Astrophotography: A Game of Patience and Luck
Not long after coming back from my trip to Russia and Switzerland this past winter, most of our planet went into confinement. For the next 3 months, I did not go out shooting whatsoever and it wasn’t for the lack of motivation, but there simply isn’t much to photograph in my area and the lock down made it pretty difficult to travel even within my own province. When our government gave the OK for national parks to reopen their camping grounds in early June, I was finally starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel and decided to reserve a lot in Mont-Tremblant National Park.
A couple weeks ago, it was finally d-day and I loaded up my car with my camping and photography gear, and off I went for the long overdue camping trip. It felt so good to finally be out on an adventure despite the heavy rainfalls and thunderstorms in the forecast. Once I got there, the plan was to setup the tent, have a good night sleep and wake up early to go chasing waterfalls. But on the evening I got there, mother nature had different plans for me and they worked out in my favor, which is really rare for me. Instead of being greeted by thick and dark clouds, the sky was clear aside from a few small clouds in the distance catching the last rays of light from the sun as it set over the horizon. Shortly after setting up my tent, I felt my phone vibrate which I found odd as I had absolutely no reception in the park. So, I took my phone out of my pocket and when I looked at the screen, I noticed a reminder that I had set for the new moon. Could this really be happening? Was I really getting clear skies while I was far from the city’s light pollution on the night of the new moon? It seems the photography Gods were finally giving me some good karma! I had been dying to get another chance to shoot the Milky Way since trying it for the first time a year ago. Needless to say, I was pretty damn excited to have all the right conditions! I still had a few hours to kill before the sky was completely dark, so I laid down in my tent, set up an alarm for 1:00 AM and drifted off to sleep.
A few hours later, I woke up pretty confused to the obnoxious sound of my alarm but after a couple seconds I finally got my bearings, peaked my head out of the tent, looked up at the sky and I felt a permasmile set in once I could clearly see the millions of stars in the dark sky with not a single cloud in sight. I was feeling like a kid on Christmas morning and it took me no more than 30 seconds to get fully dressed and have a shower of bug spray before I started to make my way to the beach with my camera gear less than 100 feet from my tent. Just when I thought the conditions could not have been any better, there was no wind whatsoever which resulted in a mirror like lake reflecting the night sky perfectly. I set up my camera as close to the water as possible and low to the ground so I could get as much of the sky as I could but also include the reflection in the foreground, dialed in my exposure settings and started snapping some shots. But the more I looked at the pictures, the less I liked them. I did not want a shot of only the Milky Way and the reflection on the lake separated by the silhouette of the distant mountains in the background, it was missing a foreground element.
My mistake was that I did not go scout the location while it was still light out. So, after searching for something to include in the foreground for a good half hour, I gave up and started to make my way back to my tent feeling disappointed and even a little frustrated that such perfect conditions would be wasted on a very mediocre picture that lacked depth. That is until I came across a piece of driftwood hiding behind a patch of tall grass that would make the perfect foreground element. With a renewed source of excitement, I wasted no time in setting up my camera back up and I went to town on that scene!
If photography has thought me anything is that in the end, patience pays off and although it didn’t have much to do with it this time around, with a little bit of luck I was still able to bring the image I had in mind to life.