03/06/2018
Shooting inside a cave at night, alone, in the middle of winter, knowing that the rising tide will cut off your exit back to dry land might not be for everyone. I know a few fellow night photographers have made this treacherous approach and lived to tell (and show) the tale.
I have shot sunrises and moon rises from this tide-dependent cave, and as a young boy I would often come here with my naturalist father to look at the inhabitants of the big tide pool. Cliff swallows used to nest on the ceiling, but have been absent for a decade or so. I few years ago I photographed Caroline Dignes on aerial silks hanging from the lip of the cave.
This year an incredibly clear night on Feb. 19th had me inspired to get out and shoot something new. I had just seen that my friend Mike Taylor had been to this location, but as I drove into the Park, I decided that there must be some original compositions still left.
For me, still water and reflections are a huge attraction, day or night. You can double your Milky Way by finding a little puddle of water, or hitting conditions just right at one of the lakes or ponds (sometimes even the ocean). There are some technical challenges to these compositions.
At night we are always shooting f/2.8 or faster for the stars. This means that our foreground is usually slightly out of focus. Things closer than 10-20 feet can be noticeably un-sharp. This is when a focus stack helps. Another challenge is water doesn't reflect 100% of the light, so the reflection of the stars is often too dim to really stand out. I often take a longer exposure of the water and allow the reflections of the stars to streak just a little bit in exchange for a little better brightness and color in the sky's reflection. Also the foreground is usually very dark, so another shot is required to bring out detail. In this case that means a shot like this might be 5 exposures in order to get all the elements correctly exposed, and in focus. Of course I did this as a little panorama in order to get the wide angle of view but still using my Sigma 20mm f1.4 lens. And then comes processing!
If you want to learn how to shoot Milky Way images I'm teaming up with Aaron Priest Photography (as I do every spring) for a Night Sky Panorama workshop here in Acadia National Park, Maine. Three days (aka nights) of shooting and processing to get you making stunning images of the Milky Way. Only Three spots remain at this time: http://acadiaimages.com/2018-workshops/milky-way-panorama/
