Astralphotography has had a huge revival lately and if you scan Facebook, Twitter or Google+ you will most likely see various photographers capturing the Milky Way over the ocean and mountain ranges. As I've mentioned in previous blog posts, I'm committed to stretching myself as a photographer and artist and have been researching photographing the Milk Way, camera settings, types of lenses and exposure lengths, all the technical stuff. I'm happy to say that I was invited recently by friends Zack and Salah to delve into stretching our photography skill sets and try something new.
“While You Were Sleeping”
I was invited by friends Zack and Salah to join them on a Milky Way shoot, so we all meet up at 8pm and took the 120 mile drive from Las Vegas to the ghost town of Rhyolite. Just as we arrived, the Milky Way bands were ascending from the SE, slowly moving upward in the sky and to the South. We each quickly set up cameras utilizing one of the old abandoned buildings as a compositional element and started shooting, periodically playing with some light painting to illuminate the building and foreground.
I actually had 2 cameras set up at this site, my 5d mark ii with a 24-105 lens and my 5d mark iii with a 16-35 lens. (A huge thank you to Chase Stevens for letting me borrow his 16-35). I'd say overall I'm pretty happy with my first attempt and it certainly won't be my last. My goal is to capture more images similar to this in unique locations throughout my travels and share those with you all. And even with my extreme fear of the dark, and periodic screams from hearing weird noises, or scaring myself from thinking I would see creepy faces in the windows of the abandoned building, I'd say it was a success. I finally made my way home by about 4am this morning with dreams of photographing more in the near future. Thanks Zack and Salah for a fun night!
