This 5 minute short film takes you to the magnificent Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado. The film was photographed in just twelve hours, from sunset to sunrise during a cold, dark and windy April night in 2019.
I was a bit late for sunset (typically me!), but managed to capture some colours in the clouds from a distance. After sunset, the clouds were lit by the new moon, creating lively shadows and clouds while still being able to see the stars. I was lucky to get a good shot of the setting moon with stars above it.
At the same time, the melting water from the snow in the mountains was flowing on top of the sand flats, and it started to freeze, which turned out to be pretty spectacular! More water came and covered the ice, and then froze again. A very special sight, together with the stars and clouds above the mountains.
After moonset, around 03:00 in the morning, the Milky Way emerged above the mountains in all its glory. The new moon was also situated in the opposite direction compared to the Milky Way, making the scene especially dark.
This was my very first attempt on capturing the the core of the Milky Way. the very center of our galaxy, I shot with two cameras simultaneously, getting both a wide angle 14-24 mm f/2.8 on a Nikon D850 and a 20mm f/1.4 on a crop sensor Nikon D7200.
Great Sand Dunes is one of the darkest places in all of the USA, with very little light pollution. It was very special to actually be able to see the galaxy with my own eyes, while the cameras really managed to capture all of its glory with only 15-25 second exposures, lenses wide open. I used a headlamp with a dim red light mode, making it possible for my eyes to adjust to the dark while still being able to place my cameras and do the appropriate adjustments in complete darkness. And, thanks to Nikon for adding lights to the buttons of the D850!
The galaxy core is only visible for a few weeks around March/April on the northern hemisphere, and then again in September/October. It is also not visible when the moon is up, and especially not if it's a full moon, and it's definately not visible if you are situated in or near any major city. This means you have to do some planning ahead to be able to capture it.
The big "star" in front of the Milky Way could be mistaken for being the moon, but it is actually the planet Jupiter, which has been in front of the Milky Way for several months. Saturn also lined up in front of the Milky Way later this year.
The beautiful piece of classical music used in this film is called "Cassini", by australian composer Scott Buckley, which has a library of songs here:
www.scottbuckley.com.au/
Hope you'll enjoy this film, and feel free to view my other time lapse movies as well, or check out my Instagram photo gallery!
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Cheers!
- Jørn