This photo was months in the making... when I had the opportunity to visit Grand River Ranch, CO, this summer and the milky way and stars were so bright that I frantically re-watched all of Elia Locardi's astro tutorials - from the basics on. I had never even photographed the stars before, but it was too good of an opportunity NOT to go out at night and shoot.
This composition is my favorite from the trip, because it took the most amount of work and post production. The star trail is a 255 stacked image (that took my 2009 MacBook a little bit long to process - I was listening to Bon Iver's "re:stacks" on repeat because it got stuck in my head) blended into a blue hour and milky way shot. The light from our campfire illuminated the tree and the lights from the small town below gave a light trail below the pink clouds. Months after my trip, I finally got the image to a place that I was willing to share it - and I'm really happy with the result.
