I sent him this picture to which he replied: Hello Rajesh, That is a fine photograph of the milky way and night sky that you have taken. Yes, it is possible that the green coloration in the lower left of the sky is the 557.7 nm airglow. However there could be contributions of scattered light from mercury and sodium lights in towns below the horizon. The rest of the light in the sky as a whole, in the spaces between the stars,  would be scattered starlight and zodiacal light. Regards, Brian Tinsley

  • Velkommen til St. Olaf kirke

    Velkommen til St. Olaf kirke

    One of my favorite places to photograph the heavens above, St. Olaf Kirke aka Old Rock Church in Cranfills Gap, Texas is used for special services at Easter, Christmas Eve, and other planned events. For night owls like yours truly, this is a treasured site with minimal light pollution with a storied subject to include. The church grounds are closed and gates locked at night. Permission from the church authorities for night time access is granted if requested in advance. Technical Stuff: Sony SLT A99v Sony Fisheye 16mm f2.8 lens 299 exposures (why not 300! would have been a nice round figure) ISO 1600, 30secs at f/4 Stacked and processed in Photoshop.

  • Alluring Olaf

    Alluring Olaf

    I know there are others that have photographed this stunning Norwegian chapel in Cranfills Gap, TX at night but, I do not recall having seen the tell tale green airglow in photos taken here. I have been there three times before this and my fourth visit is special for what I was able to capture in near ideal conditions. This time even the wispy layers of clouds contributed to the intrigue of the scene in contrast to my previous visit when thick clouds blanketed the skies. After setting up the star trail time lapse, I found this composition and took the first photo. As soon as I looked at the back of the camera I told my friends, “Wow! There is a lot of airglow. I have never seen so much of it here” It is only at this time of the year the Milky Way aligns vertically with the church spire. For this composition, I had the company of the Larsons in the foreground. I took care to be deliberate and respectful around their resting places. This has to be one of my more satisfying night photo shoots where everything worked like intended and to the unusual airglow was icing on the cake. Night sky is not actually totally dark like most people think. There is color in the stars and the sky itself has color. Airglow comes from emissions of different colors of light from naturally occurring chemical reactions in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. The green portion of airglow occurs when light from the sun splits apart molecular oxygen into individual oxygen atoms. When the atoms recombine nearly a 100 km up in the sky, they give off the excess energy as photons in the green part of the visible light spectrum, giving the sky a greenish tinge.

  • Tree of life

    Tree of life

    A lone leafless tree waits for spring creeping up from the darks of the winter in the form of bluebonnets. I really wanted to shoot the Milky Way with the tree but had to be content with just a hint of our home galaxy barely peeking over the horizon before moving on to to another pre-arranged shoot on a private ranch in Ennis , Texas.

  • Mangalam

    Mangalam

    Heavens over Chinmaya Mangalam, formerly Thousand Oaks Ranch in Barry, Texas. This is a panorama of about 116 shots giving the ability to print very large sizes in amazing detail and very high resolution.

  • Cobalt hues &  midnight blues

    Cobalt hues & midnight blues

    On a beautiful Ranch in Ennis, Texas about 30 miles from downtown Dallas as the crow flies, my friends and I shot the first of many compositions here as the Milky Way rose over the hill laden with bluebonnets. A gentle cool but moist breeze blew. What I have found since I have been shooting astrophotography is that it needs practice and a lot of it. To be able to operate and juggle the camera settings in the dark of the night, needs repeated use of it and get the muscle memory built in so one does not need to shine the head lamp to look at the equipment. Somewhere in that initial excitement of being able to shoot this scene, I found my shots were taking too long and I did not realize until after left this location that I had my bracketing turned on. Now that is what someone would call, a schoolboy error! Bracketing is a method of taking multiple shots instead of one with different exposure settings. In this case instead of one shot of 20 seconds duration, I ended up with 3 shots, 10s, 20s and 30s long. I did not get a chance to go back and reshoot as my buddies had move on and I didn€€ want to be alone in the dark. With the multiple bracketed shots, I was however able to get something out. This is a result of 12 exposures stacked for the sky. (The -1 and +1 EV shots were adjusted to 0EV in LightRoom) and 7 exposures focus stacked for the ground. Since my friends had moved on by the time I took these shots, there was no light painting of the foreground. What you see was shot in star light. For once the €€schoolboy error €€of overexposing some shots helped bring out the foreground details. I like to include a title for my pictures and when I showed this to my older daughter, the first thing that she said was €€"Cobalt blues & midnight hues€€"

  • Star Spangled Fort

    Star Spangled Fort

    Fort Griffin, now a Texas State Historic Site, was a US Cavalry fort established 31 July 1867 by four companies of the Sixth Cavalry, U.S. Army. The ruins in the picture are that of the administration building of the fort near Albany west of Fort Worth, Texas. This site has some of the darkest skies closest to the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex. During this shoot, I used a technique called low level lighting (LLL or LLLL) which utilizes very low intensity LED lights to illuminate the foreground. The intent is to try an and match the starlight to provide depth and presence for the foreground elements. For this image, I had one LED panel on a tripod to my right and a second LED panel dimmed down was set facing down in the inside left hand corner of the structure.

  • Up Close and Personal

    Up Close and Personal

    Earlier in Spring this year, I had a special opportunity to photograph the stars in the sky over the stars of the Texas spring, the bluebonnets. On a beautiful Ranch in Ennis, Texas 35 miles (56km) as the crow flies from Downtown Dallas the air was damp and the grass moist from the dew settling in the early hours of the morning, At 5am as the Sunlight began to add to the ambient light which being so close to a metro area is inevitable. My friend Wisanu Boonrawd, the extraordinarily talented photographer from Thailand and I shot similar compositions side by side to try out a technique called Focus Stacking which enables everything in the scene to be in focus rather than just the foreground or the skies. I shot my composition with a 18mm lens whereas Wisanu shot his with a 14mm. The extra 4mm makes such a big difference if you want to include more of the scene and the sky. My 18mm composition on the flip side, brought me up close and personal to the wildflowers and the best part of the heavens enjoying the views of the Texas Spring. astrophotography, flower, flowers, Flowers & Plants, fog grass greenery ILCE-7RM2 Landscape Long Exposure Lupine Milky Way morning morning light night scenic Sky Sony Spring starry stars sun sunrise Texas Tranquil trees wildflower Sony a7RII Zeiss Batis 18mm f/2.8 ISO 6400, 20s at f/2.8 Ground: 6 shots focus stacked Sky: 3 shots stacked for Noise Reduction

  • Magical Christmas

    Magical Christmas

    No one told me RAW files sitting on a computer hard drive can age like fine wine but, I shot these images a little over a year ago and was spurred to process them finally thanks to the recent Geminid meteor shower and the disappointment of missing the best opportunity to shoot them. These images were shot with my then back up camera while I was shooting what I thought was the best composition pointing in the opposite direction to where the Perseid meteors radiated from in the northeastern part of the sky. Little did I know that the camera I had set up for time lapse and star trails would capture a lot of meteors too. This has been my first and only experience shooting meteors and my then 12 year old daughter and I had memorable experience watching the sky explode with the celestial fireworks over the St. Olaf Kirke, aka Old Rock Church in Cranfills Gap, TX. Between midnight and 4:30am, I shot about 500 individual shots with this camera. A portion of those shots had meteors flying through. The setting moon threw off some wonderful sunrise/sunset colors on the horizon in the background. The Meteor shower image shows the Milky Way and the meteors exactly in the same place and orientation as captured by the camera. Folks that are familiar with processing meteor shower images will understand that the meteors were not warped to show them flying in a certain direction. So for next meteor shower, pointing toward the Radiant may not be the best composition. Prints of this image can be ordered on my website below.

  • Merry Christmas

    Merry Christmas

    No one told me RAW files sitting on a computer hard drive can age like fine wine but, I shot these images a little over a year ago and was spurred to process them finally thanks to the recent Geminid meteor shower and the disappointment of missing the best opportunity to shoot them. These images were shot with my then back up camera while I was shooting what I thought was the best composition pointing in the opposite direction to where the Perseid meteors radiated from in the northeastern part of the sky. Little did I know that the camera I had set up for time lapse and star trails would capture a lot of meteors too. This has been my first and only experience shooting meteors and my then 12 year old daughter and I had memorable experience watching the sky explode with the celestial fireworks over the St. Olaf Kirke, aka Old Rock Church in Cranfills Gap, TX. About 500 individual shots went into the making of this star trails image. And a portion of those images had meteors flying through. This image contains all those 500 shots and you may be able to see the meteors flying through the star trails. This is also the first time I have shot star trails without the Polaris (North Star) in the picture which makes the stars appear to go around the Polaris. The setting moon threw off some wonderful sunrise/sunset colors on the horizon in the background. Prints of this image can be ordered on my website below.

  • For  Eternity

    For Eternity

    The barely noticeable movement was with the stars overhead, as the Milky Way rose above the tree line. Nymph Lake in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park is known for the nymphs (lilies) that grow in the lake during the short growing season. In late May the lake was still thawing out and there were large chunks of snow around. One of the amazing things was the reflection of the stars was as sharp as the ones in the sky, like in a mirror.

  • Deep in the heart of Texas

    Deep in the heart of Texas

    'The stars at night are big and bright Deep in the heart of Texas The prairie sky is wide and high Deep in the heart of Texas The sage in bloom is like perfume Deep in the heart of Texas Reminds me of the one that I love Deep in the heart of Texas' These lines are very familiar to every kindergartner in Texas schools. I got to experience it first hand on the Red River as a few perseids flew overhead and an occasional Oklahoman drove into Texas. I shot this over two years ago but is still fresh in memory.

  • Outtake at Oxbow Bend

    Outtake at Oxbow Bend

    I was cleaning up my Hard Drive and found this image which I had perhaps shot to be a part of a Milky Way Panorama at the iconic Oxbow Bend in Grand Teton National Park. This frame did not make it to the panorama image. Not having the Milky Way Core competing for attention gives the Mt. Moran and the Cathedral Group their rightful place under the stars. Whatever that sunrise type glow from behind the mountains definitely was special as was the aurora like airglow that permeates the skies over Yellowstone and Grand Teton. This was quite an adventure for me since I was by myself and not a soul in sight. I say in sight because, I could only see 3 sets of eyes following me back and forth at a distance. What were they? I would imagine they quite possibly were the mama Grizzly and her two cubs that were photographed by another photographer a few days later.

  • Visit to the Star Factory

    Visit to the Star Factory

    Orion is visible in the northern hemisphere during the winter months early March was the latest reasonable time to image it. A few days ago, the weather changed and there was a narrow window of opportunity to image Orion. From about 8pm to 10 pm we had clear skies before clouds rolled in. The result of that session is this image. I was not planning to do so but by a happy coincidence, I was able to capture not just Orion but three other Nebulae in the picture. The most colorful one of course is Orion. Just above that is the Running Man Nebula named for the Running Man like feature in it. At the very top of the image is the Flame Nebula, with those veins showing and below that side ways is the Horsehead Nebula. If you look closely, you will see the horse’s head sticking up though in this image, it is hanging towards the 4’O clock direction Orion Nebula is a place where new stars are being born. The constellation is noticeable for three medium-bright stars in a short, straight row. These stars represent Orion’s Belt. If you look closely, you’ll notice a curved line of stars “hanging” from the three Belt stars. These stars represent Orion’s Sword. Look for the Orion Nebula about midway down in the Sword of Orion. According to modern astronomers, the Orion Nebula is an enormous cloud of gas and dust, one of many in our Milky Way galaxy. It lies roughly 1,300 light-years from Earth which means the light we are seeing now left Orion 1300 years ago when some major world religions and most countries were not even born. At some 30 to 40 light-years in diameter, this great big nebulous cocoon is giving birth to perhaps a thousand stars. A young open star cluster, whose stars were born at the same time from a portion of the nebula and are still loosely bound by gravity, can be seen within the nebula. It is sometimes called the Orion Nebula Star Cluster. In 2012, an international team of astronomers suggested this cluster in the Orion Nebula might have a black hole at its heart. The dark-sky aficionado Stephen James O’Meara described it as: … angel’s breath against a frosted sky. (Source: earthsky.org)

  • Ridiculous.. Possibility

    Ridiculous.. Possibility

    Over the years we had gotten to know Anna Walker through my daughter Nayana being in the same class as CeCe Walker. Anna is loved by everyone in the community for her kindness and volunteering spirit. The other day, Anna reached out to me and said you need to visit our lake house on Lake Cypress Springs which is about 2 hours east of us. We can see stars clearly and you might be able to shoot there. On a whim, I asked my friend Yogesh if we can go there. If nothing else, we will be able to practice deep sky astrophotography that we have started to dabble in. The weather forecast was reasonable with 20% sky cover. We drove out to the Walker family’s lake house which is a beautiful log cabin on the lake with its own marina/dock to launch canoes/kayaks etc. By the time we go there it was quite dark and we saw some deer around the area. Our plans to shoot deep sky was shot with thick clouds that were moving. We drove around the area trying to scout for any locations to shoot the Milky Way which was to rise around 3am when the moon would also be setting. Did not find anything interesting and decided the best place is perhaps at the lake house though there were a few lights that we would have preferred not to have including one on a deck we nicknamed, “The Discotheque” We set up star trails since that was the best option we had and went to catch some sleep. Early in the morning when the Milky Way was to rise, we saw nothing on our cameras or to the naked eye. We could identify Mars and Saturn above two street lights which meant the Milky Way core was there as well. The thin clouds moving through made the stars look diffused and dreamy. After trying to do the best we could, we decided it is time to go home. We went back to pack up when I saw an embroidered wall art that said “Only he who attempts the ridiculous can achieve the impossible” with a star next to it. It sounded so true, I wanted to take a picture of it with my camera which is when I realized, I had Image Stabilization turned ON on my camera. Any self respecting landscape or astro photographer reading this now would be squirming. The rest of you can continue reading. A few choice expletives came out under my breath and after I had a chance to calm down, I asked Yogesh, since I realized this and we have not left the place, shall I go and try to shoot this again? Yogesh said, “Sure, I will load up the things in the car”. So I went back to place I had been shooting before under the tall oak trees that were just leafing out and some aquatic plants were sticking out of the water. The Milky Way core had by now moved southward and out of the glare of the two street lights. The clouds were also clearing out. I shot as many pictures as I could trying to do the impossible. This is literally the only direction I could compose this image and a healthy dose of utter ridiculousness made it possible.

  • Flat Earth

    Flat Earth

    Star trails from the Milky Way shoot at the Walkers' Lake Cypress Springs house back in March. About 225 shots and little over two hours of shooting went into this. The camera ran out of battery else the bright light trail in the middle which is Jupiter, would have been more complete. Apparently there are people who still believe Earth is flat.

  • Glacier Point Road

    Glacier Point Road

    Driving on the Glacier Point Road in which is open only for about 6 months every year, we saw a photographer taking picures from this spot. Curious about what the gentleman was shooting, we returned a few minutes later to see this view of the Half Dome as cars passed by. The Blue Hour made for some interesting twilight conditions. What is hard to notice unless you zoom in very tight is the presence of two portaledges half way up the 1.5 km hight Half Dome. Portaledge is a deployable hanging tent system designed for rock climbers who spend multiple days and nights on a big wall climb.

  • Lonely Jeff

    Lonely Jeff

    For some, It will be hard to believe when I say that I had not seen a picture like this taken here at Yosemite’s Olmsted Point before. Until I visited this place and Wisanu told me that Michael Shainblum had a picture of this iconic tree, I did not know this Pinus Jeffreyi or Jeffrey’s Pine tree was that famous or a composition similar to this existed. The granite that this tree I nicknamed Lonely Jeff was growing on reflected most of the star light to the point I did not need to use the head lamp. It was that bright all from just the photons that left distant stars long long ago. May be the light is reaching us now but some of those stars are long gone. All the light you see in this picture is from starlight except for the light on Jeff’s head. That happened when a small group of photographers in the parking lot below where being told their leader about this famous tree and he shouted to me if it was ok to shine a light on the tree to show his group. I said sure. The added benefit was the light painting he inadvertently did for me in the process

  • Annabelle can speak Chinese?

    Annabelle can speak Chinese?

    Just got back from Colorado from a brief visit. When I was looking for places to visit around Buena Vista where we stayed for the weekend, I came across this town called St. Elmo. I had one night to shoot, Saturday night. The party animal Luna was going to bed late like at 2:30am. Moon phase was Waxing Gibbous 81% of full moon. Which meant it was not a serious night for star gazing. Also weather in Colorado at this time of the year is crazy. Sunsets and sunrises are devoid of much needed clouds. For Pete’s sake, I had my eyes closed for a large group photo that was shot mid morning. But come night time, the clouds come out of the woodwork. This night was going to be no different but I had no choice. I had to take a chance. So I drove about one hour around 11pm on dirt roads and up a 10,000 foot mountain with no cell phone coverage of any sort along the way. I had been there during the day to look at the place so that helped. At dinner time in the quaint little but expensive town of Buena Vista, the sky was promising the storms having passed through. I was excited to see the stars. Once back at the hotel, I was chatting and my wife got bored of me sticking around and talking for the sake of talking or perhaps she was just tired and wanted to go to sleep asked me “When are you leaving and what time are you going to be back?” I replied I will be back by the morning. said, I might have to nap in the car to wait for moonset. Before I left Nayana told me, “Daddy, don’t sleep in the car. Stay awake”. Once I arrived here, I parked my car at the entrance to the town and was very disappointed to see the thick clouds. I was hopeful that it would get better as the night progressed. I parked the car and walked into the town. Sadly the town has bright lights. Not too many but just enough to cause any astrophotographer to feel extremely annoyed mildly put. I remembered reading earlier in the day that they had to install security cameras and lights to keep out people stealing antiques from this well preserved “Ghost” town. I walked around by myself and went back to the car to wait and it started to drizzle. I reclined the seat and began to nap. Around 12:30am, a pick up truck pulled up behind me and I woke up with the bright headlight shining from behind my SUV. Now who would come to an abandoned Ghost Town in the middle of the night except of course some crazy night photographer from Texas! Several thoughts quickly passed through my head. Are they photographers like me? Are they antique thieves? Could they be some really unfriendly people perhaps with a fire arm? Or, did I trip off some security camera alarm when I walked in to town and they have come to investigate. I decided to stay put in the car until one of them walks up to me and asks what I was doing there. After what seemed like a long 5 or 6 minutes. The headlights were turned off and several people got out of the pick up truck. I saw them walk towards me in the rear view mirror and several of them walked past me. I thought I saw one person turn towards me and look at me and I tried my best to stay reclined. I could hear them talking and laughing as they went past. I could tell they looked caucasian like any white person but I heard a female voice speak in what I thought was Chinese. They had no cameras or tripods so they were not photographers. But what were they doing there and why were they going into the town? Now, I was tempted to get out of there and drive back to the hotel. But the stronger temptation to be the first person to shoot Milky Way in this Ghost Town won (PS: I think I am the first person to shoot the Milky Way core here. I have not found any other photos online and if you have shot before me, you should share it) So another hour or so later, the group of people came back and now I expected someone to knock on my window but instead they knocked on the log cabin to my left, laughed and went to their truck. I don’t know what truck it was but it sure held a lot of people. After another very long 5-6 minutes, they turned around and left. The moon was too bright and clouds thick and it was drizzling a little. I decided to take a chance and walk into the town and shoot some pictures Milky Way or not. I shot some compositions and finally gave up on being able to see the Milky Way clearly and around 2:50 am, decided to drive back. I returned to the car and looked back at one of these intact homes and there behind it with the moon gone and the clouds disappearing, I saw the Milky Way flaming up the sky. I wasted no time and composed this shot and fired away a few. Then I got into the car and started my drive downhill. Once I came back to the hotel and had caught up on my sleep, I asked Nayana “Why did you ask me not to sleep in the car and stay awake?” She replied “I just did not want those people to come”. I said “what people?” She replied “Those random weird people”. Now read the rest..I read this not before I went to St. Elmo but after I processed this image and wanted to share some details about this intriguing place. St. Elmo, Colorado is one of America's best-preserved ghost towns. It's a town that's frozen in time. Located 10,000 feet deep in the Sawatch Range, 20 miles southwest of Buena Vista. It's probably one of the coolest abandoned places to visit. St. Elmo was founded in 1880, and quickly swelled to a population of2,000 people. The draw: Gold and silver mining. Within just 10 years the town had reached its peak, with the establishment of a telegraph office, General Store, a town hall, five hotels, a local newspaper, school, and of course the obligatory Wild West saloons and dancing halls. Unfortunately within just 4 decades the mining industry began to decline, and once the railroad stopped running in 1922, the town was abandoned. Saint Elmo today has numerous structures that have been preserved and are all privately owned. It is one of the best preserved ghost towns anywhere in Colorado and still has a few residents. The remaining structures include a general merchandise store, which still operates from May through October, a church, a school building, and many other business structures and cabins. The Stark family were part of St. Elmo’s elite, a high-class group that attended church regularly. Anna was said to have been a humorless woman who severely controlled the children, believing that they were better than the other townsfolk – miners, railroad men, prostitutes and hard women. The children were rarely allowed to leave home, forbidden to attend local dances or social activities and had only each other for company. In 1890 a fire destroyed the business section and the town was never entirely rebuilt. The survival of the town was largely due to the Stark family and their descendants, who remained the sole year-round residents for many years. According to local legend, perhaps at least one of them, Annabelle Stark, still keeps a ghostly watch over the town. Though Annabelle was always said to have been kind and generous to the few who still frequented the store, the locals began to call her “Dirty Annie” because of her filthy clothing and tangled hair. She was also known to have roamed the old town, with rifle in hand, to protect her property. The town officially died on Sept. 30, 1952, when the post office closed.
Eventually, Tony and Annabelle were sent away to a mental institution, for their own safety and that of others. However, after just a few weeks, a sympathetic friend convinced the authorities that they were of no harm to anyone and they were released. Tony died a short time later and Annabelle was sent to a nursing home in 1958 where she died in 1960. Their property was left to the sympathetic friend who had helped them. Shortly after Annabelle’s death, the friend’s grandchildren were said to have been playing in a room of the hotel, when suddenly all the doors in the room slammed shut and the temperature dropped nearly 20 degrees. The terrified children refused to play in the hotel again. Another one of the grandchildren, a young woman in her twenties, decided to take on the hotel as a project, cleaning out the rooms, making minor repairs, and washing down the walls and floors. After cleaning up for the day, she and her friends would put away their tools and cleaning supplies, only to find them in the middle of the floor when they returned the next day. After this continued to occur, they started placing the items in a padlocked closet, but still they would be in the middle of the floor when they came back. On another occasion, a skier was said to have seen a very attractive woman in a white dress framed in the second story window of the old hotel. The owner was away on vacation, so who could it have been? The young woman’s eyes were focused on something in the distance and when the skier followed her gaze, she saw a group of snow mobilers who were riding through the street. The skier flagged down the group, informing them that snowmobiling was illegal in St. Elmo. The group apologized and rode away. When the skier looked back at the hotel, the woman nodded to her, then turned away and vanished. The legend of Annabelle’s ghost lives on with the part-time residents of Saint Elmo, believing that she continues to protect her property from vandals or trespassers.

  • Mountain Pride

    Mountain Pride

    One of the things landscape photographers covet is a unique composition and we all seek that to satisfy our creative appetites. On my the recent trip to California, I had no preconceived ideas or wish lists on what I wanted to shoot. This could be good or bad. Good because whatever you are shooting is your own fresh take on what you see. Bad because you have not done your homework so you are not prepared for field work and you end up wasting precious time. In this case, having a clean slate was good. It helped that my friend Wisanu had scouted this location prior during the day when we split up and scouted different areas. He shot here first and me at a more accessible location at Yosemite’s Olmsted Point. Later we radioed each other and switched places when I went up the hill in the direction of the dim low level light panel he had set up to light up this Bonsai like tree. I am a sucker for wildflowers and one of my favorite native wild flowers and one that uses hummingbirds as matchmakers is the Penstemon strangely also named beardtounge. They are native to North America and do not grow wild anywhere else. On this mountain, I found this Penstemon at the base of the Bonsai tree. It seemed like both the Mountain Pride (Penstemon newberryi) and Jeffrey’s pine (Pinus jeffreyi) had been planted there carefully to have the best view of the Half Dome, quarter dome if you consider it is sort of cropped off on the right side; and the heavens above. The ground feels quite flat in the image but I am on a slope almost at the top of this 8500ft (2600m) mountain. I was by myself listening to any rustling noises or foot steps. No, there were none but my senses were heightened. I did spend more time here than the norm. I actually sat down and enjoyed the fresh mountain air and appreciating the beauty of the tough as nails flora this rugged rocky place had to offer. There was no soil for these plants to grow. Just cracks in the granite where they claimed their rightful place under the wide open sky.

  • DWTS

    DWTS

    I spent last week with some special people exploring some really special places in California's Eastern Sierras. It was intense, tiring but also very fulfilling. To be in places I had never seen before for the first time often in the dead of the night was thrilling to say the least. I can only imagine what my 14 year old daughter, Nayana felt. We created everlasting memories which will only become better over time. It was not a cushy trip. We slept very little, sometimes ate food we wouldn't give a second look at home. Those freeze dried foods, MRE types are really a hit or miss! The better the packaging, worse it is inside. We experienced drastic changes in elevation and temperatures often within a span of few hours. With the out of comfort zone efforts came the great experience of being with and shooting alongside a future (I predict 2 years at the most) legend and a role model Wisanu Boonrawd. If nothing else, Nayana got to experience what goes into creating great images. The meticulous research, planning, preparation, being able to change plans on quick order due to factors beyond our control, and time management is no substitute for creating great images from the comfort of our homes regardless of creative vision. This image was one of the last shot the first night we arrived at Mobius Arch in Alabama Hills, a range of hills and rock formations near the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada in the Owens Valley. This is also the site where many Hollywood Cowboy movies were filmed. Our drive from LAX to Alabama Hills was exactly like going perpendicular to a vey wide wind tunnel. Only this wind tunnel was also blasting sand and our rental car stayed caked in fine dirt for the rest of the week. On this night we arrived to a group of friendly photographers from Bakersfield who were already shooting. We approached them in the dark with our headlights turned off from a distance. When requested if we could shoot alongside them, they readily agreed and even let us use a small light to light the Mobius Arch. Since the Milky Way was fairly up by then, we did not get to shoot some of the compositions we wanted to and decided to come back in a couple of days. People that know me well know that I have two left feet. On this night night however I felt like I was Dancing With The Stars.

  • Texas Sized Welcome

    Texas Sized Welcome

    The one thing a Texan returning home looks eagerly for is a sign that says “Don’t Mess With Texas”. This monument welcomes motorists coming over the Red River from Oklahoma (now, if you are curious about where this is, Google maps can help you). I had photographed this previously in September 2015 on my second Milky Way shoot with my friend Uday Tummala who showed this to me. I had wanted to go back and shoot this early in the season rather than in late summer since the Milky Way moves further to the right of this frame and gets diluted by the light pollution coming from the nearby town. Yogesh Mhatre was a willing partner and joined me on this shoot on a weekday night. Astrophotography is a challenge in so many ways. 1. You can only shoot the Milky Way core during the warm months since in the winter months it sets too soon. 2. You need to be in a fairly dark sky area to be able to see and shoot the stars. 3. You should not have moonlight. 4. The weather has to cooperate and you need clear skies. So quite literally, the stars have to align and when they do like they did on this particular night, sacrifices like losing sleep on a weekday become meaningful. I used two exposures for this shot. One for the sky with star tracker turned on and an identical one for the ground with tracker turned off. The light trails are courtesy of truckers entering Texas.

  • May the Fourth be with you!

    May the Fourth be with you!

    A website FAQ asks: What is there to do at Redfish Lake? Relax and enjoy the scenery! Rent a boat from the Marina to explore the lake on your own. Sunbathe on the sandy beach. Hike: there are plenty of trails around to lead you to gorgeous backcountry. Saddle up at the Redfish Corrals. Stop by the Redfish Lake Visitor’s Center. Eat a hearty meal in the restaurant. Sip a cocktail in the lounge. Gaze at the Milky Way in the crystal clear night sky. Fish a nearby stream. While did not do most of the leisurely stuff described above, I did get to gaze in wonderment at the Milky Way in a really dark sky area. I had wanted to shoot a panorama of tracked longer focal length shots for some time. A well known astro photographer Eric Benedetti shoots spectacular Milky Way panoramas in this fashion. He also shoots them mostly in this area which gave me the motivation to try something similar. This was shot the night before the Great American Eclipse from the nearby Stanley Lake. I used a star tracker to gather more star light than I could without a tracker. For the ground portion, the tracker was turned off. A total of 30 exposures were then stitched into a panorama. I also used a 55mm lens which is more commonly used for portraits. Apples to apples, a longer lens gathers more light than a wide angle lens. (You can read about Clear Aperture Ratio here : http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/nightscapes/) My biggest challenge with this panorama is blending the sky and ground parts like it would be in one large wide angle shot. Thanks to John Burge for the pointers. John shoots some fantastic longer length panos (85mm and above). Do check out his work.. The peaks which frame the lake at its south end are · Mount Heyburn at 10,229 ft (3,118 m) on the Right · Grand Mogul at 9,733 feet (2,967 m) on the left

  • All Rights Reserved

    All Rights Reserved

  • Stars growing on trees

    Stars growing on trees

    On the evening we arrived in Stanley, Idaho for for the Great American Solar Eclipse, we visited the Redfish Lake which we were informed was going to be closed for public during the eclipse and accessible only by the campers. My friends and I wanted to take advantage of the access when we had it, to shoot the Milky Way shortly after sunset. After I shot a couple of compositions we were packing up when my friend Christopher Jackson showed us this composition he had found with the Milky Way nicely framed by evergreen trees. I shamelessly shot the same compostition and Chris was game enough to even light paint the trees for us.

  • Löyly

    Löyly

    There are only a handful of places on Earth like Hot Creek's active geologic setting in California, which makes it a nice addition to your next adventure when you visit Yosemite. Within the shallow gorge, groundwater heated by subsurface bodies of molten rock (magma) reaches the surface and mixes with the cool waters of Hot Creek, creating a picturesque environment with otherworldly features. Below the hot springs, healthy populations of fish thrive off the abundant nutrition generated by the consistently warm waters of the creek. Delicate rock formations created by the precipitation of minerals rim the hot spring pools. Like most geothermal springs, the area is constantly changing and evolving. Once-active geysers and springs are now dormant or extinct, and new springs appear annually. Earthquakes can cause sudden geyser eruptions and overnight appearances of new hot springs at Hot Creek.  If you are thinking of a nice Finnish sauna, swimming is illegal at this location due to the rapid fluctuation of water temperatures, as changes of 200 degrees F ( i.e., 93 Celsius so it will boil your eggs!) over mere seconds have been recorded within the stream. Again like most places I have been fortunate enough to visit, I was unaware of this place and the potential for astrophotography. Thanks to my friend Wisanu, I was able to not just visit it but also spend time taking in the grandeur of all that has been created. The only negative about this place was that bright light in front of the mountains on the left. That is from a local airport. Not a deal breaker but would have been nice to not have that element of artificial light. The rest of the ground is lit by pure unadulterated star light. Now the jargon: Sony a7RII Zeiss Batis 25mm/f2 22 shots went into this 3 frame vertical panorama. Top third of the image: ISO 10000, 25mm, 10s at f/2.5 10 exposures Median Stacked Middle third of the image: ISO 10000, 25mm, 10s at f/2.5 10 exposures Median Stacked Ground: Single long exposure ISO 800, 25mm, 125s at f/2.0 I left the Long Exposure Noise Reduction on in the camera for this shot since it was the last shot of the very long night. Processed in Capture One Pro and Photoshop

  • Jupiter Descending

    Jupiter Descending

    When on a long road trip and especially while starving, one of the nicest experiences one can have is to be greeted by a friendly waiter who serves good food and regales you with some local legends. We met one such person at a nice Bakery/Restaurant in Lone Pine, California. I can’t recall what I ate but it was well done and presented. The onion rings were to die for. More than that, I recall the affable waiter who recounted how he lived in Dallas for sometime in the 1970s before moving westward and ended up living near Alabama Hills. He seemed genuinely happy with the decision. More than that, we had a picturesque view of a mountain out the window and I asked him if that was Mt. Whitney. He told us that it was actually Mt. Langley and showed where Mt. Whitney was. He then said that the first guy who was trying to scale Mt. Whitney climbed Mt. Langley instead. But the first summiteer of Mt. Whitney was actually a drunk local fisherman who took took a bet to climb Mt. Whitney and did so before lunch. Now that is the word of mouth story. The story that is published goes this way: In July 1864, the members of the California Geological Survey named the peak after Josiah Whitney, the State Geologist of California and benefactor of the survey. During the same expedition, geologist Clarence King attempted to climb Whitney from its west side, but stopped just short. In 1871, King returned to climb what he believed to be Whitney, but having taken a different approach, he actually summited nearby Mount Langley. Upon learning of his mistake in 1873, King finally completed his own first ascent of Whitney, but did so a month too late to claim the first recorded ascent. Just a month earlier, on August 18, 1873, Charles Begole, A. H. Johnson, and John Lucas, all of nearby Lone Pine, had become the first to reach the highest summit in the contiguous United States. As they climbed the mountain during a fishing trip to nearby Kern Canyon, they called the mountain “Fisherman's Peak”. In the picture you see Mt. Whitney framed by the Mobius Arch. The bright light on top of the peak is actually Jupiter that was setting. Jupiter which is usually the second brightest object in the sky after the moon was looking like it is usual very big star appearance until the moment it just started to go behind the mountain. I am not sure if it was the partial obscuring of the planet but Jupiter did balloon up before it disappeared behind the tallest mountain in the Sierra Nevada range and the highest summit in the contiguous United States. Sony a7RII Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2 41 exposures ISO 10000, 25mm 10s at f/2.8 Four Horizontal Frames stitched into Panorama Each Frame median stacked with multiple identical images to improve Signal to Noise Ratio Processed in Capture One Pro and Adobe Photoshop

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