Namibia Night Sky
I've been shooting the Milky Way for a couple months now on/or around new moons and the one thing that I've been really missing so far is a strong foreground to play with. On this night, as sort of a happy accident, I finally got a chance to get something nice to balance against the night sky. One of the volunteers at the center was giving a talk on the stars and we were all collectively star gazing for a little bit right next to where we share dinner every night. It wasn't really a great spot to stargaze since the lights over the tables and in the kitchen were still ablaze, but we went ahead anyway. I brought my camera along to take a few milky way shots to show some of the interns and to my amazement the lights from the building washed the grasses in front of us beautifully!
I don't think that I could have known any better to plan this, but once I saw how the light on the grass built up on a long exposure I was very excited and reframed things a little. I also tried out a new photoshop plugin called Astronomy Tools to get a subtle twinkle in the brightest stars in the sky. It's intentionally subtle and I think adds a nice pop when you view the image large. The plugin included a bunch of other tools that I haven't played with yet, but look very promising.
Processing:
Nikon D600 | Nikon 16-35mm