Brent Newman Photography

Name: Brent Newman Photography
Address: Bailey, CO, 80421, US
Telephone: +15703372104

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Bailey, CO
Brent Newman Photography

Landscapes, nightscapes, and naturescapes

Prints are available upon request, *not* NFTs

08/21/2026

When I'm Small
A self portrait

While I'm a reasonably large human, while out there I feel infinitely small. Small compared to the boulders I scrambled. Small compared to the mountains I climbed. Small compared to the interstellar space of the Milky Way Galaxy that raced around the cirque with me.

For years, I have had an idea of shooting myself climbing a mountain or something cool while racing the Milky Way core in the darkness. While daydreaming at work one afternoon this month, I created a concept of a plan, packed my gear, and headed out. The idea was to circle the cirque valley as I approached the 14k' summit while keeping my headlamp in frame and the camera rolling on the opposite side of the basin, safe from the wind and potential early morning hikers in the high of the tundra. Heavy wildfire smoke rolled in and slowed me down some, but I was on track to get the highest summit completed before twilight began to fade the Milky Way and my headlamp. I also wanted to stay close to the edges of the ridgeline to expose my headlamp to the camera but I decided to go around a large tower as I did not pack a helmet and didn't know the rating for continuing the ridgeline climbing. I remember seeing the tower in the smoky moonlight and thinking, this is it for my headlamp, so here's one last blast from across the cirque before I vanished from view.

With my light refracting off the lake centered and in line with the Milky Way core, I decided to make this self portrait from my 700 image stack.

08/19/2026

Circling the Cirque
Colorado
6-7 August 2026
Single exposure timelapse

What is a heat-sensitive hiker to do during a historic August heatwave? Climb high at night, of course! While daytime temperatures exceeded 100 F in Denver, I enjoyed temperatures a little above freezing and had both summits to myself.

Here we see the Milky Way core circling the cirque valley from the east, light from my headlamp circling the cirque from the west, where we met on the opposite side of the cirque valley before the moonlight overcame the darkness.

Sony A7iii full spectrum w/ UV/IR cut, Laowa 15mm ƒ/2 @ƒ/2.8, ISO 3200, 692*25"

08/04/2026

Who's ready for autumn?

After weeks of record smashing heat and extreme wildfire smoke, I know I am! Those frosty mornings and quaking aspens are now, finally, several weeks away.

07/21/2026

A projection of a rusting volcanic plug ripples under a tranquil morning deep in the wilderness reflects an image that was and will never exactly be again.

07/09/2026

To ask "what color are the stars?" stretches objective truth, blurring into a philosophical debate. Most of them appear white to my unaided eyes, but are they?

Color is our physiobiological experience with the visible slice of the electromagnetic spectrum. Compared to other animals, our experience is quite good but still very limited. Other animals, such as birds and insects, also see ultraviolet slices of the electromagnetic spectrum. While others can see into the near infrared and even 'see' infrared light, as do pit vipers. Stars emit wavelengths far beyond any animal perception, but we don't call it 'color' as we're blind to it. We perceive color as the most abundant reflected visible wavelengths. For our own star, the Sun, the most abundant reflected visible wavelengths are green. Therefore, it might sound reasonable to say that the Sun is green, but it doesn't appear green to me. It usually appears yellowish to me, but with the recent wildfire smoke, I would call it red. In the absence of atmospheric filtering, the Sun appears as white as fresh snow. Indeed, snow is white because it is derived from white light reflecting and refracting from the white Sun (minus a slight shade of blue refracted from a blue sky).

Our Sun is fairly average in terms of size, color, and luminosity. But an average star is not necessarily the most common, as there is a great amount of size, color, and luminosity diversity amongst our neighboring stars. Astronomers standardize star color by their color temperature in degrees of Kelvin. Much like when a metal glows red, you know it's toasty, and when liquid metal glows white, it's very hot. Likewise, reddish stars are the coolest, while blue stars are immensely hot. Much to my dismay, many photographers still get color temperature confused.

Being diurnal, our vision is best suited for seeing color with high luminosity. As luminosity fades, as with the night sky, we can no longer discern wavelengths of light into individual colors, and our vision becomes grayscale, or 'panchromatic'. To our eyes, only the brightest night sky objects preserve their colors. But capturing these colorful objects with a camera is limited only by the exposure time and dark, clear skies. Most of the colorful objects trailing the frame are stars. But, look closely to see a few pinkish trails where hydrogen emission nebulae in the Milky Way core are also observed dancing across the sky with the stars. I began 'nebula trailing' one night a few winters ago, bored, with the Orion Nebula, and wondered if I could trail it. Sure enough, it works well with a full spectrum camera, and I'm surprised I haven't seen it done elsewhere.

Last Moonlight on the Monolith Featuring Startrails

07/08/2026

Last Moonlight on the Monolith
Untracked Stack Featuring the Milky Way Core

To kick off the 2026 galactic core season, I brought my dog to camp by one of my favorite monoliths and watched the Milky Way core rise before dawn during mid-February. I knew the moon would be nearly full but also that it would set nearly an hour before dawn. Not only would I have sufficient time without moonlight, but I also wanted to make use of the setting moonlight to illuminate the top of the monolith. More importantly, the weather looked very suitable to make it happen with mostly clear skies, winds less than 30 mph, and not bitterly cold for winter camping in the Rockies.

That was the plan. But I ended up having one of the wildest experiences taking photos in the backcountry to date. After my dog and I enjoyed a nice evening beside a warm campfire under the lowering moon, I positioned my tripod near my tent and next to a cliff...sans camera. I set my alarm for 3 am and tucked my dog into his sleeping bag. Right before I passed out, I heard a loud rushing sound. It wouldn't be the first time I'd been grazed by a fighter jet in the backcountry, so I initially tried to dismiss the sound. As it grew louder, I realized it was the wind I was hearing, and I remember thinking, 'Oh, that's probably not good.' BOOM! I was upside down in what remained of the tent with my terrified dog. The wind literally picked up the tent with my dog and me in it and tossed us towards the cliff like a magic tent ride before I hit the ground in my sleeping bag like a sack of potatoes. Worried that if I tried to get us out of the tent would increase the drag in the hurricane-force winds and we would again be launching airborne towards the cliff, so I held my dog and just waited. After what felt like an entire night, the extreme wind relaxed enough to get us out of the tent and collect ourselves. We were a bit bruised but otherwise unharmed from the rogue Chinook event. After I cleaned up the remains of our camp, I noticed my tripod still standing strong, bungeed to the ground with heavy rocks. I chuckled to myself, thinking this was not my first rodeo with the wind, and I grabbed a quick nap in the truck before my alarm went off. After a whirlwind of a night, I was delighted to initiate shooting under a lighter breeze with the moon beginning to eclipse the horizon.

EXIF
Sony a7III FS, Samyang 50mm ƒ/1.4,
16*6", ƒ/2.0, ISO 640

07/07/2026

It's been very smokey from several large wildfires in the state lately. Moonsets are not the same and even wildlife photos have noticeable haze.

07/01/2026

Howdy Folks, it's been a while since I've tossed some of my work into a contest, so I've entered several images into DarkSky International's Capture the Dark Photo Contest. My entries can be searched using 'brent' in the search bar. If you like what I've submitted, I'd really appreciate your vote! The contest link is in the comments.

06/30/2026

I heard it's

How about a couple of single exposures from my 50-mile backpacking loop in the middle of nowhere, Colorado? I selected these exposures from the timelapse series I captured. The first features the only nice meteor I captured from a 5-hour sequence along with the Andromeda Galaxy. The second image features a pair of wood ducks and a muskrat in the lake. Both images are single 30" exposures.

Address

Bailey, CO
80421

Telephone

+15703372104

Website

https://brentnewman.photography/

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