The Traveling Widower

Category: Photography techniques

  • Sleepless in Moab

    A man resting his head on a laptop at a desk in a hotel room, with a bed in the background and a water bottle on the table.

    April 19th, 2026

    I’m beginning to feel like I’m back working in one of the IT jobs early in my career where I was on-call for software issues 24X7, and something went wrong every night. I remember one time where my wife found me at 2AM, sleeping on the floor with the phone in my hand and someone calling out “Rich, are you still there?” This was the fifth straight night of star photography in the park. On Saturday I was in a daze most of the day, until I had a nice 2 hour nap before we headed out at 11:30PM. That turned into something of a wash – cloud cover, and competition for a prime location, but I did get some nice milky way and start shots. We did not get back to the hotel until 5AM though. I managed to sleep until 10:30 on Sunday, and lazed around a bit. I missed the hotel breakfast, and the one or two restaurants that have all day breakfast were packed. I wound up with a cup of coffee at the hotel, and went out later for a real power lunch – some pretty good gelato with a good cup of coffee. 

    I spent most of Sunday just working through photos, and then had another Lightroom and software presentation from our trip lead. I had a hard time keeping my eyes open (not due to boredom….it was a great session). Since everyone else is checking out and heading home on Monday, our plans for Sunday evening were to have a relatively short Milky Way session at midnight and be back by 3AM. That would be an almost normal evening. But not much. 

    Once again, the clouds did us in. We set up our gear in a parking lot, hoping to get the full Milky Way arch on the horizon. Unfortunately, there were low clouds that just did not want to move, so our smaller group just hung around, talking and trying different techniques until about 2AM. I played with different combinations of shutter speed and ISO – in order to print larger formats, you need to try and keep the star shapes closer to round, and in order to do that, you need a faster shutter speed. But you then have to compensate for the reduction in light with a higher ISO which increases noise. So, I tried various combinations which I can work with later on using Lightroom. I’m just getting up to speed with this application – it’s complicated and powerful, and a lot of editing needs to be done on the low-light photos. Here’s an example of one – the base RAW image just shows a starry sky, with the outline of the rock feature. There are a lot of steps involved to make the foreground visible. The workshop instructor gave us a few demonstrations, and also sent us a “cheat sheet” of the workflow he follows. Absolutely invaluable.

    A starry night sky illuminates a rugged rock formation in the foreground, creating a dramatic contrast against the countless stars above.

    I takes a while for me to create just one of these. so I’ll wait until I get home and can use my big screen iMac for the processing, One funny thing about this image – camping is only allowed in one area in the park. But some guy decided to park his van along the road, right in front of this feature. it showed up perfectly clear when I finished process and immediately cropped it out. We probably kept him up until we finally left.

    Like I said in a previous post, this was a technical workshop – I really did learn a lot about my camera, and how to use it in low-light scenarios. Time well spent.

    It’s always hard when one of these trips comes to a close. You spend a lot of time with new acquaintances, and then everyone goes their separate ways and in most cases, you never hear from them again. I think from the seven trips I’ve been on in the past 2 years, I’ve heard back from maybe one person via comments on my blog. I have picked up a few new subscribers though. I don’t really like to advertise the blog – I only give out the URL if someone asks, so for this trip, I may have one or two new viewers. 

    This trip is not over yet for me – I’ve got two more full days here before I drive back to Salt Lake City, and do not fly back home until Thursday. It will be weird being on my own, especially since I plan to go out one more time in search of the Milky Way tonight. So, more posts and hopefully more photos as well.

    Peace

  • Astrophotography – It’s Dark Out There!

    A photographer standing in a snowy landscape at night, capturing the Milky Way above a rock arch formation, with icicles hanging from his camera lens.
    I wish I had that coat on this trip

    April 18th, 2026

    Yesterday was my first real introduction to the world of astrophotography. Maybe I get a badge for that. My first impressions were:

    • The night sky is amazing in places like Arches National Park
    • It’s very dark out there
    • It can also be freezing cold
    • You spend most of your time standing around waiting for stars to move around
    • The technology is complicated, and you have to chanage a lot of things in the dark with numb fingers.
    • And..you have to take on vampire hours.

    The plan for the evening was for a very long one, starting with sunset photos and then moving around to different locations to try out creating star trails, and then photograph the Milky Way as it rises above the horizen. We would be out from 6:30PM to 5:30AM. Yawn.

    The sunset stop was at the Windows Arches area, which I had been to the day before when the weather was windy and cloudy. This time, it conditions were perfect, and the images have much more color and depth to them

    Sunset view of arches in a desert landscape, showcasing vibrant red rock formations and sparse vegetation.
    A scenic view of a red rock formation with a natural arch at sunset, showcasing the vibrant colors of the rock and the clear sky.
    A scenic view of tall red rock formations against a clear blue sky, surrounded by sparse vegetation.
    Landscape featuring red rock formations, sparse vegetation, and a bare tree at sunset in a desert environment.

    Once the sun had set, we headed over to the first stop of the night, further down the road at the Sand Dunes Arch area where would try our hand at star trails – this where you create one of those cool images of a whorl of stars, by creating interval photos focused on the same point. You then use specialized software to stack the images together.

    By this time, it was absolutely pitch black – the red light headlamps give you just enough light to navigate easy trails and parking lots and fortunately, we were shooting from the parking lot. It was getting very cold by now, and the setup for shooting the trails takes quite a while, doing test shots and tweaking settings. I had mine perfect, and when the trip lead said go ahead and start, I depressed the shutter, closed off the view screen to conserve battery strength, and headed carefully over to the car to stay warm. Someone called out to me to question whether my camera was working since everyone else left their views screens open, but I was sure it was OK. I huddled in the car for an hour, noticing a big flash as a meteor fireball passed overhead…big deal, I’ve got it on camera. After an hour, it was time to go so I ventured out carefully to retrieve my gear, and quickly check to see if I had caught the meteor. Well not only did I not have that, but I had nothing but the very first picture. There should have been 500. So much for all the preparation. I figured out what happened later that evening – I have a remote shutter control, which I kept in my pocket. When I reached for the car keys I probably pressed the shutter release, which terminated the process. Oh well, maybe next time.

    We made two more stop afer that, with the temperature dropping rapidly to freezing. By the time we reached the second one, which I had been to when I first arrived in Moab, my legs and hands were numb, and my baloance was way off. We wound up on a dark, rocky trail, setting up on a curved rock with lots of smaller rocks all over the place. Someone was bound to fall. Fortunately it was not me, but the person who did trip and fall did some damage – tore up her hand and had a huge bruise on her head. We had someone with a first aide kit who helped to patch her up, and she was OK a bit later, but it turned out she did have a concussion. I’m going to be even more careful the rest of the trip.

    I got some nice photos at the last stop, and decided I had enough and returned to the hotel around 4AM, while the rest of the group went on to the last stop. I was cold and exhausted. I slept until close to noon. Ready for the next outing.

    I did capture a few good shots, including a few with the Milky Way – I need to do much more processing with Adobe Lightroom before I post most of them.

    Silhouette of large rock formations under a starry night sky with the Milky Way visible in the background.
    A dramatic night sky filled with stars above illuminated rock formations.

    The trip lead gave a presentation on Lightroom Classic this afternoon, using my Milky Way photo for the demonstration – amazing software. This is what he came up with – I hope to be able to replicate that.

    A silhouette of rock formations against a starry night sky, featuring the Milky Way galaxy prominently.
    Edited version of my photo. I hope to duplicate those edits

    Peace