In the mist of discovering star night time lapse, Kristen and I were asked to have a meeting with people at the local observatory to possibly photograph staff and facilities. I thought this would be a great opportunity to show star time lapse videos around Northern Arizona at the meeting.
So, I spent several weeks photographing stars around Flagstaff. I had a peaceful time looking at stars in the middle of night and realized how lucky I am to live in the world’s first “Dark Sky” city. As I started this project, I quickly discovered that I had to research ahead of time to plan where I needed to be and at what time I needed to be there. I only got one or maybe 2 scenes from one camera a night due to long exposures and the length of the time I recorded. When I used two cameras, I got 2 – 4 clips from one night’s work. I needed to know what time the moon would rise and set so that I could show the foreground and the moon wouldn’t blind the camera. It was a very different workflow than I have had for still shoots. It took me a while to get used to coming back home with 2 or 3 shots after spending several hours in the field.
Towards the end of my project, we learned that the meeting with the observatory was cancelled due to staff changes, and I lost the stage to showcase my debut short film. But I had such a great time learning about time lapse, star photography, and spending time looking at stars that I can’t complain. And most of all, I got the chance to see the world in a different way. I hope you enjoy the movie.
Starry Night of Northern Arizona from Keiji Iwai on Vimeo.
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