Joshua Tree Milky Way - Quail Springs

Author's Comments

The first time I drove out to Quail Springs at midnight in late June, I pulled off the road, killed the headlights, and sat in the car for a full ten minutes before I could make myself get out. Not from fear. From the disorientation of looking up through the windshield and seeing the sky I had forgotten existed. Joshua Tree is a designated Dark Sky Park and Quail Springs is the easiest place in the park to feel what that actually means - a picnic area, a short walk from the road, and yet the Milky Way arrives overhead with a density that does not feel quite real. The Joshua trees themselves do most of the compositional work. They stand with their arms raised against the sky like something out of a story, and the granite boulders behind them give weight to the foreground. Plan around the new moon. Anything else and the core washes out. June and July put the galactic center directly south at a useful angle, but I have made photographs here in early April that I am still proud of, when the core rises later and the night is colder and you have the place essentially to yourself. What I love about Quail Springs is how little it asks of you. No long approach, no scramble, no permit. Just a turnout, a tripod, and the patience to let your eyes adjust. Bring more layers than you think you need. The desert drops temperature faster than anyone expects, and the photographs you want are the ones made an hour after you would otherwise have left.

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