Monsters at Borrego Springs

An hour and a half from San Diego, there exists monsters preserved as iron sculptures made by the artist RICARDO BRECEDA. It is against this foreground of fanciful objects that I exercised my skills at capturing the Milky Way. An elusive subject that can only be stalked from April to October on the darkest nights of the full moon. The dark skies of the Anza-Borrego desert provided the needed conditions to collect the photons unheeded by light pollution. Afterwards I applied deft post-processing techniques to coax the color and vibrancy from the stars. I created these images standing in the desert at midnight. The photos are single-shot in camera. I did not composite or combine multiple frames. I applied light-painting techniques during long-exposure to bring out the foreground subject and detail. The interpretation is subjective, as one would not see this with the naked eye. You would see the Milky Way as a band of white stars, but my imagination and artistry has enhanced the experience.