DV has an eerie beauty – dusky muted colors in the hills and mountains.  The Stovepipe Wells Lodge was the base for the Milky Way Photo workshop with Casey Kiernan.  Only 3 people per workshop so this one had me, a woman from CA named Debra who was pursuing night photography quite seriously it seems, although only for a short while.  She would go shooting by herself at 1 or 2 a.m. in places near her home.  Francisco was Italian although from Texas.  He came with 2 or 3 cameras and a s-load of equipment.  He did know a lot but Casey maintained firm control since he had a tried and true agenda.

We met at 6:00 pm and went out to take photos of the sand dunes which are sort of Namibia light. After dinner we separated to meet again at 11:00pm  to go to the Race Track- 40 min of paved road followed by a very rocky unpaved road for an hour.  Race Track is a flat expanse, actually a lake bed.  Its name comes from the fact that rocks appear to move across the expanse by themselves – they leave trails.  Turns out that water comes in the winter, freezes, then thaws, things expand and contract and the rocks roll slowly down from the surrounding hills and move across the lakebed leaving tracks.

Casey helped us set up, focus, and shoot Milky Way panoramas from about 1-2:00 am.  Then we moved and he instructed us in shooting star trails which took another hour.  Then we piled into the 4×4 and slept for a couple of hours, until the sun came up when we went out to shoot the rocks and their tracks.

Whew!  Never thought I could pull what was close to an all nighter but I did.  And I actually got a few hours of sleep beteen 3-6:00 am. Next time I will try to find a spot where the Milky Way appears at 9:00 pm.

Click on photos below to enlarge.