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Back friom an stunning trip to Chile and Bolivia. So many images that I don't know where to begin. Starting with something simple.
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:::: Absolute Freedom!, St-Zénon, Québec, Canada
Copyright © 2009 Gaëtan Bourque. All rights reserved. Use without permission is illegal.
In front of Absolute World, a residential condominium twin tower skyscraper complex in the five tower Absolute City Centre development in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
The Long Road to My Photo at the Tre Cime di Lavaredo
Now comes a long story about how this photo came to be.
One and a half years ago, the idea was born. When I once again happened to see this extraordinary landscape – the Tre Cime di Lavaredo – in a documentary about the Dolomites, I was spellbound. Since my passion has always been night photography, it quickly became clear: this was the place where I wanted to capture the Milky Way. Although I had been doing deep-sky photography for more than ten years, I had never photographed the Milky Way itself. This would mark the beginning of a new passion.
At such a breathtaking location, I didn’t want to simply “take a picture” – my goal was far more ambitious: to create one of the finest Milky Way photographs to be found anywhere in the world. Admittedly, not a modest ambition… but once you stand before this scenery, you instantly understand why someone suddenly feels the urge to reach for the stars.
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Planning and Technology
So the planning began. I needed a highly precise yet mobile and lightweight star tracker. It quickly became clear: with stacking and only 8-second exposures – meaning without tracking – combined with extremely high ISO values, I would never reach the image quality I was aiming for.
So I practiced again and again with the tracker under the light-polluted skies of my hometown: how does it react to wind? What happens with high humidity, thin clouds, or turbulence in the upper atmosphere? Every small disturbance worsens the “seeing,” and it takes a lot of experience to master these pitfalls.
Even calibrating the tracker has to be extremely precise. I measure my tripod digitally in steps of 0.1 degrees to ensure it is perfectly level – the more exact, the longer you can track. Of course, there are superb mounts available, but they are anything but portable. You don’t carry a 20-kilogram block in your backpack up to 2,600 meters on a night hike, together with all the other gear.
And then, of course, you need the brightest and sharpest lenses available. At night, every fraction of a stop counts – daylight photography is far more forgiving.
In general: the less artificial light, the clearer and more majestic the Milky Way appears. For deep-sky astrophotography, there are special filters that block man-made light pollution (for example, from cities). But the Milky Way is something entirely different: it shines across the full spectrum – from deep red to violet-blue. No filter trick works here. Any filter would also block starlight. In other words: the only “trick” is no trick at all – you simply need the darkest, most pristine skies possible.
In Europe, you can only find such conditions in a handful of places: the Dolomites, Großglockner, or La Palma (Canary Islands) – the best you can get by European standards. There are a few more, but the weather there is so unpredictable that your chances of success are even lower. The ideal is high altitude with dry, crystal-clear air.
If you want to go even further, travel to Namibia. There you’ll experience one of the most spectacular night skies anywhere: no weather problems, almost every night is perfect. The catch? Malaria. Which means daily prophylaxis with all its side effects. There’s always something, isn’t there?
If you want to get a sense yourself: on lightpollutionmap.info you can view worldwide light pollution interactively. Just one glance shows how rare truly dark places on our planet have become.
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Milky Way Time Window
In Europe, the Milky Way can only be photographed between April and the end of August during new moon. But especially in June and July, the nights are too short and too bright – it never gets completely dark at our latitude. Effectively, there are only about three months, with a small time window of just a few days around each new moon. If the weather doesn’t cooperate, you wait until the next month.
In summer, you can look towards the center of our galaxy and see the striking dust and nebula bands. In winter, however, you’re looking “outward” into the universe – without those spectacular structures. The season is extremely short, and the chance of a cloudless sky in the Dolomites is less than 30%. The weather often remains stable for only 3–4 hours before changing – a true lottery.
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Tre Cime: A Dream Location with Obstacles
Even during the day, at around 2,500 meters, it is breathtakingly beautiful – wherever you look, a picture-book landscape opens up. And then, right before you, the Tre Cime rise: massive rock walls soaring almost 500 meters straight up, touching the 3,000-meter mark.
But getting there is no longer so simple: you need a reservation and a ticket. Your license plate is checked already down in the valley.
The tickets are strictly limited. For our campervan, 12 hours cost €60. But the probability of stable, cloud-free weather up there is less than 30% – with just one ticket, my project would have been impossible. So I booked 6 time slots of 12 hours each, back-to-back.
Not so easy: the tickets have to connect seamlessly, with only a handful of vehicles allowed per hour. If one slot ends at, say, 4 p.m. and the next one is fully booked, you’re simply out of luck. Getting even one slot is difficult – arranging six in a row is almost impossible. And at the barrier in the valley, there is zero tolerance: even a second late at exit, and the fine is guaranteed.
For the booking itself, you get just five minutes – starting the moment you open the system, not with your final click. From finding matching slots to entering credit card details, personal data, and vehicle info, the countdown runs relentlessly. Everything that could be complicated, is complicated – as if the Dolomites didn’t already present enough natural challenges.
And as if that weren’t enough, you can only buy six tickets per month – now reduced to five.
Going up spontaneously? Forget it. Even if a slot were free, you must book digitally at least 24 hours in advance. On site or the same day? Impossible, not allowed. If you think you can just go with the weather – no chance. Here, bureaucracy rules over nature.
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Arrival and First Setbacks
One and a half years later, the time finally came. Before the drive up, we prepared our campervan: fridge filled, toilet emptied, all batteries charged – for camera, smartphone, star tracker, heating bands against dew, and countless lamps. We were ready to last three days and nights up there.
But even if you arrive early at the barrier full of anticipation, you won’t be let in – the gates only open at the exact booked time. Then it was up in second gear, carefully winding through the serpentines. Now and then the front wheels slipped on the wet asphalt – a clear sign of just how steep it was. A motorhome weighing over four tons and 7.5 meters long is no off-roader. But at the top, on one of the highest campsites in Europe, everything was set.
Only problem: the fridge decided that at 2,500 meters it was no longer its job – even though we had filled it to the brim beforehand. Absorption fridges in RVs simply don’t work reliably on gas at this altitude. Another hard-learned lesson. Result: half of our food ended up in the trash.
The first two days: rain, wind, dense fog, temperatures around 4°C. Thanks to the heater in the camper, at least the cold was bearable – but photographically, a frustration. On the last day, though, everything changed: sunshine, clear views, amazing mood. Could it finally work out?
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The Night of the Shoot
The hike with a backpack weighing over 12 kilos was tougher than expected – the thin air made itself felt.
That night, countless shots were taken. Many tracked 6-minute exposures of the Milky Way, which I later stacked to further improve the signal-to-noise ratio – a trick to achieve more quality than the sensor alone could deliver. I also captured the landscape separately – since with tracked stars, the foreground would blur.
And here came the next challenge: Milky Way photos require new moon and absolute darkness. Landscapes, however, look flat and monochromatic under such conditions, whereas full moon would provide plastic light. The solution: capture the landscape during blue hour or light it deliberately.
For that, I had a special lamp built – custom-made down to the last detail. I even chose the exact LED type myself, tailored precisely to my requirements for color temperature and light quality. 99% of ordinary flashlights are useless for high-quality photography: the light is usually far too cold, or the CRI index (color rendering) is too poor.
My lamp also has a zoom: the beam can be focused extremely tightly – up to 1.5 kilometers – or spread wide and soft, depending on what’s needed for light painting.
And the surprising part: from manufacturers like Convoy Flashlight in China, you can get such customized lamps for under €30. In Germany, such a service would hardly exist – and if it did, the price would make you swallow hard.
So I created exposures of up to 15 minutes while painting the rocks with light. Sometimes the right side turned out better, sometimes the left. A single perfect shot is impossible.
And then there are the famous headlamp trails – little light streaks from hikers that often give an image that extra something. The problem: at night, hardly anyone is up there. And if they are, it’s guaranteed not at the exact moment you’d need them in frame. Paradoxical, isn’t it? You want them desperately – but almost never get them when you need them. So the only option is to collect separate exposures whenever someone happens to pass.
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The Puzzle
By the end of the night, I had about 30 shots in the bag – and darkness gave way to morning. Among them: long exposures with light painting, shots with headlamp trails, many tracked Milky Way frames, and landscapes from blue hour to deep night.
That was my raw material, my toolkit. Later I selected the best elements and merged them into a single image – like a painter who first collects sketches and then fuses them into a finished work of art.
This is the supreme discipline of photography: absolutely no fake, but impossible to achieve in a single exposure. Each frame had to be carefully developed – matching white balance and color temperatures, adjusting brightness and contrast, reducing noise, enhancing details. Sometimes the foreground stone looked better illuminated on the left, sometimes on the right. Everything had to be precisely assembled, layer by layer.
In the end, the Photoshop file grew to over a hundred layers and more than 60 gigabytes. Every little adjustment had to be carefully considered, since each change affected the entire image. The greatest challenge: blending all these different exposures into a seamless whole, without visible transitions, without an artificial impression.
To outsiders, the finished photo may look obvious – as if you had simply stood there and captured that exact moment. In reality, it meant days of work, hours of meticulous corrections, and an enormous amount of patience and technical precision.
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Conclusion
Moments like these stay with you for a lifetime. Not just the photo itself, but the entire journey: the long preparation, the struggles, the setbacks, and finally, the success.
It’s also important to me to show with such texts that photography is not just a click. It’s an adventure – a battle with nature, technology, and yourself. Again and again, I try to surpass my previous limits. Each step makes it harder – but when it works, the moments of joy are unforgettable.
And for those who know me – of course, the next ideas are already in preparation.
Enjoy the view!
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Making of – did you know?
With night photography something curious happens: when viewed in daylight or against a bright background, the deepest shadows often “stick together,” making the landscape look darker than it really is.
The trick is not to leave black at absolute zero, but to raise it ever so slightly – the sweet spot is around 2–3 out of 255 brightness levels. This way, fine structures remain visible even in bright surroundings.
It’s the same little secret used by film and streaming studios to keep images stable across every kind of screen.
As you can see – nothing here is left to chance.
Scientific Sweet Spot for Night Photos
To balance depth and readability across all devices, researchers and industry standards recommend placing the darkest tones in a narrow “sweet spot.” My photo was fine-tuned exactly to these values:
Percentile (how many pixels are darker)Recommended rangeScientific midpointMy photo
5% darkest pixels2–3 / 255~2.5 / 2553
25% darkest pixels6–10 / 255~8 / 2558
Median (50% of all pixels)12–20 / 255~16 / 25515–16
How to read this:
The percentile tells you what fraction of pixels are darker than a certain brightness.
Example: “5% darkest pixels = 3” means the very darkest areas are not pitch black, but lifted just enough to remain visible.
The goal: sit right at the scientific midpoint, so the photo works equally well on OLED at night and on laptops or phones in bright daylight.
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🔧 Technical Information
📷 Camera: Sony Alpha 7R V
🔭 Lens: Sony FE 14 mm f/1.8 GM
🗻 Mount: Benro Cyanbird Carbon Tripod + Benro Polaris Astro Tracker
🌌 Sky: stack of 10 tracked exposures
️ Foreground: composite of 20 exposures (blue hour, light painting, headlamp trails, deep night phases)
⏱️ Exposure time per frame:
– Sky: ISO 320, f/1.8, 6 minutes each
– Foreground: ISO 100, f/2.8, from a few minutes (blue hour) up to 20 minutes
🕒 Total exposure time: approx. 6 hours combined
📍 Location: Tre Cime di Lavaredo (Drei Zinnen, 2,999 m), Dolomites, Italy
one to go, you're all in 'ZEN' now?? well, I am !
you can open all the other pictures to have a look in a larger size
enjoy the "absolute tranquility' photostream !
thanks again for all your positve and kind reactions.
Charlie is the cat of our daughter. The kitchen is his absolutely favourite place:-)
Charlie ist der Kater von unserer Tochter. Die Küche ist sein absoluter Lieblingsort:-)
This is the third cherrybloom picture.
For some odd reason, I took 54 more.
I will try to behave and keep myself from uploading them all.
The equivalent pictures last year was taken on May 5, so the trees do bloom early this year.
L’astuzia di Penelope è nota. Attese per vent’anni il ritorno del marito, Ulisse, evitando di scegliere uno tra i proci grazie allo stratagemma della tela: avendo promesso che avrebbe scelto il futuro marito dopo aver portato a termine il sudario per Laerte, padre di Ulisse… la notte disfaceva ciò che tesseva durante il giorno.
Una dimensione naturale della nostra esistenza ci porta a considerare l’attesa come un fatto negativo. Il più delle volte è vero… ma è anche nel "tendere verso" che immaginiamo il futuro. Nell’attesa possiamo costruire il desiderio, sentirlo crescere in noi, coltivarlo, renderlo più conscio o persino più folle… dal presente possiamo distendere le fibre della nostra tela fino a raggiungere la passione… e poi sfilare tutto prima che si spezzi e ricominciare.
No, certo, sono d’accordo… non si può attendere in eterno. La passione, quella vera, è un cannibale che ti consuma assai rapidamente e un tormento perpetuo non è adatto a delle creature con la data di scadenza…
Eppure esercitare l’arte dell’attesa, la pazienza, e spingerla fino a scatenare l’immaginario un momento prima che si spezzi la fibra della tela ha il suo miele.
Per inciso, alla fine Penelope la spuntò.
Daniele D.
My absolute favourite from the breakfast meet. This stunning CSL is in my view, a perfect example of 70s aggressive styling. The sharp chin spoiler, fins on the front wings, twin rear spoilers and M coloured decals... perfect.
Tall bearded iris Absolute Star in my mountain garden, seen against a background of thimbleberry leaves.
Happy Wednesday! Thanks for stopping by and for all of your kind comments -- I appreciate them all.
© Melissa Post 2018
for those who want to see more of these types of pics, i will recommend you to look at "larsvandegoor" .He's the man who inspires me up to the bone. It is almost incredible what he shows us. As if he is living in a fairy tales forest (close to never ever land;-)
The colors, the light and the objects, they will amaze you.
Impossible to work at this level, so don't even think about a look-a-likes. This man is unique !
Thank you Lars, for those beautiful pictures!
Zipper pull on an Absolute brand foil fencing electric vest. The metal fibers seen running through the vest allow for automatic scoring of touches.
The pull is 2cm long.
Taken by Anthony Creasey (1932 - 2021)
I have been going through my late grandfather's photographs. He was a very keen amateur photographer, and there is an absolute mountain of them.
Before the hundreds of prints go back into a box, probably to find their way into an attic or the back of a cupboard somewhere, it seemed a shame not to do something with them; so I thought I'd upload a few of my favourites here.
My granddad used to say that he didn't have "the eye". That is to say, he didn't have an eye for composition, but he was fascinated by cameras as machines, and loved photography.
I can't put my finger on a single reason why I'm drawn to these photographs in particular: in part, it's because they're of familiar people and places, but how they existed before I was born; it's because I know they're stills from tales I've been told throughout my life - taking the kids (my mum and her siblings) down to Camber, my grandmother being annoyed by always having a camera pointed at her, trips with the Rolls Royce club - and in part there's something very charming about the aesthetic.
You can see the entire collection here.
whatcha up to, fern?
me and bobby joe been out in the field all day. you?
just got out of class.
whatcha learnin'?
oh, physics and stuff.
what's physics?
we're studying the nature of matter. today we conducted experiments to try and get to absolute zero.
absolute zero? now that wouldn't be the grade you got on your last test, would it? ha ha.
no, fern. but it might be your IQ.
say what now?
oh nothin'.
It was a normal evening until it became a night of terror!
Everyone walking along, enjoying the scenic factory smokestacks, breathing in the cool, sooty air, when Hedorah appeared!
Gross, malformed, oozing, Hedorah! A colossal mass of acidic molded malevolence towering into the red sky!
And those eyes! Baleful evil, locked on you with hatred!
Hedorah is the Smog Monster. The product of wanton pollution.
And before this night is over, if Hedorah does not bring you to a painful end by burying you in its melting muck or flying over and spraying you with toxic fumes, you may find your world transformed into a psychadelic disco with fish-headed people singing, "Save the Earth! Save the Earth!"*
Nowhere to hide,
Nothin doin,
When it's the world,
That's coming to ruin.
There's no shelter under,
It's a citywide cave-in,
As Kaiju thunder,
Through Paprihaven.
It's 13 Daze of Halloween,
On the largest scale we've ever seen,
So struggle and strive to stay alive,
We'll see you on the other side, if you survive.
⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘∙•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅
Welcome to the 2025 edition of Paprihaven's 13 Daze of Halloween! We are featuring the towering titans of terror from Toho films!
Which demands the following mention! For the absolute best Japanese vinyl kaiju photography on Flickr, (Or anywhere in the world!), you must visit John's stream, MyKaiju:
Godzilla vs Hedorah
Hedorah
1993, Bandai
* No, seriously.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=K80GON6I8kU
The sound for the link above is very low, but the song links are also below:
English ver. www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC1CGrVuGV8&list=RDkC1CGrVuGV...
Original Japanese www.youtube.com/watch?v=44pFm0fn2rQ&list=RD44pFm0fn2r...
Here are our past Halloween countdowns for Day 12!
2017:
www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/37797170986/
2018:
www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/44730902824/
2019
www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/48926775376/
2020
www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/50509586522/
2021
www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/51612556499/
2022
www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/52441502892/
2023
www.flickr.com/photos/paprihaven/53269784742/
2024
From my archives, I found this bottle (empty) of Absolute Vodka laying in the middle of a path that runs through our local marsh. Whoever dropped it here may have been an inconsiderate slob, but at least he had good taste..