This is one of my favorite star trail shots I’ve taken and it took over 2 years to make. As a photographer when I look at my photos I see the process and smile because I know all the work that went into getting some of the shots. This can be a blessing or a curse because it’s hard to be subjective when viewing our finished work. We cannot see the image for what it is sometimes, but rather we look at it and see the PROCESS. Some of my favorite images are not much to look at visually, but I love them because I remember the process of getting the image, the story behind it. 

I thought I’d share the process of this image.

(Photo 2) During May of 2020 I purchased a drone for the class I teach and snapped some images while practicing from my backyard. I live 2 miles from Lake Huron and in this first image you can see the lake. In the bottom corner is when I first noticed this cool looking tree at the corner of a few fields, I had never noticed it before.

(Photo 3) The next day I drove my truck over to the road next to the field and had to stand on top of the roof of the car so I could have line of sight with the drone and snapped a few images of this tree as the sun was going down. I didn’t want to fly too low and crash in the field, but I wanted the sun behind the tree. I was happy with the images out of the drone, and after editing I started thinking about star trails in this spot.

(Photo 4) Fast forward 2 years because I was away when the wheat turned brown and was harvested in 2020! I missed it. And the next year the farmer did not grow wheat in that field so it was a bust. But the following year, it was game on. Here are my notes as I was planning this out. The next step was to call the farmer and ask permission to go out in the field. The first farmer I spoke with said it wasn’t his field and directed me to the second farmer. This farmer said the land to the south was his, and the land to the north (the wheat field) was a third farmer! The second farmer gave me permission to cross his field to get to the tree. I then reached out to the third farmer and with some convincing and a promise of providing him with a free edited image, he agreed to let me into his wheat field.

(Photo 5 & 6) Next step was waiting for a clear night with no clouds and then inviting a family photography friend to come with. We made the 1/4 mile walk out and set up in the spot.

(Photo 7) This photo is me excited to be in the right spot at the right time with perfect conditions for doing the star trial image! 2+ years and finally the moment of making the image. My excitement turned to pain very quickly when hundreds of mosquitoes came out as the sun set and started biting me all over. Who knew wheat fields were full of mosquitoes!

(Photo 8) After an hour of bites, I gave up staying in the field and retreated home. I usually shoot for 3+ hours and stay with the camera, but not tonight. I kept the camera shooting with the intervalometer every 30 seconds and left hoping the fresh battery would last a few hours.

(Photo 9) I set my alarm for 5am, got up and made my way back to the field to collect my camera before anyone was awake. This is a photo of the sun coming up at 5:30am as I arrived at the camera.

(Photo 10) I ended up getting 700+, 30 sec. images between 10:30 pm and 5 am. My battery lasted the entire time! I shot at 14mm, f 4.0, ISO 400, keeping the ISO low to retain the color of the stars for processing in photoshop. 

This is a RAW unedited image combining a large group of the photos in photoshop. I ended up using a single foreground shot from blue hour and a combined star trail image edited in photoshop with my own blur process on the trails. Total edit time was a few days of work in both Lightroom and Photoshop.

And that’s the story behind this image. I think it’s fun to share the process because for me it’s more of the reason I do photography… and If my photos turn out good, that’s just a bonus!

Additional color edits... 

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