Downtown Knoxville in Fall Colors
Downtown Knoxville in Fall Colors

If you’ve been around Picture of the Week for a bit, you’ve likely noticed that I love going out west, and particularly visiting Joshua Tree.  For the last several years, I’ve met my friend Mark Robben out there, and together we’ve explored the desert in conjunction with the night sky.  I absolutely look forward to this trip every year, and always have a blast – and I must say, if last year we lost the lottery on weather, this year we won it.  We only had one night when we couldn’t shoot because of clouds, but even that day we were given an amazing sunset with gorgeous light, and truthfully it was nice to get a bit of sleep without any associated gilt of missing shooting opportunities.

Anyway, this week I’m kicking off my series of night images, and I really hope you enjoy these as much as I do, because we’re going to be here for a while!

This week’s image is of a somewhat famous arch that’s out in the middle of nowhere, along with the Milky Way.  I say somewhat famous, because I would say it’s famous among the night photography crowd, and generally unknown to the rest of the population that visits Joshua Tree – and that’s probably a good thing.  This part of the park is very remote, and with it being the desert, you can get in a lot of trouble fast, and there would be no help for you here.  I have been to this spot many times, however, and so when Mark let me know he’d be delayed in getting to the park, I decided I would go at this one alone.

To get this image, I decided to shoot the whole scene at 35mm, for a slightly different look than most people shoot it.  To accomplish this I had to put my camera right on the ground essentially, and aim it straight up at the arch.  This allowed me to tighten up the scene, and also fill the sky with the Milky Way as it rose over the desert.

More next week!

–Dan Thompson