This spring, I had the was brainstorming cool shots to take.  One that I was very excited to do is the one above from the top of Cottonwood Pass outside of Buena Vista, CO.  It combines some of my favorite types of photos: Night shots/Milky Way, Colorado mountains, and car trails.  I had seen this location in photos many times before, some even at night, but not what I saw in my head.

Unfortunately, Cottonwood Pass is closed in the winter and most of spring.  I kept watching the news and CDOT website to see when it would finally open.  It finally opened at the end of May.  Therefore, I immediately planned a weekend trip up there to get the shot.

I chose a night that would have about a quarter moon, with the moon at my back and the Milky way core in the center of my shot.  I was lucky that such a scenario happened in June.  So a friend and I drove up to Buena Vista on that specific (Friday) night. We checked into out hotel, then left to head up the pass at about 10:30pm, which was just after twilight had ended and the sun no longer had any influence on the shot (except for reflecting light off the moon of course).  On our way up the pass, we got surprised by a moose running right in front of my car.  Those animals are quite the sight to see!

When we got to the top of the pass, I was so excited that we were finally there.  However, as we turned around to the spot that I wanted to shoot from, we discovered that there was still a gigantic snow drift right in that spot.  Fortunately though, we were able to move to the side of it and still get a good composition.

So we set up and and started shooting.  It is funny how well your eyes can adjust to the dark surroundings.  It was somewhat surreal.  Very quiet too.  The next question was how were were going to get the car trails in the photo.  It was 11;00pm, so there weren’t too many people still driving over the pass.  One of the reasons I wanted a friend with me  was that I could send them in my car to drive in the scene while I shot the photos.  However, we were lucky enough to have several cars and trucks come through our shot when we needed it.

Shooting this scene involved a delicate balance of light controlled by the shutter speed.  Go too short and you won;t get the Milky Way and the cars won’t get very far around the curve.  Go too long and the stars will blur and the moon will over expose the landscape.  The shot you see above is the result of blending three images together.  That is because 25 seconds was the right time for the stars and moonlight, but the car only got about 1/3 through the loop.  So blending the car trails from the three shots ended up working well.

I’m really happy with the results, and we had a great time shooting it too.  Thanks for reading.