Days Gone By

I got the opportunity to spend a beautiful Colorado evening out under the stars with Ben and Bob Gojkovich Photography, so I took it! As usual, I can’t go anywhere with Ben without “other than nominal events” taking place.

Setting Sun on the CO Plains

The evening started out well. Within minutes, we’d scouted out two locations and were greeted by two owls. Not sure what it is about owls, but they intrigue me. I suppose it is because they aren’t a common sighting like a sparrow at the Sonic Drive-In or a Magpie out on the Trash Bin on trash day.

We started out facing West and shooting sunset and then planned on facing more north and transitioning to star trails. The sunset shoot went fine minus it not being all that I’d hoped for. So far so good, for now…

Star Trails Unedited

As mentioned, the sunset shoot went well. Shortly after sunset, we identified Polaris, the northern star, and scoped out a composition. Once set up, we lit the old farmhouse with some low-level lighting and began shooting star trials. Then the fun, at least in some people’s opinion, began.

We were greeted by a few locals who decided they’d crash our little party. Now, keep in mind, we are sitting in a field, in the middle of the night, not crossing any no trespassing signs, and freezing our butts off in order to take pictures of the night’s sky. Pretty harmless. The locals, now known as “They” or “The Photondks,” decided they’d shine their headlights and a 10 bazillion lumen flashlight into our composition and towards our cameras. Classy.

I was convinced that they couldn’t do much to stop my shoot as I already had my frames for the foreground and midground. With that, I kept shooting as if they weren’t there. As seen above, in the unedited version of the star trail image, the top of the roof of the old farmhouse is showing. You can see that it is lit up by the Photondks.

I numbered the airplanes in red, there are two of them. I numbered the satellites in cyan, there are eight of them. In the top left-hand corner, you can see a short-lived meteor. There were others, but they were so small that they ended up being mere distractions.

CO Star Trails

Here is the final version after a bit of postprocessing and cropping. I decided to leave the meteor. :-)

Days Gone By BTS

Above is what the scene looked like at one point. If you look closely, you can see one of the Photondks headlights as they drove by. They definitely succeeded if their goal was to add light to our compositions, kind of.

Days Gone By

In this final edited image, you can see that I was able to use some of their light to enhance my foreground. Thanks, Photondks!

We did, eventually, get tired of dealing with the Photondks, so we packed up and moved to another very special location.

The Old Post Office

Out in the literal middle of nowhere, sits The Old Post Office. I’ll not name it in an effort to keep its location low-key. I will say, however, that I’ve done a bit of research on the place and it can be quite elusive to find any information on. Its construction is very interesting. I hope to return one morning and reshoot the area in an effort to capture some of the interesting construction techniques before The Old Post Office loses its battle with Mother Nature. The poor thing is leaning pretty badly. If seeing this future shoot interested you, sign up to my email list, down in the footer of this page, and you’ll get notified when I plan on posting that shoot.

All-in-all, the night went very well. As usual, there is never a dull moment with Ben, but I knew that before I left the house that evening. ;-)

I won’t say, “Goodbye,” I’ll just say, ”Until next time…” Thanks for reading!

Be Safe!