A Quest To Create Art
Last weekend I set out on a backpacking trip with my dog, Sally, on a quest to create art. The Perseid meteor shower was peaking Saturday night into Sunday morning, and with a waning moon at 10% (and not due to rise until 4am), I couldn’t resist a good photo opp.
I had everything planned in my head. I’d shoot the foreground in late blue hour to get the cleanest details possible while still capturing those rich blues and deep shadows. I’d shoot a stack of 20 photos of the night sky and stars, later to be blended in Starry Sky Stacker to reduce noise and increase the dynamic range. Then I’d shoot some longer night exposures to capture the meteors passing in the night, later to be manually blended into the night sky image using Photoshop. To round it all out, I’d use a luminosity mask to blend the blue hour foreground shot and the newly-created night sky filled with comets. Yeah, I had it all planned out.
My first idea was to fulfill an idea I’ve had floating around in my mind of shooting some astro from the top of a peak in Dolly Sods. I’ve been up to this particular peak in the past, but never at night. Not wanting to do a 20+ mile trip, I spent some time looking for the shortest overall route up and down. I got it down to about a 7 mile (each way) out and back, and by the time I got this sorted Monday night, I ended up falling sick on Tuesday and not getting closer to 90% until Friday. During this time, the weather forecast also changed from clear night skies to potential clouds.
Looking into less-intensive efforts so I could focus on recovering, I decided on an option in Shenandoah. I usually start with the final destination in mind, and work my way back. I settled on a summit I had been to previously, which provided a beautiful, rocky foreground leading perfectly into a northern-facing sky. This would be perfect for the meteor shower! Tracing my way back to some parking options, I found that I could hike the AT for roughly two miles down to a shelter, set up camp, and continue another mile and a half to the shelter. I’d leave most of my camping stuff at the shelter, saving me some weight, and hike out to the summit for blue hour and stay into the night, making the roughly hour long trip back to the shelter by headlight.
Now that I had my plan in place, the last factor was of course the weather. What started out as clear skies in the forecast a week out, turned into a forecast for mostly cloudy skies from sunset to sunrise. But, there was a two hour window from 3am-5am where cloud coverage was minimal. A planned wake-up at 3:00, a short hike to the location, and I’d have plenty of time to create my art.
Since my plan didn’t require a ton of time prior to nightfall, I didn’t need to leave my house until 2pm, which put me at the trailhead by 4:30 pm. During our two mile hike to the shelter, we had beautiful golden light as we hiked through the forests and past expansive outlooks. After setting up at the shelter and chatting with some of the others camping there, Sal and I headed out to scout our overlook. Given that I was hiking through a beautiful forest and past some prime viewpoints in the best light of the day, I was able to create some pretty cool images as part of my exploration.
After scouting and shooting a blue hour foreground, I decided to pull a last minute audible and set my sights on an overlook I found on the way to the shelter. This meant I’d pack up camp and hike back towards my car, making the morning hike much shorter.
As we all know, weather “science” is a little iffy, at best. Sal and I settled into the tent at 9:30, and from that point on, the wind howled all through the night like I had never heard it howl in Shenandoah. At one point it was roaring so loud I couldn’t tell if it was the wind or a downpour. Already I’m not a good sleeper when camping, but this sealed the deal to tossing and turning all night. Which also meant that I saw every flash of lightning that lit up the valley, seemingly every 2-3 minutes the entire night. First thing I did at my 3am wake up was check the weather. And you probably won’t be surprised at this point, but it was calling for a rainstorm, with the radar showing a very small and isolated cell passing directly over my position from 3:30 to 4:30. Faced with the potential of leaving my only shelter and getting rained on while hiking, and sitting on an exposed cliffside through the rain, I played it safe and waited another hour to get started.
By the time I packed up and got to my overlook, it was 5:30am, and dawn had arrived, wiping out most of the dark sky such that I couldn’t shoot the meteorites like I had planned. Mission. Failure.
I couldn’t waste what was still a beautiful sunrise, so we adapted a bit. I laid Sal’s bed out on a flat spot protected from the 40mph winds by some large rocks. I chose my composition, set my tripod low on the ground to keep it as protected from the wind as I could, and even turned on the image stabilization (which should usually be off when on a tripod) to help keep a stable exposure in the crazy wind. The image I created will forever remind me of being perched on top of a wind-swept cliff, watching the dawn glow of an ever-rising sun, and spending time with my favorite girl.
And although I’ll always have this fond memory, below was my favorite art I created on this trip.