Boot Arch Milky Way, Alabama Hills
A Milky Way shot through Boot Arch in the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine, California. Photographed with friends on a windless, moonless night, one of those conditions where the sky does most of the work. The arch frames the galactic core almost perfectly when the timing is right.
The Alabama Hills sit at the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada, just outside Lone Pine, California. The landscape is unusual: rounded granite boulders scattered across a high desert floor, with Mount Whitney and the Sierra crest rising sharply behind them. Dozens of natural arches are scattered through the formations, and Boot Arch is the one night photographers come for. Frame it right and you can put the Milky Way straight through it.
I was out here with a few friends on a night that couldn't have been better for astrophotography: no moon, no wind, and the kind of dark desert sky where the galactic core shows up before your eyes even finish adjusting.
The image sat in my catalog for a couple of years. My first edit had the foreground too bright, pulling attention away from the arch and the sky above it. I tried a few things at the time, didn't like any of them, and shelved it. Came back to it recently, darkened the foreground down, and that was the fix.
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