This is a shot from I took about a month ago of the Milky Way at Beavertail Lighthouse at night. You can check out another shot from Beavertail here. Recently, I started using this phone app called PhotoPills. This app isn’t free, and currently costs $9.99, but it is well worth it. I used this app to plan out this trip. The app shows where and when the Milky Way will appear on any given day of the year. You can pinpoint map locations for spots and plan ahead for trip.
This was one of my first attempts at shooting the Milky Way. With landscape photography, I always do some sort of planning. Typically, just finding a spot and waiting for sunset or sunrise. But with shooting stars, there was more planning than usual. Specifically, I had to see what the place looked like during the day before it became pitch black. Also, I had to know where the Milky Way would be so I could know where to stand for the photo. That is where the PhotoPills app was helpful.
Moreover, there is the hurdle of how to take the photos and how to process them. I ended up shooting several images for the sky until I got the colors I liked. Then, I shot several for the ground and light painted the buildings. I used a combination of layers and luminosity masks in Photoshop to get the end product. Hope you like the result.
