The Tail of The Goddess

"The Tail of The Goddess" | Brihuega Lavender Fields, Spain

According to "Enuma Elish", the Babylonian creation myth of the Universe, the tail of the goddess Tiamat was bent up by Marduk, during the beginning of times, to form the Milky Way. This fascinating and elusive bright band of stars and other cosmic elements, exclusively visible with the naked eye in extremely dark regions, has captured the imagination of mankind for centuries.

The details of the Milky Way are not easy to see if conditions are not perfect, but fortunately we have the magic of light gathering devices at our disposal, showing us the things that exist but which the eye cannot see. Beyond the use of powerful telescopes, which reach the vast unknowns of the Universe, there is also an incredible device at our instant disposal, right here on this planet, which has gained the capacity of being able to show us a part of this hidden cosmos: the photographic camera.

During my photo-trip to the Lavender Fields of Brihuega, besides the extensive search for intense sunrises and sunsets, I just had to seize the opportunity and do some sessions of night photography. July is not the perfect month to capture the Milky Way, as its position is considerably high in the sky when it gets dark, but the lavender lines and trees would make a perfect complement to an almost vertical milky way.

During my years shooting the Northern Lights in Iceland, I learned an unexpected lesson, which is that it´s not needed to shoot it during new moon, unlike most tutorials recommend you. I would even dare to say that I clearly prefer to shoot Northern lights under moonlight (except during full moon), as it properly illuminates the foreground, with the Aurora Borealis still being perfectly visible. Quite unexpectedly, the same also happened with my sessions of Milky Way shooting. I thought I would need to seize the first two days I had in Brihuega with almost no moonlight, to be able to properly capture the Milky Way, but then realized the best conditions were to shoot it with small crescent moon a bit above the horizon. This way I could still perfectly capture the Milky Way in a long exposure, and at the same time capture the lavender fields subtly illuminated by the diffuse moonlight.

Besides shooting the night sky with the crescent moon on my back, there is another thing which is usually "forbidden" in night photography, one thing I usually love: light pollution. Just like it happens in most of my night shots, I think light pollution in the background adds very interesting tones to the composition, enriching the color pallete of the scene.

Hope you enjoy this experience of extended light gathering, beyond what the eyes can see. :)

Technical info: Sony a7R | Venus Laowa 15mm f2.0 | Exposure: 30 seconds | Aperture: f2.0 | ISO: 2000 | Manual focus | FLM tripod and ballhead | Edited on BenQ Monitor
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