Bubble Trailer under the Milky Way!

Our little bubble trailer is our favorite subject to photograph when we are on the road– how cute is she? When we arrived at the City of Rocks State Park in New Mexico last month and saw the Milky Way, we had to take this shot…. and it is almost other-worldly!!

 

We took a trek to New Mexico to do a photo tour with the ASP [American  Society of Photographers] in mid-September and it was structured in a way that attendees could either camp in RV’s or travel on a bus and stay in hotels. We opted for the Bubble Trailer in the campground option, of course.

 

The trip from CA meant two nights on the road so we stayed with friends in Scottsdale one night and then had to choose a place half way between there and Carlsbad Caverns where our tour began. Las Cruses had a campground, but Jonny, [my husband and Logistics hound], did a little research and found the City of Rocks State Park about 30 min north of the highway on route to Las Cruses. It was so wonderful to use Google maps and Yelp and the RVParky App to not only locate the park, but actually choose a great spot with cool rock formations before you even get there! We knew we would barely make it before sunset, as hard as we tried. Towing a trailer, even as tiny as Ms. Bubble Trailer, makes you go slower. So, we actually arrived well after sunset. The drive to the park was lovely, but no rock formations; just flat desert. However, the park area was full of fabulous clusters of HUGE rocks!  We easily found our site, even in the dark and parked near the cluster of towering rocks at site #16, Cassiopeia. As we got out, we were smitten by the millions of stars and realized we had to shoot this starry sky NOW while the milky way was rising like a sparkly smoke signal in the dark sky before the moonrise.

We parked with Bubble Trailer facing the cluster of rocks and immediately ran around with a flashlight to stake out our photo spot. We scrambled to set up tripods and flashlights, excited to capture this amazing starry sky and incredible sight.

 

 

First we set up the tripod with the wide angle so we could see the milky way AND the high rocks that dwarfed BT. But it was SO dark! We got out our little Lume Cube light and put it on a tiny tripod to light up the trailer, but it was too hot and too bright, even on the dimmest setting. So we pointed it toward the big rock, bouncing warm light onto bubble trailer and softly lighting the ground around the trailer and went to work. We took a variety of shots, each about 30 seconds long. With stars, you don’t want to go longer than that or you will get star trails or elongated stars from the earth’s movement. Our ISO was at 1600, as low as we could get it, since our lens’ max aperture was 4.0. We used a Lumix G9 with the rectilinear 7-14mm, my favorite landscape lens! After a few exposures, we realized the big rocks needed a bit of edge light to separate better from the sky, so we painted them for about 5 seconds each during the 30 second exposure, using a tiny penlight, since our flashlight was too powerful. After settling on our favorite combo of lights and timing, we recomposed for this shot and did just two more exposures to make this the winner. Jon ran over to the far right to paint the right side of the middle rock for 5 seconds, then to the back of the trailer to get the back edge of the trailer but not too much on the ground. In the process, we also refined the trailer light by closing the curtains, lowering the vent for less light in the topknot vent, and cracking the door so there is a subtle door outline. We also got too much spill-light on the far right where the bounce light was reflecting light onto the trailer. I gathered up a small suitcase with the handle up high, covered with a towel for a great gobo that made the light just right. We got our shots and we were so ready for dinner. BUT—when I walked over to the towel and the suitcase, bathed in light from the Lume Cube, it was completely covered with at least 50 wiry, long-legged bugs with huge antenna’s waving around –eeek! The bugs were outrageous! Wherever we had a light, they were joining us in disturbing numbers. Needless to say, we opted to NOT BBQ our steaks as planned and had Ramen bowls instead and ate inside. That was a very good call!

Then came day break, and I got up before sunrise to see the lay of the land and capture the beautiful morning light. While Jonny lay sleeping, I set up my tripod and captured a few selfies and took a short time-lapse of the sunrise over the hill. I also got out my infrared-converted Lumix G7 after the sun came up to get a few dramatic IR shots of the crazy desert bushes in the morning sun.

My foodie-Jonny got up; and fired up the BBQ and we had those steaks for breakfast since the bugs chased us in …. Here’s our killer breakfast (brunch) at the City of Rocks! Oh– and when you forget to put the paper plates back in the trailer, you both get to share the cutting board for your plate! #camping #adventure #wingit

Putting the images together was a piece of cake because we had used a tripod and not moved it, so we easily masked the two together and made one stellar image with perfect lighting. If you are interested in seeing, message me and I’ll make a short video showing the process in Photoshop!

 

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