Working with a focal length of 85mm was exciting and promising while the first test shoots revealed some extraordinary details of the galaxy’s dust lanes and nebulae. But if you work with such a sensitive and unprotected setup you never know how far you will get. With such a narrow lens you need many images to get a balanced good-looking Panorama - so there are many chances to mess up the whole project and go home empty-handed.

The objective for this image was to capture the curved leading lines of the road through Cottonwood Pass, bringing the viewer's eye up towards the mountains and the Milky Way overhead. The smoke from nearby forest fires covered the sky in a thick haze during the day, making it seem like the shot wouldn’t be possible. Luckily, the smoke settled into the valleys below the mountains as night fell, revealing a cloudless, starry sky. With the weather conditions looking perfect, we parked alongside the road and set up the tripod and star tracker. Every few minutes a car or two would come by and glide down into the growing darkness on the mountain pass.

For many years I dreamt to reach this location and sleep near the glacier with my tent. However only this summer I had the opportunity to visit. I got lucky and had perfect conditions for a night photography session; clear skies and a new moon. When I first saw the preview image on my LCD monitor the only thing that I was on my mind was “Yes man, I’ve dreamt of this shot for years!”.

In this composited image of an Astro reflection, I wanted to depict how we may be feeling about the current worldwide situation and our need to reflect on certain concepts. Whenever we aim our camera to the night sky we face two major obstacles: 1) the light reaching us from the stars is very dim, so we need to take long exposures, but... 2) The earth is spinning! So if we take really long exposures, beyond certain limits, the stars begin to trail and will show as little lines instead of pinpoint stars.

I often shoot in complete darkness and the only way I can really pull details out of photos is by working with lenses that have very wide apertures (F 1.4, F 1.8) and a camera that can really perform under high ISO’s. Using the Nikon D850 and the Nikkor 20mm F1.8 allows me to have no fear of ISO and crank it to 10000 to get both a well-exposed sky and foreground with more detail.