Starry Skies

On my way to Moab at the start of my roadtrip through Utah, I stopped for two nights at Capitol Reef National Park. Known for its dark skies, the park was a fantastic place to frame epic rock formations against millions of stars. On the night I took this shot, I was experimenting with light painting a small barn right by the Fruita campground. Unfortunately, I was quite new to the art, and almost all of my attempts were fruitless - the light was unidirectional and harsh, over-exposing a strip through the foreground and reflecting off of the surrounding mist. Ironically, the most usable shot (below) was from one of my few photos with no added light at all.

A few nights later, I was at Arches National Park, trying to capture the stars through Windows Arch. During one of my exposures, another photographer walked up with their headlamp on - but rather than ruining the shot, the light painted the arch and foreground perfectly!

Over the following weeks, I took more night sky photos at Zion, Bryce Canyon, Kodachrome Basin, and other spots across the state.

Moonscapes

I reached Bryce Canyon in time for the full moon. Nights were almost as bright as day in long exposure photographs; with the right settings, my 3am shots seemed indistinguishable from ones I'd taken in the middle of the afternoon!

Over the following nights, I attempted my first moonlit time-lapse (at Kodachrome Basin State Park), and my first focus-stacked astro-photo (immediately below).

The Milky Way

After many, many failed attempts (ruined by cloudy skies, light pollution from faraway towns, freezing temperatures leading to dead batteries and dew-ed up lenses, etc.) I finally managed to successfully capture some milky way photos on the last few nights of my trip. I was BLM camping in the Grand Staircase National Monument - miles away from the nearest human beings and at long last able to take advantage of the incredibly dark skies.