Denny Curry
May 2025 - Untitled
About the Image(s)
Note: Denny sent this earlier this month but I missed his email so it is getting posted a bit late.
This submission is a stacked and blended star trails photo of Mt. Adams in Washington State. It is comprised of 45 stacked photos. Normally for a star trails photo I would take quit a few more but that wasn’t in the cards for that night. I think it came out okay anyway.
I lived at the base of this mountain back in the 60’s in the little town of Trout Lake, WA. The school I went to had K through 12 in the same building and I had about 5 kids in the same grade as me. This place holds a lot of good memories for me.
I decided to take my grandson out for this shot. While shooting he was getting a bit nervous hearing things in the woods so I cut the night short just before midnight. The lights on the right hand slope are climbers camps on the mountain and the International Space Station made an appearance as well!
4 comments posted
I know how to do these star trail stacks but have not attempted it myself yet. This image clearly evokes strong memories for you of a favorite location that the rest of us, sadly, do not share when seeing it fresh for the first time.
I get the feeling that you might have taken the foreground photo a little too early in the evening because I can see the green color of the grass clearly, and the reflection of the sky in the stream at the bottom betrays a still light sky. The left bottom corner is bright and distracting; the eye is drawn there away from the sky. There is a strip of light along the bottom of the photo in the stream that is not as bright but still draws the eye to the bottom, away from the sky. Perhaps you should mask these areas and darken them or crop out the river at the bottom altogether.
It might be best to eliminate the light from the climber's camp to allow the eye to focus in on the star trails. I also wonder if it might have been a good idea not to place the mountain dead center but offset to the left or right. Posted: 05/07/2025 02:19:23
I appreciate your comments and agree on a lot of what you say. I am going to go back into this image and make some changes to the foreground. I do plan to leave the climbers camps. I do agree that it draws the eye, however, I think it is important to the story. Posted: 05/08/2025 15:01:57
I like star trail images. Mt. Adams makes a great background for these star trails and meteor. The small area of water and the plants in the very close foreground could be cropped out to provide more visual focus on the mountain and star trails. Posted: 05/08/2025 15:08:23
I agree with the cropping comments made for the same reasons.
The International Space Station ( diagonal light in lower right of the trails, I assume) is a happy accident but distracting to me and I would take it out (unless you're going for strictly nature) or crop it over to offset the mountain and eliminate it.
What fun to go back to a place with such memories and to share it with your grandson. Posted: 05/09/2025 15:54:30