My all-nighter from Joshua Tree this past weekend

Ryan10

Founding Member
Pulled another all-nighter this past Friday/Saturday. Now that the MW is visible a bit earlier and disappears around 3:30AM, I was able to get about 90 minutes of sleep at the White Tank campground in my car.

For this trip, I drove about 50 minutes past the North East park entrance to get all of my MW shots and one of the arch shots. The rest of the land images were taken at White Tank campground area.

All MW shots are 10 image median stack, and I used a tracker. 12mm and 21mm lenses were used on my APS-C X-T2 camera. The land shots were done during blue hour sunset or sunrise to preserve detail.

Scorpius Arch Selfie by Ryan Luna, on Flickr


Arch Rock by Ryan Luna, on Flickr


Joshua in White Tank by Ryan Luna, on Flickr


White Tank by Ryan Luna, on Flickr
 

AlanLichty

Moderator
Delightful set Ryan - very nice work on the blending and the MW has some incredible detail.

When you blend shots like this are you using the same tripod locations for the MW as well as the ground exposures or do you just overlay the images for best effect?
 

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Hey Ryan,

Nice work here with these. Of course, you kind of stole my thunder as I have been planning on going out to Joshua Tree in the next few days to shoot the MW with these same arches. But you nailed these shots so well, I am now wondering if I need to change up my location destination. :(

#3 might be my favorite of the bunch.
 

Ryan10

Founding Member
Delightful set Ryan - very nice work on the blending and the MW has some incredible detail.

When you blend shots like this are you using the same tripod locations for the MW as well as the ground exposures or do you just overlay the images for best effect?
Thanks Alan. I do not use the same tripod location. For this set, all of the MW images were taken at the darkest possible place in Joshua Tree, (a random location 50 minutes east of the North East entrance). The land shots are taken at blue hour during sunrise and sunset at other various locations.

There is probably some controversy in my approach, but I don't try to hide it. Also, I won't ever knowingly place the MW in an unnatural position with a recognizable land composition. The four images I posted is where you'd naturally see the MW anyways. Now, it may not be exact, but it's very close. With that said, I may take an unrecognizable land composition and composite the MW into that. For instance, a random shrub, tree, rock formation, etc... that nobody would recognize.

I have taken this approach to my MW images, because when I print them, I want the cleanest possible image I can create. My blue hour land shots are actually brighter than what you see. I tend to reduce the exposure in post by a half or a full stop to make it look more realistic. I only take the land shots for my MW images at blue hour, so I don't have harsh shadows being cast by the Sun.
 
Last edited:

Ryan10

Founding Member
Hey Ryan,

Nice work here with these. Of course, you kind of stole my thunder as I have been planning on going out to Joshua Tree in the next few days to shoot the MW with these same arches. But you nailed these shots so well, I am now wondering if I need to change up my location destination. :(

#3 might be my favorite of the bunch.
Thanks Jim. White Tank's phallic presence always gives me a bit of a chuckle.
 

lionking

Well-Known Member
Beautiful work Ryan!
I don't find it controversial, landscape photography is form of art and self expression, the other form is called photo journalism...
;)
 

Ryan10

Founding Member
Very nice set, I like them all, but the first and last are my fav.
Beautiful work Ryan!
I don't find it controversial, landscape photography is form of art and self expression, the other form is called photo journalism...
;)
Gorgeous set of images, Ryan. What an awesome night's work!

Thanks all.

On a side note...the first image I posted, ( the selfie ), is in the Coxcomb mountain area of the park. It is absolutely awesome there. It is in the North East corner of the park and rarely visited. I was all alone out there. It is not an area that is publicized all that much, and you'll feel quite remote. Interestingly, within the main areas of the park, there is basically no cell service; however, this particular area has fantastic cell service. There is a cellular tower about 7 miles away in the middle of nowhere, I assume for people traveling on highway 62 just in case they break down.
 

Jim Dockery

Well-Known Member
Great work and thanks for the explanation. The 3rd is my favorite with the Joshua Tree telling where you are. The land compositions still look a bit light to me. If they were mine I'd take some more creative license to work on the color and contrast in the sky also - looks a bit green (which might be the actual color) but I prefer it more blue, with some pure black in the sky. You seem to have the sky tracker and stacking dialed in.
 
Top Bottom