Uncategorized

The Pillars of Rome and Milky Way

I just got back from a week-long roadtrip around southeastern Oregon with my family. We had a great time despite breathing a lot of desert dust, doing a little damage to both our car and our tiny camping trailer (southeastern Oregon is not kind to people or vehicles in general), and getting skunked (photographically speaking) for the first half of the trip.

One of our stops put us in Rome, Oregon, a tiny valley hamlet along the Owyhee River. There wasn’t much to the place, really. There’s a boat put-in for the river, a general store with gas and some camping (and one of the top-5 worst cups of coffee I’ve ever sipped), and a chunk of land north of town called “The Pillars of Rome,” where surprisingly unique and interesting rock formations erupt from the ground and tower over the dusty landscape, which is mostly filled with scrub brush and cows. The crumbly clay structures have a number of fossils embedded in them and apparently were a landmark to pioneers, who likely paused for a moment to admire their grandeur before deciding that there was no way they were going to homestead anywhere near there.

Because our gazetteer had a tiny camping symbol at the BLM’s boat put-in, we assumed we could trailer-camp there, although a gate at the gravel road’s entrance and a sign near a grassy spot stating “Do not place tents on grass – Day Use Only” hinted that maybe our gazetteer was wrong. The only other option was camping at the general store half a mile down the road. We decided to roll the dice and camp at the boat put-in anyway, knowing full well that there was a chance that I would return from shooting in the middle of the night with the car and find that the gate would be closed, thereby preventing me from getting back to our camp trailer and my family. It wouldn’t have been the first time I would’ve slept in my car, but luckily it never came to that, as the gate was still open when I got back.

And this was a good thing, as the general store, for some reason, had lit their camp area to near-daylight proportions with the use of two extremely bright sodium-vapor lights. The lights were so bright, actually, that when they turned on a little past sunset, I thought the BLM’s boat put-in had lights in its parking lot. But no, these were lights from the general store. Half a mile away. I’m not sure how anyone in the general store’s RV park got any sleep without blackout curtains and sleep masks.

Despite the obnoxious lighting practices of the general store, Rome has some extremely dark skies, which is great for photographers like me who enjoy photographing the night sky. The result of one of my photos is below.

Technical details: This is two exposures, one for the sky and one for the foreground, taken back to back, and blended carefully in Photoshop. This is the true position of the Milky Way at the moment in time in which the photos were taken.

 

The Milky Way over Rome, Oregon.
The spring Milky Way wheels through the dark skies of tiny Rome, Oregon, where just north of town the rock formations “The Pillars of Rome” impose on the dry landscape. Prints available here.

 

Early the next morning, I got the panorama below after finding this location the previous day. 

 

The Milky Way arches over a rock at Pillars of Rome, Oregon.
Moments away from becoming washed out by the dawning of a new day, the Milky Way arches over a sphinx-like rock formation at the Pillars of Rome, Oregon.

 

Uncategorized

“Reclamation” – Behind the scenes of a night-sky panoramic…

If night-sky photographers were to have an off-season (and they could certainly use such a thing, to catch up on sleep if nothing else), the winter time would most likely be it, at least in the northern hemisphere.

From about November through February, much of the galactic core of the Milky Way (the colorful, dust lane-riddled part of our galaxy) lies below the horizon, at least where I live in Oregon.

Of course, the absence of this singular feature of the night sky doesn’t stop me from going out and taking photos. I could probably write a separate blog post on my and other night sky photographers’ fixation on the galactic center and how winter night-sky shooting may even be preferable to shooting during other times of the year, but I’ll save that for later. Suffice it to say, between the long nights and the cool temperatures (which are better for creating low-noise images), the winter’s a great time for night photography.

But I have to admit, like plenty of other photographers, that first glimpse of the Milky Way’s mysterious glowing center on my camera’s LCD is exciting.

So color me giddy when I was able to get my first glance of this feature of the Milky Way in 2015 last weekend. For this trip up to “the mountain” (Mt Hood, for those of you who don’t speak Portlandese), I was able to convince fellow night-sky photographer Chip MacAlpine to join me. Actually, “convince” is probably the wrong word, since it doesn’t take a whole lot of prodding for Chip to drop everything, sacrifice some sleep, and head out into the wilderness for some photography.

While we’re on the topic of “wilderness,” while technically it’s in Mt Hood National Forest, Lost Lake’s hardly feels like wilderness, especially from the vantage point of this shot. Because of the lack of snow this year, the road up to the lake’s still open, although I was warned by a ranger that fallen trees haven’t been removed. So I was a little worried that our trip up to the mountain was going to be foiled by a downed tree blocking the road, which luckily didn’t happen.

For me, the greatest obstacle in my way was the fact that I had just had surgery a week and a half before on my left elbow, which was still bothering me at the time. The next-greatest obstacle was the tiny window I had in which to actually get this shot. Half an hour isn’t a whole lot of time when you’re taking multiple long-exposure photos, and although I would’ve had a slightly smaller window of opportunity the following morning, the forecast was for cloudy skies. In short, I had half an hour to get this photo or I’d have to wait until the following month.

Technical details: For those of you wondering, this panorama was created with six vertical photos, all shot with the same fairly standard settings: 15 seconds at ISO 6400. My aperture was unrecorded. I made some basic RAW adjustments in Lightroom, before exporting the files to PS6 for stitching. After that, I did some cropping and a little bit of careful warping to correct for perspective. Then I did my usual post-processing workflow, which includes luminosity masks for self-feathered selections.

Title details: The title of this photo is an allusion to several things: First, it’s kind of a play on the lake’s name. Second, it refers to the galactic center of the Milky Way, which has been hidden for the past few months. And third, it’s a comment on my own healing process and what has been required for me to (hopefully) live a life with a little less pain in my day-to-day activities.

Prints details: This print will be available as a 20×40 limited edition print on aluminum. With 50 total prints made, pricing is variable depending on the print’s number in the series. Use the contact me form below-right for details. I’m in the process of ordering this one for my own house, and will post the photo as soon as I can make it happen.

The galactic center of the Milky Way slowly rises behind Mt Hood, as seen from a frozen Lost Lake in mid winter.
The galactic center of the Milky Way slowly rises behind Mt Hood, as seen from a frozen Lost Lake in mid winter. Limited-edition prints available; contact me for details.
Contact Me
close slider