Jessica and I decided a few days ago to take off up north to photograph the stars in Cervantes, a few hours north of Perth. Having left home at 5:00pm friday afternoon we hit the main highway around the same time the Roos come out. Thankfully this trip was incident free, given how the road sense of WA kangaroos is next to none.
Having reached the Pinnacles upon sunset as planned, we soon discovered the full moon rising slowly over the dunes creating a sense of being in outer space. After a few hours of photographing the moon we decided it was time to pack up and head to our campsite for the night, only to encounter a hire van bogged in the soft sand at 12:00am. An hour later we had them back on the road and on their way.
The following morning we decided to head off the beaten track to follow a four wheel drive track to a cave which we had found traces of in maps and on google earth. According to the GPS we had found the location so we set out on foot to find the so called "cave". After an hour of walking around in circles we called it quits and headed back to the car for lunch where we discovered our legs were crawling with pepper ticks!
So lunch was cancelled for the time being and we headed straight to Cervantes beach to extinguish the ticks. The water was crystal clear and a little cold for Jessica's liking though after a little swim and some much needed lunch we soon headed over to the Lake Thetis. The lake is an ecosystem containing stromatolites, the earth's oldest living form of life and believed to be over 3,000 years old. This made a interesting scene to shoot once the moon rose above the horizon. Later that night we also went back to the Pinnacles again and got some more shots using the moonlight to illuminate the foreground.
In the not too distant future we aim venture up to the Pinnacles one night to capture the majestic milky way, this time on a night with no moonlight to blow out the sky.
-Alex
Check out a selection of the nightscape shots...
