Camping Under the Starry Skies

We went on a little camping trip to celebrate my husband’s cousin’s birthday. We traveled up the coast caravan-style, stopping by bakeries and beaches along the way. Shortly after dinner at the campsite, we peeled away for a bit of night photography.

It was so quiet out here. We looked up as a dense layer of fog settled onto the coast, seemingly for the night. But above that, parts of the Milky Way started to glow, revealing millions of twinkling stars as far as the eye can see.

We tested out a few different shots, but the first photo at the top (with us standing together) is one of my favorites. Over the long exposures, we stood very still and had to tune the brightness and position of our headlamps over a few iterations. Here’s what we ended up with:

One of the truly magical things I love about photography is that without our lenses, we probably would not have seen this level of detail with our naked eyes. It’s magical in a way because sometimes, you really can’t see the beauty that is right in front of you.

Here are a few snapshots from the birthday festivities at camp, including Maddie’s shock when cake made contact with our reused plates from dinner. All I can say is we’re lucky to have a cake connoisseur in the family :).