View allAll Photos Tagged ventureout
Toulumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park
Toulumne Meadows is located in the back-country of Yosemite National Park. It is one of the largest, high-elevation meadows in the Sierra Nevada at 8,600 feet. With its beautiful rock studded, sub-alphine meadow landscape, along the Tioga Road, one can easily spend hour wandering around and enjoying the peaceful scenery of this beautiful meadow.
The raw and remote landscape of Cape Palliser on the North Island of New Zealand under the starry galactic band of the Milky Way.
In New Zealand, this is the part of the Milky Way that dominates our summer night skies during the months of November to February. The bright galactic centre of our Milky Way that is usually a feature in our winter months sits below the horizon during this period. Towards the centre of this photo you can see the Southern Cross (or the Crux), and to the upper left of that, the Carina Nebula which is located in the Carina-Sagittarius Arm and is four times as large and even brighter than the famous Orion Nebula.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
I headed out to the Wellington South Coast in New Zealand late last week hoping to capture probably my last image of the galactic centre of the Milky Way for this year. After this week the moon will begin to get brighter and the galactic centre will disappear below the horizon until February 2016. It quite an amazing sight to see this time of year as about an hour after sunset, you can see the Milky Way sitting parallel to the horizon. It position does vary quite a lot depending on where you are in the world, but in New Zealand at the moment, we have front row seats to one of the best shows in the universe.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park, CA
Olmsted Point is located in Yosemite Park backcountry and is another great viewing point off Tioga road. This point was named for famed landscape architect, Fredrick Law Olmsted and his son.
Fredrick Law Olmsted is famous for co-designing most of the beloved parks across the United States, including Central Park in New York City an Golden Gate Park in San Francisco
The Tasman Valley in the Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, New Zealand, is an amazing place to visit by day, but once night falls, I can honestly say it one of the most amazing night skies you will ever see. I recently spent a night under the stars there above the glacier lake. It was a spectacular view looking down the valley, especially when the Aurora Australis lit up the sky to the south. The bright band of the Milky Way spanned overhead from east to west, and there were so many shooting stars that night, I lost count - it was certainly one incredible night under the stars to remember!
This 305 megapixel panoramic image is made up of 42 photos stitched together to create the final image.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
The Galactic Centre of the Milky Way rises to the east, silhouetting and an old fishing boat that ran aground in a storm. The boat has been abandoned and makes for an interesting subject to photograph. I climbed up onto the boat that night and illuminated the cabin with a simple headlamp. This image is a single exposure photograph.
The 2015 Christmas Day full moon is the first time the full moon has appeared on Christmas Day in 38 years, and it won't happen again until 2034! I on a road trip travelling around the North Island of New Zealand for 2 weeks, and I snapped this photo of the Christmas full moon beginning to set over Ahipara Beach in the far north of New Zealand. The beaches up this way are amazing, and the landscape is truly beautiful too. Yesterday I drove the length of 90 Mile Beach (which is actually only 88km long) from Ahipara to Cape Reinga. The beach itself also happens to be an official public highway and is used as an alternative to the State Highway 1.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
The Church of the Good Shepherd on the shores of Lake Tekapo in New Zealand, is one of the most photographed churches in the world. It's surounded by spectatular natural beauty, and on a clear night the stars and the Milky Way shine brightly above.
It's certainly not the easiest church to get a clear shot of, especially at night due to the hordes of photographers who jostle for position to get that iconic photo. Fortunately for me this night, I was shooting for a tourist campaign, and was able to get at least part of the view clear for the shoot.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
A moonlit landscape at Lake Tekapo on the South Island of New Zealand - I usually don't shoot much wide field astrophotography when the moon is out, but on this occasion, the moon was in it's first quarter phase, and it was an absolutely perfect evening. So I climbed the largest rock I could find on the shores of Lake Tekapo, and took in the views while my camera shot a panorama.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
Perfectly clear conditions and a night out photographing on the south coast of Wellington, New Zealand. The Milky Way was rising to the east, and waves were flowing throughout the tidal pools during my long exposures, producing a soft misty feel that looked rather like ground fog.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
We had just finished the Dark Skies of Wonder Astrophotography workshop at Lake Tekapo, New Zealand recently, when all of the sudden this stunning arc of light formed low to the horizon to the south. It was the Aurora Australis making an appearance, but somewhat unique, as the arc formation wasn't really seen that much in the southern hemisphere. I knew I had to get a photo of it, so jumped in my car to head to a location near Lake Alexandrina where we had been shooting earlier in the night. The location was perfect for the photo I had in mind. The Aurora was arcing behind the big old tree there, and the Magellanic Clouds were also stunning in the night sky. I composed the scene in front of me, and took the shot - this was certainly one night of astrophotography to remember...
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
When I go out photographing the night sky, I tend to spend a lot of time looking up trying to get my head around the vastness of spacet's really is incomprehensible when you think of how big space really is so I thought I list a few facts with this photo.
- The nearest star to our own Sun is Proxima Centauri, and that is 40 trillion km away.
- The Large Magellanic Clouds, which is can be seen near the centre of this photo, is an irregular dwarf galaxy 158,200 light years from earth. Now light travels at 300,000km per second, so you can just imagine how far away the Large Magellanic Cloud is when light travels that fast for 158,200 years and that is a relatively close distance compared to the scale of our universe!
- The visible universe stretches out to around 13 billion light years from earth and contains around 100 billion galaxies. And each one of those galaxies contain around 100 billion stars - that means the visible universe contains something like 10,000 million million stars. And if you want to attempt to even put that into perspectiveell basically there are more stars in the visible universe than there are grains of sand on our earth!
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
A lone tree under some of the darkest skies in the world in the Gold rated Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve near Tekapo, New Zealand.
The night sky at this location is truly spectacular, and even though the camera is capturing more than the naked eye can see in this photo, the details of Milky Way is still clearly visible when viewed your own eyes.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
An old abandoned fishing boat sits under a sky of millions of stars as the galactic center of the Milky Way rises over the horizon to the east.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
It was a stunning clear summers evening, and I knew the the glow from the galactic centre of the Milky Way would be visible on the horizon around 4am. It had been a few months since the centre was visible in the southern hemisphere night skies, so I headed down to Ocean Beach in the Hawkes Bay region of New Zealand to see what I could capture.
Upon arrival the sky was full of stars, and the bright centre of the Milky Way was rising on the horizon to the east. The zodiacal light was also visible, and seemed to hinge off the same axis as the galactic centre of the Milky Way. I stood there by a small stream and watched the reflections of the stars on the water, so I set up my tripod and camera to capture this amazing scene in front of me. While I was waiting for the exposures, it gave me time to just look up at the stars and reflect on life - It's certainly moments like these that makes you appreciate everything around you...
The galactic centre of the Milky Way sets to the west of a small cove at Pukerua Bay on the North Island of New Zealand.
I've been waiting a few months to capture the Milky Way in the right position at this location, and finally I got my chance on a perfectly clear winter morning recently. It meant getting up at 3.30am and being set up to shoot at the location at 5am. The crescent moon had risen just before the shoot, and that helped with lighting up the landscape of the cove. I had to shoot 20 images with a 24mm lens to capture the full field of view of the scene I wanted, and then stitched them together to make the one complete image.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
A surprise visit from the Aurora at the end of the night shooting at Lake Tekapo in New Zealand. By this time it was close to 3am and I was ready to head to bed, but ended up shooting for another hour or so as it was too good an opportunity to pass up!
Whilst this isn't a technically perfect image (stars are slightly out of focus) I thought I'd post it anyway...
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
Lake Tekapo is located on the South Island of New Zealand, and is part of the Aoraki Mackenzie Dark Sky Reserve. Thousands of tourists visit this area every year, and one of the big attractions is The Church of the Good Shepard. This stone built church is located right of the foreshore of Lake Tekapo, and is a photographers dream with stunning views of the mountains to the north, and an amazing location to photograph the Milky Way rising over the church at night. It is the most photographed building in New Zealand, and even at 2am in the morning, there can be dozens of photographers around the church jostling for positions attempting to get that postcard perfect shot.
I recently held the Dark Skies of Wonder astrophotography workshop at Lake Tekapo with Christchurch based photographer, Rob Dickinson. It was an amazing night, and our workshop participants managed to get some incredible images. You can see a short time-lapse from two of the locations we visited on the night here: vimeo.com/122880577
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
In this photo you won't see me standing in one of my heroic poses with the beam of my torch light pointing into the night sky, nor will you see towering mountains with an incredibly over processed milky way above. All you'll see in this photo is a beautiful southern hemisphere night sky taken from a field near the coastal town of Kaikoura in the South Island of New Zealand.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
A large storm formed deep in the southern ocean below New Zealand recently, and sent massive swells 1000 of km north, finally hitting the shores of the Wellington South Coast. The power of the ocean surged onto our coastal roads, pushing up large boulders and debris, and forcing the closure of various roads along the south coast. My favourite location for star gazing also suffered badly, with major damage and washouts to the 4WD track making it almost impossible to pass.
I took this photo just before first light that morning and that was as far as I got along the track, but it was quite calming watching the galactic core of the Milky Way set behind the hills of the south coast in contrast to the rough seas around me. And that got me thinking about how tame the storms on earth really are compared to other planets in our solar system.
For instance, it might bucket down with rain on earth - but at least you don have to worry about sulphuric acid falling out of the sky like it does on the planet Venus. And when you get those scorching hot days on Earth where it uncomfortably hotell at least it not like a scorching hot day on Mercury where the daytime temperature can hit over 430 degrees celsius! And when it finally does cool down at night, youl be snapped frozen in a second as it gets close to -180 degrees celsius. And even the biggest storms in history on Earth don even come close to the severity of the huge storm on Jupiter known as the great red spot - you will fit at least 3 Earths into that storm, and it has been raging on for at least 400 years at hurricane strength.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
When primal man first walked this Earth he would have been able to travel by starlight at night. There would have been no light pollution, and the bright galactic centre of the Milky Way would have been an incredible sight to see in the night sky. Thankfully there are still locations on Earth were you can experience this, but with two-thirds of the U.S. population and more than one-half of the European population having already lost the ability to see the Milky Way, it an experience that will be missed by many.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
Lake Tekapo in New Zealand renown is its starry night skies, and thousands of tourists visit the area every year just to see the stars. It is part of the gold rated Aoraki Mackenzie Dark Sky Reserve, and I do spend a bit of time in this area, capturing the incredible landscape under the night sky. Last weekend I was down at Lake Tekapo shooting time-lapses for an up coming film called June. Even though I was standing out in the freezing cold for hours capturing these time-lapses, I have to say it was totally worth it, as they are some of the most spectacular day to night time-lapses I've capture to date.
This is a single frame from one of those time-lapses shot from the top of Mount John overlooking Lake Tekapo.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
The moon rises over the ocean to the east at Cape Reinga at the top of the North Island of New Zealand.
Cape Reinga is the north western most tip of the Aupouri Peninsula. The remote coastline is surrounded by beautiful white sandy beaches including 90 mile beach and the giant Te Paki sand dunes. The lighthouse was built in 1941 and was the last manned lighthouse to be built in New Zealand. Today it is visited by thousands of tourists every year.
The official name of the cape is Cape Reinga/Te Rerenga Wairua with the 'Te Rerenga Wairua' component of the name in Māori language means the leaping-off place of spirits. The 'Reinga' part of the name is the Māori language word meaning the underworld. Both refer to the Māori belief that the cape is the point where the spirits of the dead enter the underworld.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
The Wainuamata coast near Wellington, New Zealand is rugged and exposed, but also very picturesque, and a location I've been wanting to photograph at night for a while now. I finally got the perfect night to do so, and hiked the 3.5km with my camera gear out to Baring Head, where I set up overlooking the beach and the Wainuiomata River. The Milky Way was stunning this night as it rose towards the east, and the sky was tinted green with air glow as the distant galaxies of the Malleganic Clouds hovered above. This image is a panorama made up of 24 images stitched together, and was shot on a Epic Gigapan Pro panoramic head. Each image had an exposure time of 25 seconds at f/2.8 ISO 6400, and was shot on a Canon 6d with a 24mm focal length.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
The Galactic Core of the Milky Way makes a return to our night skies for 2015 as it rises over the horizon just before dawn near Wellington, New Zealand.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
Summer in New Zealand means warm summer nights and the occasional clear starry skies. I shot this image last night as I was walking down to Hot Water Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula just after midnight. The silhouettes of the New Zealand cabbage trees looked striking against the night sky, as the Milky Way rose behind them, and a satellite passed by low in the sky.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
This image is one of those unexpected and unplanned shots which I happened to stumble across as I headed back to my car after a session of photographing the night sky. The Milky Way is soaring high above the landscape, but reflects beautifully into the river below, giving the image a very surreal feeling.
For the tech heads - It's a vertical pano made up of 6 shots. Each shot is a single exposure and photographed with a Canon 6d, Canon EF 14mm f/2.8 at 30 second shutter at f/2.8, ISO 6400, and stitched together in Autopano Giga. And for the record - that reflection in the river is real.
This image is another one that looks great on the smart photo as a wallpaper, so I thought why not...I'll let you guys download it for free from here.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com
One of my favourite times of day is after the sun has set, and the first stars appear. They commonly call this the blue hour, but I like to think of it as the changing of the guard - the moment day becomes night. I was down on the South Island of New Zealand last weekend, and managed to witness this amazing moment as the sun went down to the west, and the after glow lit up the tops of New Zealand highest mountain, Mount Cook, and the lenticular clouds above.
This image is a frame from a day to night time-lapse which I began as the sun was going down and shot right through until complete darkness.
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copyright 2015 | Mark Gee | theartofnight.com