Back to the night! This week I wanted to kick off another series of night images with a collection that I captured here in East Tennessee over the summer that I’ve not had an opportunity to share yet. This week’s Picture of the Week is of the famous observation tower on top of Kuwohi. If you’re not familiar with that name, or at least still getting used to seeing it as I am, the peak was known as Clingmans Dome until just very recently when the park service restored the Cherokee name to be its official title. This is a shot I’ve been wanting to capture since last year when I noticed the alignment of the tower and Cygnus, the portion of the Milky Way you see in the sky above. You just never know when you’ll have clear skies up on top of the mountain, as it seems there can be a cloud hovering on Kuwohi and no where else. Even on this particular night, which was supposed to be crystal clear, clouds ended up rolling in. Fortunately I was able to get what I needed before they wrecked the sky though!
For this particular scene, I lit the foreground using a small flashlight. It took a couple tries to get the underside of the observation tower roof illuminated the way I wanted it, and to get that balanced with what I did for the ramp lighting, BUT after some fiddling I managed to get it the way I wanted it.
More next week!
–Dan Thompson
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