Twilight Voodoo - Mount Rainier National Park, Washington

Interested in learning about 10 of my favorite photography planning applications, websites, tools, and computer programs? Just click the link below you'll receive my latest eBook Dave's Top 10 Photography Planning Tools delivered to your inbox:) I use these every time I go out to shoot!

Click Here to Access Your Free eBook

I recently spent 6 days backpacking in Montana's Glacier National Park. We started up near the Canadian border on the East side of the park and hiked 36 miles South through Glacier's wild back country. There wasn't any close contact with bears so that's a plus!

Here are a few Behind the Scenes Photos from the trip. I'm currently working on editing some portfolio images from Glacier, let's just say, the skies are nice and dark in that part of the country! Milky Way galore.

My Brother Lee & I Hiking in Glacier National Park, Montana

Looking North Towards Canada from the Top of Red Gap Pass

The Shot
Anyone that's been to Mount Rainier probably knows this location. Back in 2013 I was driving past Reflection Lakes on the way home from a night of milky way photography and stumbled across near perfect conditions for a twilight shoot.

This shot was taken well before sunrise, but the camera still picked up a nice little glow out of the South East which can be seen in this composition. It comes from single RAW file which was lightly processed in both Lightroom & Photoshop using the following techniques. The total processing time took about 20 minutes.

Lightroom

• Provide "cool" feel to the photo using Temperature & Tint Sliders
• Recover Shadows & Blacks
• Minimal Vibrance Boost
• Lens Profile Correction & Remove Chromatic Aberration
• Export to full size TIFF file

Photoshop

• Apply Tony Kuypers Luminosity Masking Actions & Techniques to bring out the "mid-tones" and darker shadows in the photo. I also added slight global contrast. 
• Minimal selective color balance adjustments to give the photo a "cool" feel. 
• Selective adjustments on the "foggy" parts of the photo to bring up the brightness.
• Final Web Sharpening once again using the TK Actions noted above.
• Save for web as JPEG in sRGB color space. Good video tutorial on that topic HERE

It's somewhat hard to see on the web size version of this photo, but full size the water droplets on the grass in the foreground really sparkle and add depth to the photo:)

As always click the photo to see it full size on a black background

Click Here & Purchase a Print

Not of this World - Crater Lake National Park, Oregon

Let's kick things off with a free eBook! 3 Tricks for Focusing at Night, is digitally published and ready to go. I'm excited to see what you think! Contained within the book are 3 of my favorite methods for focusing at night or in low light conditions.

Click Here to Access Your Free eBook

On to some other free goodies. Focus Stacking is a technique which I often use for an array of different shooting situations. This latest tutorial will take you step by step through the entire process, starting with shooting and ending with post processing. Best viewed in 1080P.


Summer is full swing here in the Pacific Northwest which means lots of backpacking, teaching star photography workshops & exploring / scouting new locations. Here are a few Behind the Scenes Shots from the past couple of months.

Paul Weeks Shooting in the Rain Forest during a 3 Day Backpacking Trip || Olympic National Park, Washington

Solo Hike Under the Super Moon Light || Mount Baker Wilderness, Washington

Another Successful Night Under the Stars - July 2014 Star Photography Workshop Group || Mount Rainier, Washington

The Shot
After 8 unsuccessful attempts the weather finally allowed me to take this shot. I've always loved this composition, but there is considerable light pollution which is usually seen in the same location the where Milky Way is rising in this photo. There is one solution to this light pollution problem, wait until extremely dense low lying fog / clouds cover the valley below the crater.

On this particular night the sun had set and the fog started to roll in very quickly over the valley as seen just above the horizon of this photo. These conditions removed a considerable amount of light pollution from the skyline & allowed me to finish off the rest in Lightroom & Photoshop.

The photo is composed of 4 different shots, all taken with my tripod in the exact same place. The first two shots are for field of view. The entire Milky Way Core and the Crater won't fit into a single frame of the Nikkor 14-24mm lens ( @ 14mm ) so a vertical pano was used. The last (2) shots were taken 30 minutes before the first two shots capturing the immediate foreground / mid-ground using focus stacking techniques. Using a long ( 2 min ) exposure for the last (2) shots it was also possible to keep nice detail without using a high ISO and inducing noise. Some of these techniques are covered in the Focus Stacking Video Tutorial provided above.

As always click the photo to see it full size on a black background