Mobius Arch NightScape

A light painted Mobius Arch with the Milky Way over the Eastern Sierra Mountains ~ © Royce Bair

I just returned from a four-day scouting trip in the Alabama Hills of Eastern California, where I will be conducting a NightScape Workshop, April 22-25, 2014. Photographing the Eastern Sierras has always been a dream of mine, ever since I first saw Ansel Adams' iconic "Winter Sunrise" photo of these mountains taken from the Lone Pine area.

Technique: The above NightScape is a single exposure (20 seconds), taken with a Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 lens @ f/2.8 on a Canon 5D Mark III camera. The arch was lighted with two stationary battery-powered lights behind (with a yellow/orange filter) and inside (with a red filter) the arch, and one moving spotlight from the front, right side. Camera white balance is set at 4000ºK, and all lights are balanced to 3200ºK before adding any filtration. ISO was 6400.

Although the winter Milky Way is not as bright and dramatic as the summer Milky Way, it does provide better alignment with the arch and the Sierras.

"First Light" - a telephoto view of Mt. Whitney from the Alabama Hills area ~ © Royce Bair

The Alabama Hills area offers a wide variety of opportunities for both night and daytime landscape photography. This semi-arid region on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada range is free from light pollution and boasts clean, crisp air for amazingly clear photography. The rounded features of the Alabama Hills provide a unique contrast to the jagged Sierra Nevada backdrop.

The rugged peaks of the Eastern Sierras viewed through Mobius Arch (24mm lens) ~ © Royce Bair

Royce's 2014 Workshop, Lecture & Video Conference Schedule: NightScapeEvents.com
Featured Post: Shooting Stars eBook Review — How to Photograph the Stars and the Moon

Bodie Church Star Trails by Jeff Sullivan

"Bodie Church Star Trails" ~ © Jeff Sullivan (click to enlarge)

Our Photo of the Week (POTW) was taken by Jeff Sullivan at his last night photography workshop in the ghost town of Bodie, California. Jeff used a Canon 5D Mark III and the Canon 14mm f/2.8 L lens (30 seconds @ f/2.8. ISO 6400) to take a series of images that were "stacked" together. You can follow how he processed this image on The Landscape Photography Show (Episode 14) YouTube Video. (Jeff has three more night photography dates this year at Bodie.)

Personal History: Jeff was born in Massachussetts and lived 6 miles from Henry David Thoreau's Walden Pond. He developed a deep appreciation for nature exploring nearby woods and waterways, and grew up hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and snorkeling the New England coast from Cape Cod to Maine. Upon moving to California in the 1970s Jeff was walking in the shadow of the Range of Light, in the footsteps of John Muir and Ansel Adams. He took up backpacking and 35mm photography in 1974.

Currently, Jeff is a landscape and nature photographer in Galen Rowell's beloved Eastern Sierra. He leads landscape photography workshops in some of the planet's most exotic landscapes. Jeff is also currently researching and writing a guidebook to California's most stunning landscape photography locations, to be published in early 2012 in Laurent Martres' excellent PhotoTripUSA series.

More of Jeff Sullivan's photography can be found on his website, 500px, and Flickr sites.