La Palma Starlight Reserve
I took my first Milky Way Image in April 2017 after waiting endless hours on a dark road of La Palmas Roque de Los Muchachos until the Milky Way appeared at the horizon. This was the starting point for a formative odyssey that most astrophotographers may relate to. Before I reached that point I was spending my twenties as DJ and VJ at Raves and Festivals. I was already interested in long exposure photography and work as a freelance photographer and graphic designer since 2012 - but in Leipzig are usually Parties, Raves and Electronic Music the common activities at night - at least for me and my social environment as we turned from Ravers to DJs, organizers and operators.
From the first time I ever pressed the button of a smoke machine I wanted to learn all creative-technical aspects of a Nightclub. So somewhen I ended up as a Vj who was responsible for the lights, projection mapping and the mood of the venue. Working with light to support the vibe of the dancefloor and music is awesome - especially at hypnotic techno raves but I realized that this kind of artificial environment is just like an aesthetic simulation driven by desire and longing. I wanted to experience it with all my senses so I started to sneak out into the night to use my skills and love for light, technology and photography to discover the natural origin of these dancefloor moods and feelings.
The Milky Way in relation with the contrast between wild landscapes and high technology observatories became my new obsession. In 2018 I started to travel to the Canary Islands regularly - especially to the Isla Bonita - La Palma. I worked on a private building site in a house during the days to keep my trips as cheap and long as possible and became good friends with the owner while I got many chances to explore the famous night sky of the island. At the beginning I brought tons of equipment every night - many different lenses and all kind of stuff. I learned very quick to reduce my gear to the essential and just ended up with my Nikon D810 Full Frame Camera, my beloved AF-S 50mm f/1.8 that I am using almost exclusively, my Samyang 24mm f/1.4, the Vixen Polarie Star Tracker and Manfrotto MT055XPRO3 ALU tripod.
To run the Tracker and to load my phone I also bring a RAVPower 20000mAh Powerbank. Thats actually all I need and with that setup I am very agile and able to walk long distances at night. I am mostly looking for quite complex tracked long exposure panoramas. I love to spend time at the spots and to get more quality and detail into my images with something like 20 images in several rows and 120seconds exposure time - if possible. More work, less images... but the time I am spending out in the field at night is for me as precious as the resulting images. It’s even okay to leave the camera and just enjoy the view - probably caused by the fact that I live my ordinary life in Central Europe under bad light polluted skies.
My favorite location still is La Palma due to the world class conditions, the beautiful telescopes and the extraordinary landscape but I am looking forward to get new input and find new locations. I am graving for the southern sky which was mostly hidden behind a cyclone when I travelled to Mauritius in 2018 to get some images. That’s still one of the things I like so much - even when planning is quite easy nowadays - you can’t control nature and never know what a night will bring. The conditions can turn very rough, the trip exhausting and the fails very painful. But still, the process of learning, improvising and the need for patience make photography - especially of the night sky - so exciting to me and I hope I can keep it up and get into many new adventures and friendships!
