The river in the sky

 

I've been working on some "older" images lately. Some of them are first edits and others are re-edits as I've learned new ways of processing my images. This is an example of a first edit.  I did process and share a vertical image from this same night back when I photographed it several years ago, but never did anything with the horizontal image that I photographed. 

While I have learned some new processing techniques, mostly what has changed is how I want the images to look.  I used to process my Milky Way photos to make them brighter and more blue, which is how I liked them to look at the time.  Now I've come to realize that I prefer them a little darker and less blue, which I believe is more true to how our eyes see the Milky Way in person.  While this is still brighter than what we can see with our naked eye, compared to my earlier edits of the Milky Way it is closer to what we can actually see while gazing at the night sky once our eyes have adjusted to the darkness. 

By nature, a long exposure photo of the Milky Way is always going to look brighter than what we see with the naked eye.  That's because our eyes only see the stars for an instant, while (in this case at least) the camera sensor is collecting the light from the stars over a period of 30 seconds. The brighter image that the camera sees compares to what our eyes see also makes for a "better" print.  If we processed the image to be more like what our eyes saw, it would make for a pretty dull print as it would be quite dark.  

I suspect that the way I want my images to look will always be evolving.  What I prefer now may not be what I prefer 5 years from now. That's one of the great (and frustrating) things about photography.  Photography is creative vision and interpretation.  Interpretation of how the photographer sees the world.  And the way a photographer processes the photographs that they make is an extension of that interpretation and vision. Interestingly, I chose this photo at random to work on this evening, from a folder of Milky Way images that I had saved. When I looked at the date this image was made, I saw that it was May 25, 2017.  Exactly 5 years ago today!  I guess it was meant to be for me to edit and share this image with you all today...