8-9-23

I was offered a job this summer working as a forest fire lookout in the Klamath National Forest in far northern California. If you have never been to a fire lookout, you are really missing out. As you can imagine fire lookouts are high in the mountains and give a commanding view while looking down on the terrain around them.

I was not disappointed when I first arrived at Lake Mountain Lookout. There were great views in all directions. You are looking at peaks and valleys of varying heights and distances. From Lake Mountain, you can also see into Oregon. To add to the vistas was the lookout itself. Originally built in 1912 and then rebuilt around 1928. The lookout itself was something to enjoy looking at also.

As you can imagine, my first thought when I was offered the job was, ‘This should be a great opportunity for some awesome photography.’ Sure, you also have to keep an eye out for fires, but the photography…

So immediately, I started to think about photography opportunities. I was planning for sunrise and sunset photographs as well as nighttime photographs. I would of course be spending all day up there and even the night. Because the lookout is pretty remote, the dark skies would be outstanding!

For this photograph, I started planning early on. I was looking at where the Milky Way would be sitting in the sky as it relates to the lookout tower and the surrounding terrain. Luckily, there is a relatively flat spot to the north of the lookout, so I could easily set up my camera and take photographs of the Milky Way, which would be in the southeastern sky.

After a couple of weeks, I was pretty comfortable with how and where I could take the photographs. I then started to plan what lighting I would use and where to place them. There are some limitations on locations as the lookout is atop some rocks and naturally is the highest point. I also had to plan around the moon, making sure it was not bright in the night sky and washing out the stars and Milky Way. Part of this is planning what time would be optimal. I do have to work the next morning, so being up too late would adversely affect this.

The day had come and all the right pieces were falling into place. The moon was not going to interfere and also the skies were clear. So I went and positioned my tripod where I thought it would be a good composition. Using PhotoPills, I included where it looked like the Milky Way would be over the lookout tower at the right time. I set my focus while it was still light out so I didn’t have to try and get this right when it was dark. I then placed tape over the focus right so it wouldn’t move in case I accidentally touched the focus ring later. Then, I just waited for it to get dark out.

Once the sun went down and the skies became dark, I was ready to start. The first thing I noticed was the Milky Way was not actually where my planning said it would be. It was close, but not in the right spot. Like all good planning, be flexible and have a ‘Plan B’ just in case. So I moved over to a place that worked out better. I then placed my lighting where I had thought it would work out the best. I also did several different lighting techniques so I had options once I started to process the photographs later. This worked out great considering what I thought would be the best technique, didn’t turn out to be as good as I thought. I’m glad I had options.

If there is something I have learned with night photography, it always looks slightly different on the computer screen than it does on the back of the small camera LCD screen. I have gotten better while understanding this and don’t have “as many” complete failures, but it is always different.

In the end, I was really happy with this result. The opportunity to capture this is obviously very limited unless you really know someone who will be patient and work with you. Or, be the only one there and have all night to get what you want from the photograph no matter how many trials and errors you go through.