Tag: photography

Mari Ann and I went on a float trip in Missouri this weekend. We had never been on one before and didn’t quite know what to expect. We arrived early afternoon on Friday and setup camp. There were 8 of us in our group so we had several tents and a decent amount of manpower for pooling supplies and getting things done. Several of the guys, with more man points than me, went to gather firewood. We also built a force-field of tiki torches to keep the bugs at bay. There were dozens of large groups with big camp sites, and people would wander from site to site to see what was going on. There was music playing almost the whole night and people were having a good time, away from civilization and away from their normal responsibilities and expectations.

It was cloudy for most of the day and night on Friday but after midnight, the stars came out and they were as bright as I’ve ever seen them. I setup the tripod and began shooting. I could barely see the milky way with my naked eye and I used a long exposure to bring its hidden colors out into the frame. The sky was clear except for right above the horizon. There were storms in the direction where the camera was pointed and that area would intermittently pulse with milky light. This shot was actually the very last one I took before packing the gear in for the weekend. For some reason that seems more satisfying than when I capture my best shot in the first few photos.