Geisler Alm
Milky Way in the Dolomites
Magical sunrise at Alpe di Siusi
Geisler Alm4am start to go on a 11km hike (600m altitude difference) to be at this beautiful place for sunrise and back at the hotel for breakfast. Worth it? I think so! Although I have to admit I saw this composition somewhere else which probably limited me from looking at other compositions while I was up there, I really like this scenery with the reflection in the pond, the mountain lodge and the majestic mountains in the background. For this shot to work, I needed cloudless sunrise with the light coming from the side and when I saw the forecast the night before, I know I had to take my chance and get up early.What was even better was to be able to enjoy this place in peace without any other photographers, influencers or other people running around. I arrived an hour before this photo was taken which gave me enough time to just sit there and watch the sun slowly make its way through the valley until it was just right.A little bit later the local farmer arrived to let the cows out and as soon as they saw something new/interesting in the distance (me), they came running down the hill, stopped in front of the tiny electric fence and all looked at me. That was a bit intimidating having a bunch of cows watch me but also funny. After a while they realised photographers are not that interesting and went back to minding their own business with the sounds of cowbells filling the air.The hike down the mountain was much more enjoyable and the breakfast even more, especially when your host serves apple strudel for breakfast
Milky Way in the DolomitesThis image was taken on my last night of my Dolomites trip in Sep and I could have not wished for better conditions: Clear sky, bit of moon light from the side, mild temperatures, no wind and what a scenery (Cadini di Misurina). This was actually my second night shooting astro at Tre Cime which are just behind me. I was already on my way back to the spot I was the previous night but kept looking at this interesting looking mountain range. A quick look at @photopills to check the position of the Milky Way helped me ditch my original plan and hike 30min to this vantage point. It’s usually used to get a red jacket shot of someone standing on the green ledge in the foreground during the day however I wanted to create something different. Given the perfect astro conditions, it was obvious what kind of shot I was going for.First, I took a 270sec exposure at ISO 200 1h after sunset to get a low noise foreground image. 30min later it was dark enough to shoot the first Milky Way image despite a 36% moon to the right which would only set 90min later (helped to illuminate the foreground). I actually took 20 images at ISO 6400 which I later merged in Sequator to reduce noise. The most difficult part was to shoot the selfie with me standing on the ledge with the light – well getting there and back in the dark 2.5h after sunset was the most difficult part (pointed my phone torch towards the camera to create this effect)Overall it’s not the sharpest photo (lens issues) but I’m just happy it turned out how I imagined it and is a bit different to other shots I’d seen from this spot
Magical sunrise at Alpe di SiusiLike many other photographers going to this exact spot for sunrise, I’m guilty of not finding my own composition and ticking it off as a bucket list shot but as you can see there is a reason why everyone takes the shot from this hill. I didn’t have much colour in the clouds (we actually had clear skies when I left the hotel in the morning), there wasn’t any fog in the valley and an elderly couple shooting next to me mentioned that this is not going to be a good morning as the light won’t fill the entire valley due to the clouds. However in my opinion, the light is exactly what makes this shot special to me, particularly the diagonal light on the grass in the foreground.It was my 2nd of 3 sunrises I shot here and each morning was different. None of them produced much colour in the clouds but with a landscape like this, it wasn’t really needed as long as there was light coming from the left. I was actually too lazy/shy/stingy to rent an bicycle so I had to hike 50min each morning to get here but when being surrounded by views like this, it’s not really a punishment. The best thing that day after the light was actually the hike through this valley afterwards, saying hello to a few horses, having brunch at 10am in one of the popular mountain lodges and being back in bed by 1pm when it started to rain.
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