Photographing the Milky Way over Pawnee Buttes, Colorado
It’s no secret that I’ve been in a bit of a photographic rut lately, but I’ve been working hard to fix that this year. One of the things I’m doing to try to pull myself out of this creative hole is to get out and shoot a subject that I enjoy: The Milky Way. Despite how much I truly enjoy this genre of photography, it has been far too long since I’ve actually taken a stab at it. In fact, the last time was in June of 2022, nearly 3 years ago at this point!
The Milky Way over the Naturalist’s Cabin in Maryland’s Assateague Island was my last attempt at a Milk Way, and it’s not even good!
I decided it was high time we right this wrong!
Scouting a Location
Shooting the Milky Way can take quite a bit of effort, more so than a lot of other types of photography. Planning is absolutely essential to have any chance of success. Of course, one of the most important aspects to planning your shoot is to figure out the location.
For my first foray back into Milky Way photography, I had a number of locations in mind. I spent some time looking into each of these and was pretty sure that The Pawnee Buttes would end up working out well for where the Milky Way is located in the sky during this time of the year. Since I had never been out to the Buttes before, I wasn’t too sure what my shooting options looked like. I would need to get boots on the ground!
So, on the weekend before I suspected would be the best time to do the shoot, I drug my fiancé out to the buttes with the promise that we’d go to one of our favorite restaurants in Cheyenne, Wyoming, afterward. We hiked out to the western-most butte, and I was able to find a nice little side trail that led to the perfect spot to get the shot I envisioned. As suspected, the time to get the shot would be at about 5 a.m. the following Sunday.
The West Pawnee Butte from my scouting hike.
The Morning of the Shoot
For whatever reason, I decided not to camp for this trip but to “just” get up around midnight on Sunday morning and drive to the buttes. After all, it’s “only” a 2-hour drive from my house to the buttes. In all seriousness, though, it ended up not being that bad.
I arrived at the trailhead at about 4 a.m. (this was the morning when the clocks jumped forward an hour, hence the lost time). I threw on my pack, turned on the dim red light on my headlamp, and did the short 2-ish mile hike out to the location. It turned out I wasn’t the only insane person with this idea, as I ran into another photographer who was doing the exact same thing.
For the first hour, the moon was still in the sky. This gave me time to set up my equipment and fire off a few frames of the butte, with the dim moonlight illuminating the scene. A little after 5, the moon dipped below the horizon, giving me the darker skies I wanted for the Milky Way itself. I would have about another 45 minutes to shoot the sky.
I stood out there in the cold wind getting the frames I needed before I packed out and did the short hike back to my car. Once I got home, I couldn’t resist completing the edit.
All things considered, I’m pretty happy with the result. Is it perfect? Definitely not. In hindsight, I wish I had done a slightly tighter frame and done a better job shooting the foreground. But, considering this is me dipping my toe back into the waters of Milky Way photography, I’m pretty darn happy with the result!
