When other photographers demurely shrug off praise by saying 'I was lucky to get this shot' I usually respond with my own bonhomie that 'a good photographer makes their own luck'. If the occasion allows, I qualify this by saying that the good photographer makes their own luck by being in the right place at the right time with the right gear and the skills to capture the image at hand.
Almost all photographers worth their salt suffer from imposter syndrome - that inner feeling that we're not really that good and one day we'll get found out. I certainly do. But when I apply the above metric to this photo, I feel comfortable telling myself that I am a good photographer.
The concept for the image was born when I was hiking here with Sharon back in May. Although we've done most of the routes around the Aggenstein over the years - it's one of our favourite mountains in the area - we'd never been up the neighbouring Breitenberg or to the Ostlerhütte. A late spring/early summer tour seemed a perfect opportunity to redress this issue and so we hiked up to the hut, coming out on the ridge to the west before stopping off for a great meal. Descending back to the ski area at the Hochalphütte we passed the cliff you can see below and I happened to glance along it to the Aggenstein and think to myself "that would make a really cool foreground for a Milky Way shot."
Measuring up the angles, I knew that I'd need to wait until at least late July or early August for the trip; any earlier and the MW core would still be obscured by the mountain. The weather in July this year was really unreliable and they couldn't forecast from one day to the next. New moon at the end of July came and went and it wasn't until the beginning of August that I was able to seize the opportunity. Unfortunately, all of my regular buddies were otherwise occupied and so it ended up being a solo tour.
Timelapse of the sun setting on the Aggenstein
Where luck comes in is that the clouds cleared slightly earlier than forecast and I really hadn't reckoned with the glow from the Austrian village of Grän being so visible behind the ridge. A direct view of the village would have been troublesome as the village lights would have probably been too bright, necessitating multiple exposures followed by lots of tedious post-processing, but the subtle glow hidden in the valley almost looks like the source of the Milky Way, broadcasting the stars up into the sky like some ancient beacon.
In the end I was finished and packed up by around 23.45, quite early for an astro shoot, but the cloud was coming in again and so I just lay down on my insulating blanket in the meadow, trying to keep out of the breeze coming up from the valley and get some sleep. Around 2:30 the air turned a little chillier and I succumbed to unpacking my sleeping bag, but then I was able to sleep through until the stars started to fade.
There's nothing quite like spending a night at a hut in the mountains. The bustle of the day guests dies down and the light changes. Everything calms down. Even though I wasn't sleeping at the Ostlerhütte (although surprisingly they had room), I had a great evening meal there and even a sumptuous breakfast the following morning. I'd let the people at the hut know that I would be out shooting the stars through the night, asking whether it would be possible to grab breakfast there in the morning and it was heartening to receive a warm welcome as they opened the doors early the next day. I've spoken before about how I fell in love with the Alps back in the late 80s on the terrace of a mountain hut underneath the Eiger in Switzerland. That love has never abated and sitting on the terrace on Saturday morning brought back those memories.
Fortunately, the Breitenberg and Ostlerhütte are eminently reachable and don't require a huge hike in with all the gear. Catching the train in Geltendorf just after 13.00, I arrived in Pfronten just in time to take the last chair lift up to the top of the Hochalp Bahn. From there it's not even 200 m up to the hut, more than manageable even with my heavy load. I stopped briefly on the way up to refresh my impression of the photo spot and reassure myself that I hadn't missed any obvious issues in the intervening months.
At the hut I grabbed a beer and a delicious bowl of Kässpatzen, a southern German dish that is distantly related (but far superior to) Mac and Cheese. The Ostlerhütte has a relatively limited menu (that does include vegetarian and vegan options), but everything I have had there has always been freshly prepared and top quality.
Leaving the hut after my hearty repast, I scouted westwards a little along the ridge to see if I could find a spot for sunset. I mucked about with the composition above for a while with the Tibetan prayer flags in the foreground before heading back to my chosen spot. One thing I have learned about astrophotography in the last three years is the importance of picking one spot and sticking with it, getting your foreground shots in the late blue hour, even before the stars are truly visible and then waiting patiently for the stars to come out. During my first forays, I strongly resembled a headless chicken, rushing from composition to composition. Starting last year I've gone over to deciding on my composition ahead of time and then, unless something critical crops up, sticking with it. That way I've got the maximum number of foreground and sky images to work with later at the PC.
The Breitenberg is a brilliant viewpoint stood at the edge of the Alps. It's an east-west running long ridge. North you have the view above over Pfronten, south the view is onto the Aggenstein and there's a clear run either end for both sunset and sunrise shooting. Really, it's got all the options.
A Matter of Pride
I've been talking with several friends recently about the concept of pride and that many of us have been brought up to think of pride negatively, partly due to the way that Christianity has shaped our culture, especially Roman Catholicism and its concept of the 7 deadly sins. But I think that we have to be more nuanced with our definition of the word pride in this context. Just as the ancient Greeks had five words for love or the Inuits have 20 words for snow, reducing the broad concept of pride to a single word makes things difficult for us. There are both positive and negative aspects to pride, even in the Bible (I looked it up).
No-one wants to have to deal with a boastful or arrogant person or someone that insists that they - or their work - is better than you. As a photographer and a coach, I always try to look for the best in other people's work and start from their strengths rather than focusing on their weak points.
All that to say, I'm really proud of these astro images. I'm proud of the vision in recognising the potential of the scene back in May. I'm proud of the planning that went into it, proud of the effort that went into getting the image - lugging all my gear up the mountain (or at least from the top of the chair lift), proud of the commitment to the image that lead to me spending the night in the open, proud of the technical skills that allowed me to capture these images and proud of the editing skills that allowed me to make the most out of them.
Technicalities
In the end I didn't use any of my blue hour shots for the final image, opting instead for two shots taken within a few minutes of each other close to 23.30. The improved ISO performance of the full-frame Nikon over the m43 Olympus meant that I could rescue more image from the darker part of the image. I need two images as I shoot my night skies with a star tracker. Without this, I would be restricted to a maximum exposure of around 20 s due to the earth's rotation; any longer than this and the image would be spoiled by star trails. The tracker allows me to shoot for longer at a lower ISO to get much better image quality. You can do the same thing by taking multiple shorter shots at a higher ISO and stacking them to average out the noise, but I prefer the tracking method. What this does mean, however, is that the sky and the ground need to be exposed separately, one with the tracker on and the latter with it off.
As well as everything else, this was my first serious Milky Way outing with the Nikon Z7II. I'm really pleased with the results; the detail and colour capture is fantastic. I tried out three lenses in the end; the Nikkor 20 mm and 50 mm f/1.8 as well as the Viltrox 16 mm f/1.8. The first image was taken with the Viltrox, this one with the Nikkor 20 mm. Overall, there's not much in it, though I have never been able to get the Viltrox to autofocus in low light, unlike the Nikkor lenses which seemed to have little trouble when pointed at bright stars.
Oh, and in case you're wondering what the original RAW images look like, here you go. This is just a tracked frame, hence the blurred foreground:
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