Fireweed

Togwotee Pass rarely disappoints when it comes to beauty and openness. On this particular day, someone told me the wildflowers were at peak and amazing on Togwotee Pass. So, after a full day of work, I gathered up my photo support crew; my daughter and a couple friends and we were off.

He was right. The colors were indeed amazing, and most of all the fireweed was in full bloom. The challenge was finding a spot that had the fireweed and Milky Way with no highway, campers, Felicia the grizzly bear, or some other no name grizzly bear. We settled on this spot, and I was not disappointed.

As darkness settled in, I set up my gear and started shooting. We oohed and aahed as the cars drove past and lit up the foreground. It’s amazing the different brightnesses and colors of car lights on the same never changing foreground. This photo is a blend of two photos taken that night. The foreground was a blue hour, and the sky was taken later after darkness set in. It was tracked to bring out the added detail in the Milky Way then 5 of those tracked images were stacked to reduce noise.

Captured by Johanna Thompson at Togwotee Pass Moran, WY

Gear: Canon EOS 6D with Sigma 14-24mm f/2.8 lens

Blended nightscape image:

Foreground: blue hour,24mm, 1 sec., F/2.8, ISO 200,

Sky: 5 images stacked, tracked 24mm, 3 min., F/2.8, ISO 800.