I always wondered what it would be like to live in a fire watch tower for a summer. Alone for weeks on end with your thoughts, a consistently solid 8+ hours of sleep, and some good books (game of thrones, psychology, KJV, and historical novels for me). Imagine all the magnificent sunsets, sunrises, stars, trees, mountains, animals, nature you would witness; the smells and the silence too. No greed, no lies, no fakes, no drama, no insecurities, no bullshit... and hopefully no fires! Sounds good for the soul to me. Tolmie Peak Fire Lookout, Mt Rainier, Washington.
Another artistic edit of climbers making their way up Mt Rainier in the Middle of the night, July 2016. Using multiple focal lenths, an equatorial mount, and a modded camera this was a fun composite image (using all real images taken this night) to expirement and create new ways to image the night sky with my friend Daniel Greenwood at the Burroughs Mountain, Washington.
Alpine flowers and mountains are good for the soul! This was a flaming sunset I had the privilege of enjoying and taking pictures of up at my favorite mountain summer of 2016 with my good friend and talented photographer Daniel Greenwood (https://www.danielgreenwoodphotography.com/) up at the Tipsoo Lake area, Mt Rainier National Park, Washington.
After a dodgy but beautiful night hike to the Burroughs Mountain in Mt Rainier National Park, this was the view my good photographer friend Daniel and I had of climbers making their way up Mt Rainier in the middle of the night. It seems counter intuitive, but it is actually safer to begin the long endeavor of summiting Mt Rainier in the wee hours of the night while it is colder and the ice and snow shifts less. This is a real image using some of the innovative shooting and processing techniques I have developed over the last year, with artistic edits to help capture the glow and moodiness of the experience Daniel and I had that night.
The Milky Way over Mt Rainier taken from Tolmie Peak, Mt Rainier National Park, Washington.
Star trails over Mt Rainier, Washington.
On the lush outskirts of Mt Rainier National Park, Washington.
The Milky Way Galaxy flexing over Liberty Bell Mountain in the North Cascades Mountains, Washington.
A night time portrait I shot of my good friend Anna underneath the summer skies at Mt Baker, Washington.
A spring 2017 adventure into the Alvord Desert after a heavy raining season that ended up flooding the Desert Playa! It was quite a trippy phenomenon walking a mile out into the dry lake bed, that was flooded. When walking into a body of water at night, our brains instinctively think that as we go further out the deeper the water will be... So walking out miles into the flooded playa without sinking, surrounded by the reflections of stars in every direction, was an absolutely surreal experience I will always remember!
A blend of multiple real images all taken this night using an Equatorial Mount and deep space astrophotography techniques to capture more details out of the night sky. My talented photographer friend Kevin Shearer helped me capture the foreground for this galactic selfie.
Here's the Alvord Desert in Southeast Oregon during the twilight hours of a camping trip out on the 12x7 mile desert playa I took with my good friend Beau. You're allowed to drive out into this playa, unlike the Racetrack Playa in Death Valley- In fact, the women's land speed record was broken here! Notice how the ground texture is so cracked, intricate, and cool because it sits in a rain shadow where only 2-7 inches of rain reaches it annually, due to the neighboring Steen and Cascade mountain ranges that block moisture that makes the rest of the PNW a lush greenpocolypse. Washington and Oregon combined are so cool because of the diverse range of climates you can find!
About an hour after this shot when it got dark, the nearby flooded part of the playa ended up somehow pushing water steadily across the cracked rock towards us and we had to move camp twice, it was really creepy and honestly if anyone knows why this phenomenon occurred, please, it's giving my friend Bo Bo nightmares! I believe it has something to with the hot springs that pushes water up through the dry lake bed.
Every time I go here I get hit with some crazy nature phenomenons like this and end up having great laughs about it; like the cyclonic wind and snow storms Beau and I endured on the adjacent mountains last year that completely humbled us (video is on my instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/BTQoGgfAcuk/?taken-by=blazing_heavens).
An artistic blend of two scenes, an early twilight sunrise and nightscape, I witnessed in the Alvord Desert, Oregon.
A black and white composite image I captured one night on the Flooded Alvord Desert Playa, Oregon, using deep space astrophotography techniques like tracking and stacking. I combined all the images taken that night seamlessly using a program called Pixinsight and aligned the images in Photoshop.
The Milky Way over Mt Hood reflecting in the calm waters of Lost Lake, Oregon.
A foggy and blurry shot of the Milky Way towering over Mt Hood, Oregon. This was taken from a great vantage point called Chinidere Mountain, that has a panoramic view of many of the volcanic mountains in the Pacific Northwest including Mt Hood, Mt Bachelor, Mt St Helens, Mt Adams, Mt Rainier, and more. I did a night hike up here with my girlfriend last summer and only saw Mt Hood that night, but learned as the sunrose the subsequent morning of the epic panoramic view. I always enjoy the sensation of a post nighthike sunrise, and how the landscape around you gets revealed as the Earth wakes and warms back up.
Stargazing with friends at a Star Party put on by the Seattle Astronomical Society in Washington! http://www.seattleastro.org/
An image I captured of my extremely talented astrophotographer friend Andy Ermolli (https://www.flickr.com/photos/andyinsea/) while doing deep space astrophotography imaging from the Yakima River Canyon.
I draw much of my creative and technical prowess in landscape astrophotography from learning so much about the complex art of deep space imaging and photometry from Andy, the folks of the Seattle Astronomical Society, and the amazing telescope store Cloud Break Optics. (cloudbreakoptics.com)
This is a single shot of the Aurora off in the distance over one of the telescope fields at the Table Mountain Star Party! This was a yuuuuuge star party (gosh we're geeks) with almost 400 people crazy about astronomy, a Cloud Break Optics [(my favorite telescope store) (cloudbreakoptics.com)] tent full of nice equipment and fun Astronomy talk, a 41" Dobsonian telescope (bigger than the Hubble), people grilling hamburgers until 2am, and TONS of stars; all in one spot for 5 days & nights of "Astrophotography Paradise"! I am so thankful I get to immerse myself in something I love to do. Don't ever sell yourself short or sacrifice who you are meant to be for the empty promises of what others tell you what to be- If you can, always put your passions and the things you intrinsically love first.
Ever done Highway 1 at night? Windows down, stars out, & the coastal auras...
This is the iconic Bixby Bridge of Highway 1 that runs through Big Sur national park, California. Using a German Equatorial Mount to track the sky and stack multiple images in a deep space astrophotograpyh program called Pixinsight to get better Signal to Noise Ratio (details and higher quality). I aligned that sky shot together with an untracked foreground shot in Photoshop taken moments after the sky to capture the light trails created by a fellow park goer early in the morning of Spring 2016.
A composite image and collaboration with my talented photographer friend Taylor Langius. Taylor captured the pic foreground at Yosemite National Park, California, and I captured the night sky in Southern Washington and composited the two together and added creative edits in Photoshop.
(https://www.instagram.com/taylorlangius/)
An artistic blend of a gorgeous sunset, nightscape including the Andromeda Galaxy, and frozen trees in the foreground I captured in Medford, Oregon.
