Magic Mountain

“Magic Mountain” is formed from over 700 twenty second long exposures, five different programs (some taking hours for just one adjustment) and over a month to plan/develop as well as a couple weeks alone to process and refine the resulting photograph. The accentuated vibrant circles and arcs come from the stars subtle colors mostly (raw images captured and pre-processed with that in mind), wispy traveling clouds over the night and sky color from approaching dawn, horizon lights and air quality. Too many clouds, however, can ruin the entire night. But not tonight! After the camera clicked away all night, I waited patiently, but apprehensively as I traveled back to the studio, hoping all the images from the exhausted batteries, sensors and cards gathered enough ancient starlight to compose epic astrophotography images.