Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: night sky


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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.

We even ate one each.

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.

We took some goofy pictures too.

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.

What’s in here?

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!

Back to bed for a good night’s sleep.

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!


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Then there were stars

After the bagpipe parade my sister and I began to prepare for a night trek through the cedar forest and along the sandy beach out to the end of Sunset Point. The wind was picking up and we were worried that waves we heard crashing somewhere out in the lake would be washing over the point.

At 11 p.m. we decided to head out there and check it out for ourselves. There was a certain amount of anxiety as we wound our way through the woods and along the beach, but we were relieved to find there were no waves anywhere near the point and we were able to set up on a picnic table out on the point with a perfect view of both the Milky Way to the southwest and the Big Dipper to the north.

I lightened these somewhat for Facebook, but you’ll still want to look at them in a dark room if you can, and on a larger screen.

My first composition included more of the water in the bay. The light on shore is someone with a flashlight, probably also out looking at the meteor shower.

She sat in a chair and watched the northern sky, exclaiming in excitment every time she saw a meteor streak across the sky. I focused on the Milky Way, deciding to include some of the bay in my first set of images, and then moving slightly to the left to include all the trees in the next series of shots.

I like this composition too, with more of the trees we walked through to get out to the point included.

But she was seeing so many streaking meteors that I decided to turn my camera around and see what happened. I liked the rocky point jutting out into the dark lake.

I was lucky enough to get the meteor in the shot – barely.

And then I asked her to go sit on a rock at the edge of the gravel, still many yards away from the water, and sit very still for 20 seconds while I took a shot of her watching the sky.

The green might be air glow, or it might be northern lights. There was some pink in the sky too.

I love this shot so much. The image looks peaceful, but in actuality the wind and wave noise was so loud I had to signal when the shot was finished by flashing a light at her.

Then we realized I could set up the camera and she could push the remote shutter release while I sat on the rock watching the sky.

Such a perfect place to star gaze.

This was sooooo cool, to sit out at the end of a rocky peninsula and look at the stars. In this image I think there are 3 meteors, though at the time I didn’t see any of them.

My sister had been watching part of the Milky Way which was directly overhead and she asked if I’d take a picture of that, so I pointed the camera straight up and pressed the shutter release.

Uh oh, clouds have invaded.

But when we looked at what we had we realized the clouds had suddenly moved in. Our night of shooting stars was over. Our window of opportunity had been less than 2 hours. I was very glad we went out there a bit earlier than we had planned. I was happy with what we had captured and we hoofed it back down the point, across the beach and through the woods to our waiting car.

Back in camp, snug in my tent, I scrolled through my images on the back of my camera. I couldn’t see much detail in the small screen, but I knew it was there. I was smiling so big it was hard to go to sleep.

During our exploration walk out to the point earlier in the day.

I don’t know if I would have gone out that night, given the roar of the lake and the gusty wind, if my sister hadn’t been with me. Thanks to her we had a magical couple of hours, and now you get to share in it too!


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Just another adventure

I’m up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for a couple nights, hoping for a clear sky to practice Milky Way photography. On my drive up I stopped for a break at Otsego State Park.

I had just made it through a driving rainstorm, the kind where everyone slows down and turns on their emergency blinkers because you can’t see anything. It was stressful, so I figured I’d look at a state park I have never camped at and get a little walk in too.

Though it wasn’t raining, the sky didn’t look promising for night sky photography. I didn’t stay long, wanting to get to the UP and my destination camp site.

But once over the bridge, the sky turned even more ominous.

It was sprinkling when I got to my camp site, so I waited in the car for the sun to come out. And it did.

But then, halfway through my tent set up, the sky suddenly and with no warning let loose with a downpour. I managed to get the rainfly up over the exposed tent and then I dashed for the car.

And hoped.

Would the rainfly keep the inside of my tent dry?

Would I ever get a clear night to try to find the Milky Way?

You’ll have to stay tuned to find out.


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Something beyond stars

Well not really beyond.

On the drive up I stopped for this patch of trillium.

A friend and I were camping in the Sleeping Bear National Park earlier this month specifically to spend as many nights as possible shooting the stars in that big beautiful dark sky country.

Arriving at site 312. It had electricity!

But let’s be honest, I took a lot of other pictures too. After all, what does a photographer do all day while waiting for it to get true dark?

All set up for our 5 night stay.

Well, we sat in camp a bit. And cooked lovely meals.

Yum. She brought the fish, I brought the chicken salad and bread.

We enjoyed the campfire in the cool evenings.

Trying to get warm.

And we got a little shuteye as we waited for the Milky Way to rise.

All buttoned up for a nap.

Of course we also went on a hike or two through the countryside, enjoying the newly greening forest…

This hike it was all about the late afternoon light.

…and the wildflowers pushing up from a long winter nap.

I can’t remember what this is, but it sure was pretty!

There’s plenty to do while you’re waiting for the stars to come out.

Hiking past a lake made during the times of glaciers. We were cold just thinking about that.

I haven’t even begun to process the images of the old barns and the orchards in bloom that we saw. And I still have seven stacks of star images to process.

Pretty sure it’s not edible.

So there’s going to be plenty to share once I get all the work done.

While you’re waiting you might want to go on a walk somewhere pretty too.

But it’s going to take awhile.