New year, new photo series – and back to the night we go!
Something I’ve wanted to do for a while now is experience the “winter” portion of the Milky Way out in Joshua Tree National Park. When I have gone to the park in the past, it has always been in the April / May timeframe, which I love, but there is a lot more sky to explore than just the “core”. Well, after returning from my annual trip in the Spring, I began to create a plan to go back in September, which I was able to make happen.
As it turned out, my friend Mark who I typically meet out in Joshua Tree had some hard deadlines at work he just couldn’t work around, and my friend John was off on an adventure with his wife and their new camper, so much of my time in September was spent by myself. That was okay though, as I felt like I had some unfinished business with a few ideas from the Spring, and a couple new ideas I’d hatched in the time between. This week’s image is one of the former.
I visited the Joshua Tree junk yard – an unofficial name – for the first time back in the Spring. It ended up being a breadbasket of compositions that I really liked, which made me want to return. Having been there once before, I was more confident on going back on my own, and recent rains had actually made the way out there even easier. That was a nice bonus.
As I mentioned back in the Spring, no one seems to really know why these cars are out there. When I say they’re in the middle of nowhere, I mean to say they’re WAY off the beaten path, and you need a 4×4 to get there. There are a number of cars and other stuff in this area, and I ended up skipping this one in the Spring for no apparent reason other than there were simply so many things to shoot, that I didn’t have time for it. This ’56 Ford Fairlane Delivery is in better shape than most of what’s out there, and in fact, when I first saw it I thought it was such a shame that it’s there. It could have definitely made a nice hotrod! None the less, it makes for a great photography subject now. I really liked it in this case because of its orientation with the sky this time of year. This portion of the sky is SUPER dusty, as you can see, and the largely light pollution free area allowed me to really get at the features pretty easily. Definitely an image I’m excited about.
More next week!
–Dan Thompson