Lone Juniper and Balanced Rock under Milky Way - Joshua Tree National Park

Here’s the first MW shot I processed from my trip Wed night. We came here before dark to get a nice foreground shot. I wanted 2 things; to have the balanced rock underneath the juniper to give the sense that the rock is smaller, and to use the awesome rock crevices as leading lines in which to me was key for this shot. This comp requires you to get right up to the tree so a twilight foreground shot helped ensure my DOF was sharp throughout. I lined up the juniper as if it is carrying the weight of the MW. As the MW rose through the night, airglow started to appear which is a nice bonus to add some nice green to the sky. My foreground was shot at 8:30 pm with the Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24, f/14, 10 sec, ISO-320 and the stars were shot at 1:15am at f/2.8, 15 sec, ISO-6400. Times like these I wish I had a second FF body to take other comps while I leave my main body in place for the money shot. But I’m happy how this turned out and I’ll just have to return another time to get a different comp I have in mind. Round 2 tonight, stay cool out there gonna be a scorcher.

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