night photography | Change Is Hard

November 13, 2025
by dawnkinster 39 Comments

And then there was light

You probably saw on the news that there was a very large solar event this week. Tuesday night was supposed to be stunning, with the kind of aurora lights we saw a couple years ago. Of course Tuesday night I was in band and when I got home our skies were cloud covered.

I went to bed disappointed.

*In the beginning there was just the faint pink and green.*

Wednesday night the weather folks and those forecasting the aurora said it wouldn’t be as spectacular as Tuesday had been, but we had a good chance of seeing the lights. And this time the skies over my head were mostly clear!

The aurora last night was fickle. I watched the numbers, and went outside numerous times, once it was dark, to check using my phone to take sample images, thinking maybe, just maybe there was a bit of a pink tinge to the northern sky.

Eventually the numbers got better and I dragged my camera, tripod and a chair out to my backyard. I had considered driving somewhere that would provide me a clearer view of the horizon, but lots of stuff kept me home.

*But almost right away another pillar of light sprang up.*

I figured if I saw it, I saw it and if I didn’t, well, I’d see a lot of images online in the morning.

*And then more pillars with more intense color.*

Sitting in my own backyard took a lot of the stress out of finding a place with a clear view, worrying about other people, cars with headlights, or huffing deer.

It was actually pretty comfortable, even relaxing, out there. So comfortable I didn’t spend enough time focusing on the stars, so they’re not the pinpricks they’re supposed to be. And of course the trees, that were quite close to me, are out of focus. You can’t focus on both the stars and the trees!

*Imagine what it looks like from that plane.*

But the color, oh the color, was wonderful … if only for a few minutes. I think I spent 30 or 40 minutes out there before the color faded and the clouds blew in around 10 p.m. This morning I read that the lights came back out later in the night, but I was long asleep by then.

*And then the light began to fade again.*

I don’t have the most wonderous images. I didn’t have a view of the horizon so I couldn’t see much of the green dome below the red lights. My stars aren’t in focus. There’s no great foreground.

*Clouds overtake the last of the pink light.*

But for almost an hour I sat in the comfort of my yard, staring at the sky and smiling. If I hadn’t taken even one image I’d still have been happy that I went out into the night searching for Lady Aurora.

I hope some or all of you got a glimpse too. If not….squint at these images and imagine being out under the stars. I’m willing to share.

One of the cool things about an event like this is that I know so many people are out there staring up at the sky too. We’re all looking at the same big sky, and for one or two nights the rest of the crazy world falls away. I never feel alone when I’m out under the stars and I usually don’t even feel the cold until I’m back inside. It’s an amazing experience.

*Another phone shot testing the skies. It was there!*

All these images are pretty much the way they came out of the camera (or phone). I cropped a few, tried to clean up the fuzziness of a couple others. But mostly they’re the way they looked in the camera. You couldn’t see any of this with your naked eye.

If you ever get the opportunity, go out and watch the aurora. Take your phone or camera with you, it probably will be the only way you’ll see it. But it’s worth the adventure.

September 13, 2025
by dawnkinster 24 Comments

Still camping

In case you’re wondering what people do when they’re camping but not hiking up and down mountain ravines, let me show you!

*We had a fire nearly every night. Here Beth is taking a picture of the engineering of the fire pit.*

You might decide that you’d like to take a stab at a camping weekend somewhere beautiful near you. We’d love to be the inspiration if you decide to make the leap.

*This is your typical bundle of firewood purchased from the park. $7.00*

Or you might already be a camping sort of person and just want a new place to visit. If that’s the case, we’re your girls!

*We roasted the obligitory marshmellows.*

Personally, I like campgrounds where there’s some space between sites. Preferably some trees and shurbs that give you some illusion of privacy. Because let’s be real, when you’re camping you just don’t have much privacy at all.

I’m OK with that. I have no problem sitting in my chair next to my fire reading a book as people walk by with their dogs, waving hello.

My experience has been that most people that camp are really nice.

*Our next door neighbor. 4 kids and two parents.*

And there’s always something close by to explore. Just get in your car and drive and see what you find.

We were camping at this park in the hopes it had a dark sky at night so that I could try to do a little photography. We ended up with one cloudless night, and we headed out to the park’s disc golf course to see what we could find.

*Comfy on a chair, working on the settings to catch the stars.*

There wasn’t much in the way of a foreground there, so I mostly focused on the stars and didn’t worry about it.

*Even with the light polution you can see the Milky Way.*

But then I thought maybe I should at least try to put the truck in the shot.

*The adventure truck beneath the Milky Way.*

I think I need more work on that sort of image, but it was fun. A cool night, but not cold. No bugs to speak of. No scary noises, nobody else around to worry about.

And we were back in our tents shortly after midnight!

Can’t go wrong when you get to sit out under the stars!

I still have to show you what we found when we went out exploring. Guess there’s one more post in this series of photos!

July 28, 2025
by dawnkinster 35 Comments

Magical

Almost a week ago now we had clear skies, no moon, and moderate temperatures. It was all perfect for a Milky Way photo shoot. So a photographer friend and I along with her daughter took a run up to the thumb of Michigan to find somewhere to spend the night under the stars.

There’s a special barn up there, and I’ve always thought it might make a good Milky Way foreground.

We checked it out, both sides. The owner of the barn must have a sense of humor.

But physically it wasn’t really faced in the correct direction for a Milky Way shoot that night. Maybe earlier in the season when the Milky Way will be further to the east. I’m keeping it in mind So we headed up toward Port Austin, near the point of Michigan’s thumb. We found a little roadside park with a small sandy beach.

*The last light illuminates the log resting on the beach.*

We decided to watch the sunset from there and then decide what to do. While we were watching the sun a small flock of cedar waxwings showed up, sitting in the dead tree near us and then flying out to catch bugs. The light was low and they moved so fast it was hard to get a good image.

*A cedar waxwing keeps watch for a tasty bug.*

But they sure made me smile.

There seemed to be an unlimited source of very thin rocks, perfect for stone skipping. So my friend and her daughter skipped stones and I took pictures.

It was so much fun.

Meanwhile the sun began to set. And, though we didn’t get a great sunset it was pretty enough for us.

We went back to the car to get our real cameras and when we came out to the beach hundeds of lightening bugs rose from the beach grass. I tried so hard to get a picture of them, but it was hard.

*See the yellow fireflies? Now multiply that by 100s.*

Just imagine standing there with all these glowing lights flitting around you. It was magical.

And then it began to get dark and my friend told me there was an aurora alert and we should take a test shot to the north and see if anything was happening. And guess what.

*A pink dome, supported by a green base with a couple pillars in for good measure*.

There was!

So we spent a lot of time shooting the aurora. It wasn’t a spectacular show, but there was plenty of pink and green and light pillars.

Then we turned our cameras south to see if the dark horse was leaving the protection of the trees yet.

It was still, unfortunately, partially behind the hill. We weren’t in a prime location for Milky Way, looking to the south it was behind the trees for much of the night. But the aurora made the site worthwhile.

*The aurora was moving out further into the bay.*

Across the way you can see retangles of golden light. I think, after studying a map, that must be Tawas, a large town on the other side of Saginaw Bay. I also wondered if there’s a bank of foggy mist out there.

We looked back to the south. The dark horse in the Milky Way was moving further out from behind the trees.

So that’s how the night went. Shoot a little to the north, shoot a little to the south. There was something spectacular no matter where we looked.

*It was hard to believe we’d gotten so lucky!*

The whole night was so wonderful. Fireflies, aurora, Milky Way, stars, a slight breeze, warm temperatures, the lapping of a quiet lake. You can’t beat it. And I felt lucky that we were there.

We left the beach a little after 1 a.m. as the mist from the bay started to move over the Milky Way and the aurora had fadded.

*Notice all the light pollution from Caseville.*

We had a 2.5 hour drive back home. I smiled the whole way.

*Nothing but stars and the tail end of the Milky Way overhead.*

March 26, 2025
by dawnkinster 37 Comments

The moon also rises

You haven’t heard from me in awhile, but there’s a very good reason. It was the moon’s fault.

You remember back a couple three weeks when we enjoyed the lunar eclipse? Well you know I was out in my backyard attempting to capture the beauty of it all.

I thought it was going to be easy.

I went out early in the evening, before the eclipse began, and shot an image of the moon just to make sure I could focus and get the light right. The camera auto focused on the moon and I was happy with the image.

So I went to bed and set the alarm for 2 which is when the news people said we’d be close to the full eclipse. But that was silly. Because when I got out there after 2 a.m. I had missed the whole first half of the eclipse. I don’t know what I was thinking!

I did, however, get to see the full eclipse. I wasn’t really enjoying it in the moment though because I couldn’t get the camera to focus.

Turns out there was so little light coming off the moon that the camera couldn’t figure out what to focus on. The focus ring kept moving, the lens trying so hard to find something to latch onto, but it continued to fail. Meanwhile the eclipse was moving right along on schedule. So I changed it to manual focus and tried to do the best I could, using skills learned in my Milky Way class.

I went back to bed at 5 a.m., cold to the core, but happy knowing I had 191 images. Of the moon. And even though I knew a good percentage of them were garbage, I knew a handful would probably be good. Or at least good enough.

In the morning I downloaded the images to an external hard drive because my laptop memory is pretty full. But when I went to open up my first image all I got was colored lines.

I and my husband have been trying off and on since then to figure out what the deal is. I’ll save you all the details, but it turns out if you shoot in RAW you need to have special software to read the data and see your image. At least you do with my new camera, the Nikon Z6iii. It’s confusing because I know for a fact that I haven’t had trouble shooting and reading RAW images in the past. All my night shooting has been in RAW and this has never been an issue.

It’s a lot like those running shoes I used to wear. As soon as I found a pair that felt good the manufacturer would change something and I’d have to find a new shoe.

Anyway.

Today husband finally figured out that we needed to download Nikon’s software which he did on our desktop computer and I finally got to see my moon images for the first time since sitting out there in the cold, all those weeks ago.

Today I deleted lots of images. I kept lots too. But this one, the one below turns out to be my favorite because of the stars shimmering around the moon.

Now I know you can’t actually see the stars, I usually have to lighten up images quite a bit to post them on WP or FB. But oddly tonight when I tried to edit this image the entire Lightroom Classic edit page is different. I can’t find the crop. I can’t figure out how to make the stars shine brighter. I can’t find much of anything. So…tired and feeling defeated, I give up.

What you see is what I’m able to figure out. I’ve spent way too much time today trying to get stuff to work. Tomorrow, I promise, is another day.

And right now I’m going to go back to the desktop with it’s big screen and look at this image and sigh, remembering a magical night under the stars.

You guys will have to take my word for it.

October 22, 2024
by dawnkinster 30 Comments

Things that can fly…or searching for a comet

Not only have there been lots of colorful lights in our night skies, there’s also been a comet. Or so I’m told. It’s not the kind of comet that shines brightly in the sky, it’s more reticent than that. Less showy.

*Hanging out on a country road waiting for dark.*

Of course that makes it all the more alluring for night photographers, professional and armature alike. I went out on two successive nights to try to find the comet.

*The moon came up as the sun went down.*

The first night neighbors and I met on a dirt road outside of town with an unrestricted view to the west. It should have been perfect. But though we stood out there, eyes turned toward the sky, scanning back and forth for over an hour we didn’t see it. We did however figure out we needed a heavier coat, hat and gloves if we were ever to do this again.

*Over processed image to show you how big the moon was that night, rising in the east.*

Oh, it was there all right — plenty of people posted images from that night. But we didn’t see it. Perhaps it wasn’t dark enough where we stood. Perhaps those clouds hanging low on the horizon obscured our view. Perhaps the nearly full moon rising behind us as the sun set was to blame.

Or maybe it was all of that combined. Regardless, we headed home empty handed. And very cold.

The next evening I met a fellow Milky Way student out at my favorite park, where we planned to show her daughter the birds that come down to eat out of people’s hands, and then head to a dark place along the lake to look for the comet.

*Scouting potential comet viewing locations, I ran across some color.*

Before we even headed out to look for the birds we got to see other flying things.

*It was a beautiful evening for a flight.*

I rarely head out to feed the birds in late evening, but we tried. She did get a few birds to come down from their sleepy roosts to get a bedtime snack, but not many.

*A sleeping mourning dove. He declined to come down for a snack.*

We didn’t see many birds that evening, but we did see other things flying.

Though at first we weren’t quite sure what it was.

Meanwhile, my friend’s daughter’s new best friend was a chipmunk who stuffed himself with seeds, ran off to deposit them some safe place for later and ran right back to get more seed multiple times. I think he has enough provisions to get him through the winter now.

As we were driving to our chosen comet viewing location we noticed the big orange moon was rising. I made a hard, quick right and we pulled in along a couple dozen other photographers, focused on the beautiful rising moon.

*It was really much prettier than this.*

You’ll have to take my word for it. It was bright orange and rising up above the trees, reflecting in the lake. I didn’t have my camera set up for a moon shot, it wasn’t on a tripod. As I was messing with all of that the moment passed, as it does so often in photography.

*The moon was sooooo beautiful that night, even if we never found that comet I knew I’d still be happy.*

As the sky turned red and then darkened we hurried to the spot we hoped would be perfect for comet viewing. A beach, deserted, gave us a perfect view of the night sky. But where was that comet?

*Another sunset, another night of searching for the comet.*

We had come armed with instructions from other, successful, comet photographers — descriptions of where it was in the sky, how many degrees from this star or that formation. We tried it all, pointing our cameras in all sorts of directions, hoping.

And then my friend’s 22 year old daughter, bored with the old folks and their expensive equipment, raised her phone to the sky, shot one image and said…”It’s right there.”

And bingo. Knowing exactly where to shoot, even though we couldn’t see it, made all the difference. We couldn’t even see it in our images, unless we zoomed way in. So we might have gotten shots of it and not even known, would never have known, without the young women’s gift.

*It’s long tail extended, flying right over our heads all this time.*

So there you have it. The comet who’s name I can’t pronounce or even spell. The elusive, sneaky, fading comet who will be back to visit in a mere 80,000 years. Or is it 800,000?

I’ll have those camera settings down by then. How about you?

September 15, 2024
by dawnkinster 10 Comments

Night #2

My sister and I spent our days exploring Michigan’s eastern UP the last week of August, but we spent our nights looking for clear skies. We were on a mission to capture the Milky Way over interesting stuff, in particular over the Upper Falls at Tahquamenon State Park.

*A view of the falls from along the path, taken during our morning research for the night time adventure.*

I’d seen images done by other photographers and I figured what the heck, how hard could it be. Right?

We’d made the recognizance trek back to the falls, and down the 94 steps to the viewing platform during the day. We’d check the position the Milky Way would likely be over the falls, using my hand dandy phone compass. We’d strategized how the whole even would go down, including talking to rangers ahead of time so they’d know where we were.

Still, as we parked in the giant, but empty, parking lot after dark that second night of clear skies I was worried, as I always am, about what could go wrong. As we sat there waiting for it to be dark enough headlights came up the long driveway toward us.

“DARN!” I said (well maybe not that exact word).

*These stairs are easier to maneuver in daylight.*

I’m never happy to have other people around when we start out on a night mission, unless I know who they are. The truck went on past us and parked in front of the bathrooms. The park rangers were there to clean up the facility after the day of tourism.

Now I was in another quandary. I didn’t want to walk up on them and startle them. So we waited until they were done, and on their way out they stopped to talk to us, wanting to know what we were doing. The lady ranger recognized me from our earlier discussion and told us to have fun and be careful.

*Yep lots of water falling off that ledge.*

So with an official blessing my sister and I packed up our gear and began the long walk back to the falls. It’s not really that difficult, given what most people have to do to get to scenic places, the trail is paved and pretty level as long as you watch for the occasional tree root.

*The path winds along the ridge above the falls, flat and wide.*

Still, by then it was pitch black. Do you know that noises are scientifically louder when heard in a dark woods vs. in your own driveway? It’s a fact. Anyway, we made it back to the long set of stairs and picked our way very carefully down to the viewing platform.

The first thing I noticed once we were down there, other than that the roar was very loud, was how much mist was blowing off the falls. And that it was blowing right at us.

*I had my sister turn on her flashlight so I could see how much mist was flying. Turns out it was a lot.*

But there was the Milky Way, exactly where we figured it would be, right above the falls. To our eyes it looked great. I could imagine just how it was going to look through my camera lens.

Except for this darn railing that is just about the same height as the top height my tripod will go. And I need to shoot in portrait (vertical) to get the Milky Way and the falls in a single shot. Which put the railing smack dab in the middle of the frame.

*Oh…and I forgot to turn off my red flashlight too.*

How annoying. I dabbed at the mist on my lens and considered that maybe I could shoot from a lower perspective, between the rails.

*I was struggling with the composition so much that I didn’t spend any time on focus.*

The noise from the falls and the waves of mist washed over me as I reconfigured the tripod and tried sitting down to shoot.

Seriously this was not going well. Then I tried holding the camera on the top railing manually, even though I knew that was ridiculous and there’s no way I could hold it steady for 20 seconds. In what felt like a monsoon.

I really needed a taller, more steady tripod. In fact at one point the whole tripod tipped over and somehow, some way, I managed to grab a leg in the dark before the whole thing fell over.

And I need to be there on a clear night when there is less mist. I wonder if that’s even possible?

*Maybe I should find a spot over the LOWER falls.*

And mostly I need to learn how to do panoramas, because if I could have shot the top of the Milky Way in landscape (horizontal) slices, down to the falls I could have stitched it all together into one really pretty image.

Or so I’m told. I haven’t done those segments of my class yet. I guess this is the winter to buckle down and learn that stuff while the Milky Way is resting, so that when she wakes back up next spring I’ll be ready.

*Eventually* *I had to focus on just the stars, and even then we were getting soggy from the mist.*

So ladies and gentlemen, I present to you zero great images of the Milky Way over the Upper Falls at Tahquamenon State Park. But don’t be discouraged. I plan to try again after I do more learning and more research.

I guess the Milky Way over the Upper Falls just wasn’t in the stars for me that night. (You see what I did there?)

But we will be back, if nothing else because walking into the dark woods and then walking out a little damp but none the worse for wear was a thrill in itself!

*You might find us just about anywhere!*

I hope you all come along with us on our next adventure!

September 13, 2024
by dawnkinster 33 Comments

Night #1

We went to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan during a very specific week in August, a week when the moon wasn’t filling the sky with light, in order to capture the dark skies there and the Milky Way hanging high overhead.

*I concentrated on driving, my sister took the pictures as we went over the bridge.*

The season for Milky Way core shooting is coming to an end. Soon it won’t rise high enough for us to see it, and we’ll have to be content with the memories of magical clear nights filled with stars. Because certainly that’s what it’s always like when you’re out under the stars shooting the Milky Way. Right?

Sure it is.

*Under the bridge before we drove over it.*

So that Monday at the end of August my sister and I packed the car and drove all the way up from southeastern Michigan, across the Mackinaw Bridge and into the interior of the eastern part of the Upper Peninsula.

We set up camp and then decided we’d head up to Whitefish Point for the sunset. And, if we were lucky, a bit of Milky Way practice too.

*Lots of families had spent the day at the beach.*

The Milky Way core rises early in the night at this time of year, so all we had to do was wait for it to get dark. The minutes ticked by slowly as the light faded and many families came in from the beach, packed their kids and stuff into their cars, and drove away.

But many other people were still out on the beach as the skies darkened, slow to leave Lake Superior and a day filled with sunshine, splashing in the lake, and looking for that special rock.

According to what I could find online the Milky Way would be visible around 10:15. By 9:45 we were getting tired of waiting and I climbed out of the car to do a test shot from the parking lot to see if it was there.

*If you look at this in a dark room and make it bigger you’ll see satellites flying all through the sky.*

Unfocused and with no composition to speak of, the image is over exposed on purpose so I didn’t have to wait 25 seconds just to see what was up there. We were very excited to see that the Milky Way was indeed hanging over our heads.

So off to the beach we went. We had planned to shoot from down near the water, but there were hundreds of biting flies down there. I felt more comfortable up on the boardwalk where the night breezes kept the flies at bay.

*Over exposed on purpose again, just to get a quick image to see where the Milky Way was in relationship to the lighthouse.*

Besides, this wasn’t meant to be our real night photography session. We’d come up to Tahquamenon Falls State park to shoot the Milky Way over the falls. This was just a practice session, nothing really important.

Once I established where the Milky Way was, and got the stars in focus, I settled in to get a serious shot. But there were still people walking up from the beach, flashlights shining on random things. Car taillights and headlights were shining on the lighthouse when you least expected it.

*The red from car taillights lit up the side of the lighthouse. And of course the lighthouse beacon made plenty of light too.*

Not to mention the actual light from the lighthouse which every 14 seconds would blast two times. My sister counted the seconds for me as I tried to avoid the light. Though to be honest the beacon light looked kind of cool on the back of the camera and I didn’t mind it so much at all.

But then there was that red light near the bottom of the frame. I couldn’t tell what it was, while looking through the lens, but the camera was definitely picking something up. It was annoying, and meant that I really needed to limit myself to the top portion of the lighthouse.

*Easy enough to crop out that bit of red at the bottom. Turns out it was an exit light inside, above a door, that filled the room with red light.*

And as I focused on the sky above the lighthouse there were, of course, planes to contend with. You can take a series of images, all in a row, and then ‘stack’ them in a software program and the parts of the images that aren’t the same will be removed. So I took 7 or 8 images, and if I wanted to I could stack them and all the planes and satellites would be eliminated.

Or…you could just say, that’s cool, look at all the stuff up there in the sky!

*Well, I got the shot without the beacon, but there was a plane flying through the Milky Way.*

I didn’t take a lot of images that night. I probably should have gone down to the beach and worked on my original composition plan. It was a warm, beautiful night. But we were both tired from a long day and this was just a practice shoot anyway.

*A car’s headlights lit up the side of the lighthouse, but I sort of like this one.*

Right?

In the end I liked a couple of the images. And I’ll definitely go back on another clear, warm night. A night with a breeze to keep the flies away. Maybe a night earlier in the season when the Milky Way will be visible later in the night and fewer people will be around with their flashlights and headlights.

And of course I still had the Milky Way shoot above Tahquamenon Falls to look forward to. This was just a practice session, remembering how to focus and camera settings and stuff. But you’ll have to wait to see how that one turned out. I haven’t processed those images yet.

Heck, just retelling the story of our very long first day in the UP has exhausted me! But I hope you enjoyed your short trip to Whitefish Point on a warm August night!

May 16, 2024
by dawnkinster 50 Comments

When a 3 night reservation turns into two…continued

Let’s see. When I left you last my sister and I had driven a few hours north, scoped out a potential night sky photography site at a lighthouse, and set up our campsite at Harrisville State Park.

The purpose of this three night camping adventure was to capture the Milky Way in darker skies than those around my house. I’d made the three night reservation six months ago in order to get a prime Lake Huron shoreline site.

I was sure that at least one night would have clear skies.

*A view of the lighthouse from about where we planed to stand later that night.*

Based on weather forecasts it looked like Monday night/Tuesday morning was my only chance. So we set our phone alarms to get us up at 2:00 a.m. and in the early morning darkness we drove the few miles to the lighthouse.

We quickly found the “X” we had drawn in the sand earlier in the day and began to set up shop. But while I was lengthening the tripod legs I noticed a light way out on the horizon, shining just above the bench I intended to use as a foreground. The light bothered me because it was so bright.

*See that light in the middle of the horizon? It was a lot brighter than it looks here. The orange is light pollution.*

I took a couple shots but didn’t like what I was seeing.

*Too much light from towns to the south.*

I decided to shorten the tripod legs in an attempt to hide the light behind the dune. I sent my sister over to the bench so I could try to focus on it, intending for it to be in the foreground which would be stitched together with another image with the focus being the stars.

*She’s walking back using the red light. You can still see some of that bright light on the horizon to the right of her.*

That didn’t work, I couldn’t focus on her at all, so I gave up that theory. Plus we were too far away from the bench and if I moved closer there would be that darn light out there on the horizon.

I decided to just try for a single image, nothing I had to stitch together later, just practicing getting the stars in focus. That worked and I took several of the same image so I’d have some spares to practice stacking when I got back home.

*You can see the bench, but it’s really small and there’s too much light pollution.*

But all the time I was focused on the Milky Way I’d been distracted by the lighthouse to my right. The grounds had a single large light on the other side of the building which was lighting up the side of the tower. I thought it was beautiful and wanted to get a shot of that even if it wasn’t a Milky Way image.

*I started to move the camera around while not realizing the shutter was still open.*

So once I was done with the multitude of stackable images of the Milky Way, and feeling disappointed in the images I had so far, I turned the camera toward the lighthouse. And the first test image I took I realized included a small part of the Milky Way!

How exciting, it was possible to get the Milky Way and the lighthouse in the same image! Quickly I shifted the camera to the right. And this is what I saw:

*Nikon Z6ii, 20 mm, iso 3200, 12 seconds.*

The yard light they had perfectly lit the tower without being obscene. I had enough time in between flashes of light to get the image because there was so much other light around. And by moving to the right I had eliminated most of the ugly orange light pollution that blasted out over the lake.

I was thrilled.

The rest of the night I worked on getting the best composition, and then taking multiple shots to stack later. I think I was also trying to get one image with the lighthouse in focus that I could use as a foreground to be blended with my best sky shot.

To be honest I don’t know if I did that. I haven’t looked closely at all the images yet. I fell in love with the single image I’m showing you now and sort of stopped looking after that.

It’s such a great reminder of the entire adventure.

If I don’t end up doing anything more with these I’ll still be happy. I need to read the study guides in my online class to learn how to do blends where part of the image is from one shot with the foreground in focus and the rest of the image is from a sky shot with the stars in focus. It can’t be that hard. Right?

Right???!

So what did we do the rest of our three nights at Harrisville? Well…this has gotten too long already so once again you’ll have to wait and see. But I don’t think anything we did the rest of our time there will top that first night.

*Hint: There were no more clear skies, day OR night!*

When I’m out shooting the stars I don’t feel the cold. My sister, who was patiently waiting for me was marching up and down the beach trying to thaw her toes. I didn’t notice the cold until we got back to the car, and then I realized I was cold to the core.

We got back to camp about 5 a.m. and headed to our tents to get one hour of sleep before the 6 a.m. sunrise which we wanted to photograph. But we were both so cold all we did was shiver in our tents, even with our electric blankets, as we waited for the sun to come up.

And after we got a couple shots with the sun rising we scurried to McDonalds to get a hot cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich. It took a couple hours before we were ready to head back to our tents for a nap.

*It was pretty but we were too cold to appreciate it.*

Warm was good.

So Monday night/Tuesday morning was the highlight of our camping adventure. Would it be worth it to stick around Harrisville for the rest of our reservation? Hard to say. When I get some more time I’ll show you around town.

But it won’t be under the stars.

May 13, 2024
by dawnkinster 25 Comments

When a three night reservation turns into two.

Six months ago I reserved a campsite on the shores of Lake Huron during a new moon cycle, intent on doing some Milky Way photography. Many years ago Katie and I camped at this state park and I remembered a lighthouse located just a few miles north that might work for night photography.

*This is the Sturgeon Point Lighthouse*.

My sister drove all the way up from Alabama just to go with me on this photography adventure. Last Monday we set out early in the day so that we had time to scout out the lighthouse location for potential night shots.

*My sister noticed this split in color on the lake.*

You see, the weather didn’t look promising beyond Monday night. That’s what happens when you have to book something months out. Weather is always the unknown element. We expected a clear night Monday, but rain and cold Tuesday and Wednesday.

We discussed going back home Tuesday if it was miserable.

And we knew we’d only have one night to get the Milky Way. So we needed to be ready.

The lighthouse was just as I remembered it, standing tall on the shores of the Great Lake. We wandered the beach looking for something interesting to put in the foreground.

*The bench might look fun under the Milky Way.*

Eventually we decided we needed to be quite a bit behind the lighthouse in order to be shooting Southeast where the Milky Way would be. We found a place that might work, tucked low behind a small dune, and made a big X in the sand so we could find the spot in the darkness of 2 a.m., our planned shoot time.

Then we explored other places on the site, including Baily School which wasn’t open, but we got an interesting shot through the window anyway.

We wandered down the beach to the south, thinking maybe the rocks out in the water might be interesting. Even if we didn’t end up shooting there at night, they made a nice, minimal, image in the sunshine we were enjoying.

Eventually it was time to go check into the campground. If all three days were as nice as Monday we’d have a wonderful time. If only.

*Our campsite, right on the shore, was small, but we managed to make it work.*

Maybe the weather forecasts were wrong.

We did note that of the handful of people camping along the shore we were the only ones in tents. Perhaps we were a touch too early in the camping season.

*The view from our camp site looked promising.*

Not to worry, we each had electric blankets and we were confident that we’d be fine. This was not our first spring camping experience.

*Our beach. Though it was too cold to swim.*

So…you might ask…what happened on Monday night? Did we leave our nice warm, snuggly beds to drive up to the lighthouse at 2 in the morning? Or did the waves lapping on the shore lull us back to sleep after our alarms rang?

I guess you’ll have to wait and see.

April 9, 2024
by dawnkinster 35 Comments

Night adventure

I’ve been waiting for a clear night with no moon and Saturday night/Sunday morning was it. It’s early Milky Way season and it would be visible for a couple hours before sunrise.

I just had to find a dark place to wait.

I got up at 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning, got to Shiawasee Nature Preserve, about an hour north of me, by 3:30. I thought I was prepared. I knew which direction to look. I had the Skyview app loaded in my phone. I had a compass. I’d been there during the daytime and had scoped out a spot to stand that was very near where my car would be parked.

So it was with high hopes I got out of the car in 32 degree weather (but no wind!) wearing a winter coat, scarf, hat, and gloves. I walked the few feet to my chosen spot, set up the tripod and pointed it to the SE. And saw….nothing. A few stars. Nothing much was visible because the light from Flint, 28 miles away, was overwhelming.

I began to doubt myself. Maybe it wasn’t really in the SE. Maybe it was more South by now. After all it was last week I had the training that said Southeast…maybe it moves faster than I imagined. I couldn’t remember the name of the constelations I was supposed to use to find the Milky Way. I couldn’t figure out how to put Antaras (a star) into the Skyview app on my phone to find it.

I was reduced to randomly pointing the camera at the sky in any location I thought it might be and shooting. I saw a few bright stars I thought might be the ‘teapot’ and concentrated on that section of the sky. But that was due South, and I knew that wasn’t right. Still, looking to the Southeast was just too bright.

As I played with my settings I couldn’t check to see if my images were getting better or worse because the back of my camera went black. Apparently I had touched some random button that disabled the live view. Sigh.

I tried the proven trick of upping my iso to the highest it could go, just so I could see what was there, and it was totally blown out white. I tried lowering it some, still white. My fingers were getting cold. My toes were numb. I’d been out there for an hour getting nothing.

In fact, this is my favorite shot from Sunday morning.

*My fingers were numb and I didn’t realize I had hit the remote shutter button when I moved the camera.*

When I got home I found this image, as the best of the bunch. The Milky Way is in there, if you squint hard and use your imagination. I’ve tried editing it to bring it out more…but I can’t figure that out either on this one. Trying to bring the Milky Way lights up while dimming the Flint dome light is just so hard.

*If you sit in a dark room, blow this up, and squint you should be able to see the MW over on the left.*

So I reluctantly posted my image on our group’s Facebook page, explaining my issues (well, the issues revolving photography anyway!) and look below at what someone did for me! They edited it so that you can actually see the Milky Way.

*Thank you Geralynn Dykstra for the edit!!!!*

I’m not so discouraged now. I DID get the Milky Way in the image! I even got stars reflected in the strip of water! I won’t go out to this location for another attempt, there’s just way too much light. But I’ll keep going to dark sky places and I know that eventually I’ll capture the sky the way I see it in my head.

Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: night photography