Light-painting photography at the Atacama Desert in Chile (image gallery & video)
The Milky Way is always there at night, but most of us can’t see it from where we live.
Do you remember how you felt the first time you saw the Milky Way? I sure do. Pure awe and wonder. It’s humbling to be reminded of the immensity we are part of. It’s a beautiful way to see our existence for what it is: a blink of an eye in a story much greater than we can conceive or fully comprehend. I wonder how many before us looked at the Milky Way in the darkness of night and felt both irrelevant and empowered to be part of this grandiose universe.
There is one place on Earth where that feeling is impossible to escape: the Atacama Desert.
In 2018, life unexpectedly brought us to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. Back then, we were mostly shooting light painting during the blue hour and trying to figure out how to adapt our technique for night-sky shooting. It was an exciting learning curve, to say the least. Everything about this trip felt new and a bit overwhelming. Composing with the architecture of the landscape, the Milky Way and the light painting all at once in the cold was not easy. We created images we were proud of in the moment, but it didn’t take long before we knew we could do better.
So a few years and hundreds of light-painting sessions later, we went back. This time with a clear goal in mind: to create the best light-painting images we possibly could. To capture every orientation of the Milky Way we could throughout the night. These creative experiences always bring challenges, but when we are prepared, the discomfort and the unexpected are much easier to navigate, and what remains is worth the effort.
The desert landscape is beautiful during the day, but the dry and rugged terrain becomes even more intriguing when night comes. The silhouettes shape the skyline, contrasting with the brightness of the celestial landscape.
And as if that was not enough, there is more than the Milky Way to capture when visiting the clearest sky in the world. We also get to see the two dwarf galaxies, the Milky Clouds, only visible from the Southern Hemisphere. And for those who are patient enough to stay out longer in the cold of the night, the Earth’s rotation itself can be captured like nowhere else. What we see is magnificent, but the silence out there… it fills the space and settles into everything.
The night sky is always present, quietly offering a different perspective on our existence and place in the universe. It’s sometimes easy to forget about it, to take both the view and the ride for granted. But from time to time, when we look up at the stars and experience awe, we’re reminded of the fragility and adaptability of life, shaped by everything that comes and goes. This is precious, and it is one more reason to go out and play.
