As our business has grown substantially over the last few years, I have not taken as much time for personal projects as I once did. I miss it. Yea I know people tell “take time, just put it on your calendar and go”. Well it is not quite that easy. I love what we do. I thrive on being being busy. I am a workaholic! However this year I am hoping to spend more time in central South Dakota along the banks of the Missouri River photographing the stars and landscapes lit by nothing more than moonlight.
Needing some inspiration I went back through my archives to find a few of my and Becky’s favorite images. So without further delay here they are…
This image is of the one room Brookside school house. I believe it was on a 4th of July around midnight. You can see the movement of the stars and a meteorite through the top of the frame. The school house and foreground were light painted.
This was one of my first (and still a favorite) night time photographs. It was moonless night and so dark you couldn’t see the front of the tractor with the naked eye. The green streaks floating through the frame are very slight clouds that were difficult to see. There is something pretty spiritual laying in the middle of a hay field at night. Where it is so quiet I swear you could hear the clouds ahead float on by.
This image is from a workshop that I was teaching in 2016. The object of the workshop was photographing landscapes at night by nothing more than moonlight. Look closely at this image. You can see the stars above and the river rocks almost look like they were in daylight. To me it is images like this that really make a person stop and look at the details. There are so many things going on here that are not quite normal. Yet combined they make a great image.
This image supports the theory that it doesn’t have to be perfect to make an impact. We were standing on a ledge overlooking the river. Couldn’t see the ground in front of you. down below a group was having a bonfire. The image is not perfect yet it reflects some of the things important in our lives, campfires, Missouri River and beautiful skies.
