the dailypic 5383 yr15 270 Joshua Stands Still

Last night, we headed back to Joshua Tree National Park. First, we sat high on rocks to watch the light disappear at sunset. Then, drove out to a section named Keys View as the light stuck around for a bit. It is an incredible spot that we will go back to for sunset tomorrow night – my wife enjoyed it more than I did, it is a little too “influencer spotty” for me, I prefer the vacant parking lot and solo tree we found for star trails. The photo above took 60 minutes to create. It is 20 photos, each 180-second exposure. Using a flashlight, I ‘painted’ the tree with light for one exposure. The light on the rock behind is an excellent addition, thanks to some cars heading to a campground behind the rock – and I believe that area is where the ambient yellow/green glow comes from too. The light on the bushes is from a random car that drove through my shot at a reasonably high speed, considering we are in the middle of nowhere at 11 pm, and it is pretty dark. I had to stand at my tripod, ready to grab it if she did not realize it/or I were there. She was kind of enough to babble, “Oh, sorry,” as she whizzed maybe two feet from me in her rental. She ruined the last frame, but I was lucky at that point I had enough to build the picture. Believe it or not, there is not much in the way of photoshopping. I darkened/removed some of the foreground under the tree and bushes lit up by the lost driver. Besides that, this is just the stacked 20 photos and some dodging and burning to make it all pretty. I also got one the night before; it is below from the front yard of the great house we are renting out here. I head back to the park in a few hours to try to capture the Milky Way. I will only be in the low hundreds tonight.

tr/trp