Prelog…

This year has been a roller coaster! It has been difficult to find balance in the chaos. Even as I sit here writing this, I’ve shot a lot, but definitely not as much as I have wanted. I have edited even less to date, so little that I have a huge backlog of unedited images! But none the less, here I am! 

I’ve shot this particular location a few times. It is insanely easy to access and because of that, it’s also overrun with photographers of all skill levels. 

The Location

The Superstition Mountains are located in the east Phoenix Valley and is usually one of the iconic pictures people see when searching for or talking about Phoenix. In fact, next the the Grand Canyon, the Superstition Mountains are the most photographed and painted Arizona locations. The Lost Dutchman State Park (https://azstateparks.com/lost-dutchman/) is nestled on the western side of the mountains along State Route 88 and is a great entry point to explore the area.

Because the area is so photographed, I wanted to try and find a somewhat unique location to shoot from. I went looking for an angle or composition that hasn’t been seen a thousand times over. To do so, I went outside of the park and into the surrounding national forest. 

The History 

The Superstitions were formed by volcanic activity over 18 million years ago. While they have been called many things including “The Crooked Top Mountains,” “Thunder Mountain,” and “Mountains of Foam,” it was the Native Americans superstition about the mountain that lead to the formal name of “The Superstition Mountains.” Apache lore has the entry to the underworld below the mountain. The massive sandstorms that occur in the area are believed to be the result of this. 

Another local legend in the area is that of Jacob Waltz and the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine. Waltz was a German gold miner who claims to have discovered a vast amount of gold in the area. He did not reveal this until he was on his deathbed in 1891. Thousands scoured the area of the mountain for gold, but their hunt was fruitless. The legend did lend its name to several businesses in the area however. 

Scouting

If you’ve seen my post on Finding the Milky Way you know I’m a fan of the PhotoPills App. After hiking around for a while, I found this spot I thought was fitting what I had envisioned. This is a screen capture of PhotoPills to show the alignment of the Milky Way core and timing for later in the night.

Shooting and Processing the Foreground

For this image I knew it was going to be a blended image because I wanted to track the sky. The foreground was taken just before 10 PM, between the Phoenix light pollution and the partial moon, the landscape was lit up quite well. 

The foreground is compromised of 10 frames on a 50mm lens, taken at ISO 3200 at f/5 for 1 minute. I used the Pano Merge functionality in Lightroom to accomplish this since it was a fairly straight forward merge.

Shooting and Processing the Sky

I’m shooting the sky on a Sky Water Star Adventurer Pro. I love this thing. It’s super easy to use and allows you to capture some truly amazing night sky imagery. 

I typically stack my images even when I track them. This has been a personal preference to do it this way and I’ve been happy with the results. I’m shooting this 9 frames wide. I would have gone with one more, but it was getting late and I was ready to call it a night. 

I do my image stacking in Starry Landscape Stacker. This is a paid app and, in my mind, well worth it! For this process I took 4 images per frame (these are light frames) (4 x 9 = 36 total frames). These are combined in Starry Landscape Stacker with dark frames (frames taken in the same environment with the same settings with the lens cap on). I used 10 dark frames this time around. Once the images were stacked, I create the pano again in Light Room.

Pulling it all Together

The last bit of the process is where all the magic happens. Here I take the parts from before and put the puzzle pieces together. Check out my post Night Sky Editing – The Basics to understand how I complete post processing.

My Partner in Crime

My middle son, Jonah, enjoys accompanying me on many of my photo shoots. As you can see he is a huge help with setting up and carrying equipment. All joking aside, I enjoy having him with me. The most valuable thing I can give my sons is spending time with them. They make me the richest man in the world.

That’s a wrap y’all! 

Thanks for stopping by I Hope you appreciated a little background on how I create some of my imagery! I hope everyone has a fun and safe Father’s Day.