Lou Doll Vega Photography, us 276, brevard, Pisgah Forest, NC (2026)

08/28/2026

Cloud Roulette for the Partial Lunar Eclipse

About a week and a half ago, as we started the countdown to the eclipse, I remember Chris and I casting a pretty wide net for potential locations from Pawleys to Sullivan’s, Folly, and even Edisto looking for somewhere we might get a break in the clouds long enough to see the eclipse.

Of course, with typical Lowcountry weather, you can have a thunderstorm nearly every night, and even a week and a half out it was already looking bad.

With each day that got closer, the models and forecasts changed ever so slightly. One location might look better for a spell, then another would take its place. Still too early to lock in a plan.

By the last 24 hours, though, it was becoming apparent that the clouds might not give an inch. Rather than drive an hour or more chasing a forecast that was still far from promising, I resigned myself to trying to capture the eclipse from my front yard or out by the dock.

Even 12 hours out and again four hours out I was still watching the forecast and the trends, hoping for even the slightest break in the clouds.

With about an hour to go, it became obvious just how thick they were. They did not look like they planned to cooperate.

Still, I had my camera gear sitting in the garage acclimating to the outside temperature. I kept stepping into the front yard, even while it was raining, looking toward where the Moon was supposed to be.

Every once in a while I could see the faintest suggestion of light pushing through the clouds. Luna was up there. I just couldn’t see enough of her to even get focus.

So I waited.

And watched.

And when the moment of maximum eclipse finally arrived, there was nothing but clouds in the part of the sky where the Moon was supposed to be.

Almost as if on cue, I heard a small aircraft flying overhead. For a moment I imagined that maybe it was above the cloud deck and that whoever was up there had an amazing view of the eclipse I had spent the past week and a half trying to see.

Sometimes that’s how Cloud Roulette goes.

Be good to each other out there.

08/13/2026

Out under the stars. I've seen at least one really bright red meteor but it was out of frame for my camera. We'll see how many I caught when I get home.

06/20/2026

I went out the other night hoping for a clean pairing of a young crescent Moon with Earthshine, and Venus.

But some thin clouds stayed right in place over that patch of the sky, and they made it difficult to get a clean focus on the lunar edge and definitely made getting any Earthshine more difficult.

At least one of my shots did get some visible Earthshine, but at the expense of a really blown crescent that made it almost like the moon or sun does after an eclipse and that was not the effect I was looking for in my scene. I may process that and post alongside an actual eclipse photo later.

I could have corrected the sharpness on this more, but then it stopped feeling like the night I experienced.

So I kept the softness.

Would you have done the same?

Enjoy, and be good to each other out there.

Photo © Lou Vega 2026
Please feel free to share or link with attribution.
Please do not crop, print or alter.

06/14/2026

About a week and a half ago my friend Johnna from A lady called Johnna texted asking if I still planned to head up to Pisgah Forest for Blue Ghost Firefly photography. It was a little later in the season than I had wanted, but I definitely still wanted to go so we planned a very quick carpool trip up there to see what we could get.

We met up and drove up to Pisgah Forest, got set up for our shots and waited. The blue ghost didn't show up very much. Maybe they didn't get the memo 😁

I managed to get one shot with a couple blue ghost trails and another with some regular fireflies. Next year I hope to get there earlier in the season and get some more activity.

Enjoy!

05/22/2026

Around this time each year, I try to make at least one trip deep into the forest near where some creeks meet to watch something pretty amazing.

Hundreds of fireflies blink together in a rhythm only they know, but you can't help but feel while you're standing there. While they do that, dozens of another type of firefly carve small J-shaped swooshes into the night as they light up to their own beat. Watching them is fun, but it is also strangely peaceful. Alone in the darkness, lit only by the crescent moon filtering down through the forest canopy and the occasional blinking lights of these two firefly species.

Capturing them on camera takes patience and discipline. Keep your own lights off, except for the occasional red light to get your bearings or adjust a camera setting. Wear long sleeves, long pants, and something to cover your head, neck, and face if you can. I choose not to wear bug spray when photographing them because I do not want to risk driving them away, which means the mosquitoes are just part of the deal.

Camera exposures are usually around 20 to 30 seconds to get the right balance between the dark forest around you and enough firefly activity in the frame. If you decide to include yourself in the photo, that means standing as still as possible for those 30 seconds while the forest keeps moving around you. You can also plan like I do around the moon in the right phase to get just enough light spilling through the forest canopy above to evenly light a long exposure, my very own celestial softbox.

I also try to make a trip to Brevard, North Carolina for a different type of firefly, the Blue Ghost. Rather than blinking in unison like the Synchronous Fireflies, or carving swooshes through the night like the Big Dipper fireflies, Blue Ghosts fly low and slow to the ground and stay lit for 20 to 30 seconds at a time as they move through the air. In a long exposure photo, they can look like tiny streams of eerie blue-green light forming all around you. I hope to see those sometime in the next two weeks.

Usually when I'm out in the night capturing photos, I'm looking up and viewing ancient light. During these nights, I'm looking all around me and taking in light in the present.

Enjoy, and be good to each other out there.
Photo © Lou Vega 2026
Please feel free to share or link with attribution.
Please do not crop, print or alter.

05/19/2026

Earthshine and Venus

I started scouting the sky just before sunset, it was still a little too bright to really see the thin crescent moon in the sky and then Venus nearby but I wanted to get a quick idea for my composition once the dark skies took over.

The thin crescent Moon hanging low in the evening sky with Venus nearby. The part that always gets me with a young crescent like this is the earthshine and I was glad for clear enough skies to see that even without a camera looking up.

This was such a delicate scene to photograph. The bright crescent wants one exposure. The dim earthshine wants another. Venus wants to shine bright. The bright and diverse light in the lens wants to flare. The coastal atmosphere adds its own haze. Technically, there are cleaner ways to process an image like this, but sometimes cleaning up every imperfection removes the feeling of actually being there.

So I left some of that glow and flare in the frame.

To me, that is part of the story. This was not just the Moon and Venus placed against a black background. It was light moving through space, through atmosphere, through glass, and finally onto a camera sensor for a brief moment on a clear evening.

A little art, a little science, and a lot of standing outside looking up.

Enjoy, and be good to each other out there.
Photo © Lou Vega 2026
Please feel free to share or link with attribution.
Please do not crop, print or alter.

05/17/2026

First night out under the stars in a while, mostly due to poor weather conditions for astro photography and recovery from an earlier injury.

About nine minutes of total exposure, tracked and stacked, of the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex the other night from Folly Beach, SC.

This is one of my favorite regions of the night sky. It sits near Antares and has this beautiful mix of dark dust, blue reflection nebulosity, warm golden starlight, and the M4 globular cluster nearby. It is also a challenging target from the coast because haze, humidity, and light pollution do not make the faint dust easy to capture.

Still, it felt good to be back out under a clear sky and to come home with enough usable data to bring some of that structure forward.

Pentax K-1 Mark II camera, Pentax 100mm f/2.8 lens.

Enjoy, and be good to each other out there.
Photo © Lou Vega 2026
Please feel free to share or link with attribution.
Please do not crop, print or alter.

03/03/2026

I was planning to capture another lunar eclipse.

Went to sleep with less than optimal cloud and weather forecast. Awoke to this view from the dock out back and a dense fog advisory.

The partially eclipsed moon is somewhere behind all those clouds 👀😁

01/20/2026

Where Majesty Returns
Start of Galactic Core Season, Folly Beach, South Carolina

Galactic Core season is just beginning. The core is present, but patience is required as it sits low on the horizon, softened by dawn, waiting its turn. I stayed long enough to watch the night loosen its grip, knowing the real majesty would come later. This is the place where it starts and it is the place where I return each year to wait.

Enjoy, and be good to each other out there.
Photo © Lou Vega 2026
Please feel free to share or link with attribution.
Please do not crop, print or alter.

Lou Doll Vega Photography

08/28/2026

08/13/2026

06/20/2026

06/14/2026

05/22/2026

05/19/2026

05/17/2026

03/03/2026

01/20/2026

Address

Website

Alerts

Shortcuts

Share

Category

Listing takedown request