Last week I got a big project deadline all wrapped and I needed a break for myself so I got a kitchen pass from my wife and I headed to some sand dunes about 2 1/2 hours away from my house around 8:30PM on Friday night.
My plan was to just park the car at a spot, climb in the back and sleep until 4 AM, wake up and shoot the milky way rising.
My wife insisted that I take her car, a Subaru Crosstrek, since it has heated seats and it was going to be in the teens (Fahrenheit). I reluctantly agreed. Turns out I had to sleep diagonally in the car and even then my knees were bent, and I'm not very tall at 5'-8". It was pretty cold but I stayed fairly warm but it just wasn't very comfortable. I'm definitely taking my car (Toyota Highlander) next time, and I'm planning on making a little sleeping platform because the seats just don't fold down flat enough.
Anyways, on to some photos.
I really lucked out with this shot, I captured a shooting star right in the core of the milky way while I was standing on a distant sand dune
Click to view large
As the sky got a little brighter I found this lone tree behind where I was shooting the milky way, guess I'll be back to get a shot of it with the milky way above.
Which edit do you like better?
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Another angle of the tree. In the foreground you can see a bit of frost on the sand.
Is it even a photo trip if you don't get a nature selfie? What's funny is I was content with the photos I had gotten up to this point and just wanted to get back and warm up in the car, but then sky blew up with color so I was scrambling to find a composition. I was trying to get out a little further in the frame but I wasn't fast enough for my timer.
There was plenty of cool textures to photograph, and if it wasn't so cold I would have taken lots more photos.
I figured that since I was calling this a "scouting" trip for future shoots, you know when the weather is warmer, I'd better check out Sand Mountain. Literally a giant mountain of sand where dirt bikes and ATV's ride around on. There was a great look "S" curve in the ridge and the morning light created a nice shadow. I rarely do black and white photos but I thought this was a good candidate for it.
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