Few days back, one of my readers pointed out that apart from the basics involved in capturing night landscapes, star trails, milky way, etc, I should also write about the challenges and common mistakes. Every other time, whenever I am out photographing the night landscapes, some anecdote or the other happens. From simple mistakes to incidents that have become memories to cherish, every photo-shoot is unique.
I have been clicking lots of nightscapes and star trails lately. Just a few days back, I saw a photograph of Milky-Way, shared in a Whatsapp group. More than the photograph, what interested me was the statement that the person who had captured the photograph, had spent a large number of months (maybe years) and lots of failed shots before achieving that photograph. The photograph was nice but this statement appeared exactly out of the reality shows, trying to strum some emotional chords in the hearts of some gullible readers. I thought, why not click some milky-way shots as well when I am doing star-trails next time.
A few weeks back, I was at Maini’s Hill Cottages, NataDol with a friend. Nice and cool night with no moon in sight. Once the sky was almost dark, we planned on capturing some night shots of the cottages itself. Switched on all the lights and went out to the far end of the driveway… tripod set, camera set, exposure settings checked… and we started capturing the scene. These were to be used for marketing purposes.
Maini's Mind 