Best Pictures: June 2017

Here are my favorite pictures I took in June 2017:

Another sunset shot from my deck. Fuji X-T2 w/XF 50-140mm lens.

Frendo taking pictures of fireflies as we made our way into DuPont for some nightcap pictures. Fuji X-T2 w/XF 16mm lens.

DuPont State Forest. The boathouse on Lake Julia. Fuji X-T2 w/Rokinon 12mm lens.

DuPont State Forest. Lake Julia. Fuji X-T2 w/Rokinon 12mm lens.

Leaf at Falls Park, Greenville, SC. Fuji X-T2 w/XF 16mm lens.

Greenville skyline at sunset, from Frendo’s roof. Fuji X-T2 w/XF 16mm lens.

Sunset along Blue Ridge Parkway. Fuji X-T2 w/XF 50-140mm lens.

Milky Way rising above Blue Ridge Parkway. Fuji X-T2 w/Rokinon 12mm lens.

Milky Way arch over Brevard, from Blue Ridge Parkway. Fuji X-T2 w/Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens.

Here’s a series of time-lapse sequences that I shot on Blue Ridge Parkway the evening and night of June 25 (the three previous pictures where part of this night:

I had so much fun shooting the night sky from the parkway that I made Frendo go back up with me the next night. We shot on BRP, then stopped at Looking Glass Falls in Pisgah National Forest around 1am, but there was too much spray from the falls to get anything good (I had tried the previous night as well). After that, we made a quick stop (well, 90 minutes probably) at Hooker Falls and shot some more time-lapse and still photos from DuPont State Forest.

This is actually a picture of me standing on Blue Ridge Parkway that Frendo shot with his Nikon Df.

Hooker Falls at DuPont State Forest, with the night sky and a bit of light-painting from my headlamp. Fuji X-T2 w/Rokinon 12mm lens. This picture is framed and hanging on my wall.

At this point, hopelessly addicted to nightspace photography, but utterly exhausted, we headed out for a third night in a row, but this time to Lake Conestee Nature Park, which is located right in Greenville.

It turned out to be a very interesting night to shoot, as a bomber from nearby Donaldson Center was flying test runs over us. Before sunset, we got some great stills of the low-flying bomber right over the heron nests, but after sunset, their navigational lights made some amazing streaks of color through our photos. Also, the dock we shot from is over water created by a large beaver lodge and dam, and the beavers did not enjoy our after-dark presence in their neighborhood. I must have jumped about a dozen times as the crack of a beaver tail shot water three or four feet into the air.