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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
How annoying. I dabbed at the mist on my lens and considered that maybe I could shoot from a lower perspective, between the rails.
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?
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.
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!
I hope you all come along with us on our next adventure!
Change Is Hard 