Found this wonderfully twisted old tree while exploring a canyon along the Colorado–Utah border. I came back to it after dark and used a red light to paint the tree against the Milky Way. The clouds weren't necessarily part of the plan, but I ended up really liking the atmosphere they added to the scene.
ILCE-7M4FE 14mm F1.8 GM lens14mmf/2.210s2500 ISO0.0 EV
Thank you Greg, I appreciate your feedback. I was hoping for a meteor or two from the Persieds but that didn’t happen.
gregfountain wrote:
That red light really provides some stark contrast to the blues and blacks in this. I like it your take and the how it pulled me into the scene.
I love this!! It reminded me of Nick Carver's YT video on Saguaro at the Sonoran Desert. He used some color on his images. I'd like to play with this sometime so thanks for poking me to get out sometime.
Al Trujillo wrote:
I love this!! It reminded me of Nick Carver's YT video on Saguaro at the Sonoran Desert. He used some color on his images. I'd like to play with this sometime so thanks for poking me to get out sometime.
Al
Thank you Al, I love Nick Carver's videos and Youtube channel. I remember seeing this when he released it years ago and now again just re-watched it. I love the result he achieved. It has inspired me to go out and find a suitable subject and try to get multiple different colors on the subjects in the final result. Thanks for the comment and for sharing the video!
Jim Dockery wrote:
Interesting. I'm not partial to light painting, but this works on a si-fi level. I agree that the clouds add drama.
Thanks Jim, for me it depends on the situation if I like light painting or not but I agree it works here. I did try some without and let the tree just be a dark silhouette but I liked the color contrast in this version better. I find astro landscapes challenging in finding a suitable interesting foreground element so was excited to find this old dead juniper tree to work with.
Ross Martin wrote:
Very cool image you made, Scott!
Much appreciated Ross, thank you! I had limited time here this evening and need to go back again as I saw some other good photo opportunities. Some good hiking all around too!
Aug 16, 2026 at 10:12 PM
Mark Metternich Offline • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
I love this!!! Very dramatic image, very powerful and appealing! Personally I much prefer the cloud drama to star shots without clouds. Here it is awesome.
I don't have much to add except if it was mine, I might be tempted to clone out the very little tree edge infringements on the left so they don't distract the eye flow into the scene, and I would maybe pull up the slightly clipped black point by about 10 pts (using curves black point) but in the land only. If this revealed too much of the source red light coming in from the left bottom area, then I might consider moving the color temperature slightly toward the opposite of red (blue/green - cyan) only dappled in locally) to offset the potential strong red cast. I'm not sure if this group still likes occasional feedback like this, sorry if not. It is just my two cents for micro fine tuning and certainly not necessary. But the image is so flippin' cool, I could not help but share it.
Mark Metternich wrote:
I love this!!! Very dramatic image, very powerful and appealing! Personally I much prefer the cloud drama to star shots without clouds. Here it is awesome.
I don't have much to add except if it was mine, I might be tempted to clone out the very little tree edge infringements on the left so they don't distract the eye flow into the scene, and I would maybe pull up the slightly clipped black point by about 10 pts (using curves black point) but in the land only. If this revealed too much of the source red light coming in from the left bottom area, then I might consider moving the color temperature slightly toward the opposite of red (blue/green - cyan) only dappled in locally) to offset the potential strong red cast. I'm not sure if this group still likes occasional feedback like this, sorry if not. It is just my two cents for micro fine tuning and certainly not necessary. But the image is so flippin' cool, I could not help but share it.
Thanks Mark, I don't mind the constructive feedback at all! I think every one of your points is spot on. Funny how sometimes it takes a second eye for me to see excellent suggestions that could improve the image. If I do decide to print it I will definitely re-work it. I appreciate the kind words and the great suggestions to improve the image!
