I had the fortune to participate in a night photography workshop in Maremma this weekend and wish to share the images without too many words. The beauty of the Milky Way and the night sky speaks for itself!
These photos were taken on the beach at Principina a Mare, near Grosseto, where the regional Parco della Maremma begins. What’s characteristic about this beach is the driftwood that people pile into little huts, which make for shade during the day, and protection for fishermen in the evening. For our purposes, they added an element of interest to the photographs.
The workshop was led by Federico Giussani, a young Grosseto-based photographer who also teaches regularly for the Associazione Fotografica Riflessi, a local photo club. An able teacher, he’s also passionately knowledgeable about stars, able not only to teach you how to photograph them, but how to identify them. We also spotted the space station and numerous satellites in the night sky. But the real “star” of the evening (pun intended) is the Milky Way, which shows itself in all its grandeur during the summer months.
As we worked primarily on the one location, the end result is a series of similar photos that demonstrate a variety of night photography techniques. This includes: long exposure with still stars, multiple expose for startrails, light painting with flashlights, creation of spheres and shapes with coloured lights.
All photos were taken in manual mode with a Nikon D90 and an 18-270mm lens set to its widest 18mm. ISO varies from 1600 to 3200, and exposure times around 20-30 seconds.
Below, a video by our teacher.
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