Your Stories
Jonathan Moya spends late nights and early mornings revelling in the great outdoors, and shooting for the stars
More exciting Nikonbased tales from our readers
MISSION: Blend interesting foregrounds with the splendour of the night sky
PHOTOGRAPHER: Jonathan Moya
LOCATION: Los Angeles, United States
KIT USED: Nikon D750. Sigma 14-24mm f/2.8 DG HSM Art, Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 ED AS UMC, ioptron Skytracker Pro
WEBSITE: jonmoyaphotography.com INSTAGRAM: @digitaltoddy
Istarted taking photographs because I spend a lot of time outdoors and wanted something to do while camping. A time-lapse of the night sky over the Atacama Desert, Chile, by Nicholas Buer was the real catalyst; I wanted to create images that made me feel how I felt when I saw that for the first time.
I started with a Nikon D5500, and spent hours watching videos on photography. I have upgraded my kit as I’ve progressed, first the D7100, then the D750 and now the D850. My Milky Way images improved after I bought a star tracker. This allows the shutter to open for up to four minutes with no trailing, and I’m able to use a lower ISO.
You really only see a few stars in the sky when living in LA, but this Joshua tree [1] is only a few hours away and sits beneath the darkest skies in the area. I had the framing in mind before I got there. I planned to silhouette the tree with lights from the nearby city of Palm Springs, so I shot the foreground at 24mm, tracked the sky at 50mm (to fill more of the frame with the Milky Way) and blended them.
This one took a few attempts [2].
I couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed before sunrise! When I finally made it to the location there were no clouds in the sky, but then this glow appeared. It lasted for 10 minutes, and I was able to get a shot with calm waters around the Queen Mary.
This was taken under Manhattan Beach Pier [3] – I went to photograph the sunset, but was greeted with a dreary sky. I was about to leave when I decided to throw a 6-stop ND filter on my wide-angle lens. The result is both haunting and dreamy.
This photo [4] was taken in Sequoia National Park, one of my favourite places to visit. My wife and I found out that a bear and her cubs had been seen in the area, which almost kept me from going back at night. We did end up going to get the shot (quickly) right as the Milky Way’s core was in position. Shooting from a low angle enabled me to surround it with the silhouettes of the majestic and giant sequoias. This photo means a lot to me, because two years later I proposed to my wife a few feet from the same location.
I found out that a bear and her cubs had been seen in the area, which almost kept me from going back at night