"Good Medicine." The Milky Way stretches across the midnight skies above Sinopah Mountain and Two Medicine Lake, on the east side of Glacier National Park.

Anyone can take pictures during daylight. But making creative images after dark is one of my favorite challenges! Light painting, time-lapse, interval, sun/moon/stars/milky way - I love it all.

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"The Occultation."

Venus slips behind the crescent moon during a rare occultation.

Behind the lens.

This is a composite of six images captured at two-minute intervals. The camera stays on the tripod and never moves.

"Chief Mountain Milky Way."

The summer milky way slides across the midnight sky behind Chief Mountain, in Glacier National Park.

"Lake McDonald Lodge."

Stars slide across the night sky above Glacier National Park, while park visitors are snug in their beds at Lake McDonald Lodge (left) and in Apgar (right).

Behind the lens.

Lake McDonald Lodge is a busy place in the daytime. Lots of people, cars, boats, and all of the sounds associated with these things. But at night, all of that activity goes away.

After dark, the buildings around the lodge become peaceful points of light and color in a much broader pallet. The quieter, natural sounds return to the lake while the stars ease across the sky. Even the waves calm down. At night, Lake McDonald is a peaceful place once more.

"Stars & Stones."

It all happened one night at Lake McDonald. Star trails sweep across the sky. A crescent moon is reflected on the water. The golden glow of pre-dawn, and the faint glow of Lake McDonald Lodge. Underwater stones along the shore complete the image. The night was photographed exactly as it happened, and it was captured in a way that we can never see in real time.

Behind the lens.

This one image is a combination of three different photography techniques, all performed without moving the camera. Startrails are captured with a time exposure, underwater rocks are highlighted via light painting, and the crescent moon and reflection is your normal press-the-shutter-once image.

This lake and mountain scene has been photographed millions of times by pretty much every visitor and every professional photographer that has landed on the shores of Lake McDonald. That is, millions of times in the daylight. All of the colors and textures that I have captured here were created on a totally dark and mostly moonless night in Glacier National Park.

Inside the box is boring -- photography is much more interesting outside the box.

"Heavens Above."

The Milky Way warms up the night sky above Heaven's Peak, in Glacier National Park, Montana.

Behind the lens.

Heaven's Peak is a well-known mountain up in Glacier National Park. What better foreground subject for a photograph of the Milkyway?

Milkyway photos demand a dark, moonless and cloudless night sky. Otherwise the clouds of stars don't show up very well, if at all. Even under the best conditions, the summertime sky doesn't turn totally dark until 2-3 hours after sunset. Then the first light of dawn starts creeping in 2-3 hours before sunrise. This leaves a darkened window that only lasts about two hours in the mddle of the night.

I created this window towards about 3 AM, when the first light of dawn is just starting to appear. So instead of stars on a black background, we get stars on a blueish background. This is a fine splitting of the hairs with background colors, and not all that easy to accomplish.

Fortuately, you get to stay home asleep while I work these things out for you...

"Mt. Reynolds Moonbow."

The moon carves a path over Mt. Reynolds, in Glacier National Park, Montana.

Behind the lens.

This was one of many full moon nights that I've spent working up on the side of a mountain, somewhere in Glacier National Park. The park turns into a different world on these wonderful nights. It's easy to see everything around you during a full moon and, if the wind is laying low, you can hear everything for miles around. It's quite mesmerizing and somewhat addictive. The only downside is, if the moon sets before dawn, then you're climbing down a mountain in the pitch black night.

"Stars on the Water."

Star trails are reflected on the surface of Lake McDonald, in Glacier National Park, Montana. Lake McDonald Lodge glows warmly along the distant shore.

Behind the lens.

I can't begin to tell you how hard it is to create an image like this. Photographing dim stars is one thing, but trying to record the much dimmer reflections of stars on the surface of a lake is even more challenging.

Just to make it more fun, there's also a small creek entering the lake off-camera to the left. So even though it's windless, there are small, one-half inch compression waves on the lake surface. These small waves act to spread out each stars' pinpoint reflection into a constantly wiggling line.

Persistence and patience usually pay off, eventually. So after only two or three attempts, I finally caught the stars on the water.

"Bowman Lake Blues."

Star trails over Bowman Lake disappear into the hazy smoke from summertime forest fires, in Glacier National Park, Montana.

Behind the lens.

While Tracy and I were driving up the North Fork to create this photograph, there was a forest fire burning about 50 miles to the west that filled the park with smoke. From the foot of Bowman Lake, we couldn't even see the other end of the lake, much less the mountains beyond. The lake surface calmed down nicely after midnight, and the stars began emerging from the blue smoke. Somehow through the long exposure, details emerged in the photograph that we couldn't see when we were there. Eternal processes -- fire, smoke, star trails -- come together to create a scene of summertime tranquility.

"Good Medicine."

The Milky Way stretches across the midnight skies above Sinopah Mountain and Two Medicine Lake, on the east side of Glacier National Park.

The Milky Way stretches across the midnight skies above Sinopah Mountain and Two Medicine Lake, on the east side of Glacier National Park." href="javascript:openLB(1636075186,'',XLarge,'',512,768);"> "Good Medicine."

The Milky Way stretches across the midnight skies above Sinopah Mountain and Two Medicine Lake, on the east side of Glacier National Park.

"Good Medicine."

The Milky Way stretches across the midnight skies above Sinopah Mountain and Two Medicine Lake, on the east side of Glacier National Park.

Keywords: stars glacier national park milky way two medicine sinopah mountain john ashley

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