That’s Photoshop!

Milky Way over the Dune De Bouctouche

This year, I’m going to make an effort to write to you all more, short or long. I want us to talk. I want to answer questions, tell the stories of my work and furthermore, explain some of my photography.

So I wanted to start out with a big question that I had from all the art fairs, craft shows, and other exhibits.

“Surely that’s Photoshop!”, “Thats not real!”


Firstly, thank you, thank you for being so amazed that the first reaction is disbelief.

But yes, it surely is real, but there is some photoshop involved. So as Facebook says about many relationship status’ “It’s Complicated”

So let’s get into it.

Taking a Milkyway photo involves turning my camera and tripod into a miniature observatory. An electric motor lines up with the North Star, and matches the Earth’s rotation. My camera on this motor now moves -with- the night sky. This allows us, the viewer, to see the luminous gas cloud of the centre of our galaxy. With the proper planning that is!

A similar shot is then taken with the electric motor off. This gives me two “negatives” that have to be merged into one, because the spinning motion leaves one section of each photo blurred.  

So here comes the Photoshop. Noticed how I mentioned negatives? Well in modern terms, these are called RAWS - they are flat digital images that come from the camera. These are usually devoid of contrast and have flat colour. But are PACKED with data. As light is converted into the photo, its turned into zeros and ones. In modern cameras, IE phones, the computer makes choices to the values programmed into them, and cuts away a lot of this data. You may be familiar with HEIC or JPEG. These are file formats for easier sharing because a great deal of information is removed.

But with my negative or RAW. I’m able to pull from that deep definition, sharpness, and balance light pollution. So in Photoshop, I blend the two layers, sculpt the light (known as a dodge and burn, a technique made famous by Ansel Adams), provide colour correction and remove distractions.
 
Just for this post - I’ve made a time-lapse of the photo above. Take 30 seconds and see how I put my images together.