Milk Bowlder

Red Rock Coulee provided me with a unique foreground for some spring Milky Way shots. This area contains some of the largest spherical sandstone concretions in the world. These concretions can span up to 2.5 meters across. The boulders began as a nucleus of shells, leaves or bones and circulating waters deposited layers of sand, calcite and iron oxide. The iron oxide gives the stones a reddish colour.
I used an LED light panel to paint the rocks so they stood out in the foreground during a single exposure. The LED had a 3200k filter on it so that the overall temperature of the image was well matched between the natural and artificial light, and the rocks retained their warmer tones. It was actually surprising how dark the skies were there.