Pic of the Day: April 9

Looks like another beautiful day here in SLC. Definitely gonna have to get outside for a bit today. But first, it's time for your daily work distraction.

Galaxy Quest

If you've never been to the Beartooth Mountains, I highly recommend them. A few summers ago we headed up there for some July snowboarding. I was a few hours ahead of Tanner and Tyler so I decided to find us a good campsite up on the pass. I started to just mess around with Milky Way shots to pass time waiting for them to show up. It's crazy how peaceful it was sitting alone on top of a mountain staring up at the night sky.

Once Tyler and Tanner showed up, we were able to make the above shot a reality. We put a headlamp in each tent to light them up. I had my camera on a 10 second timer so I could run over and get in the shot too. The light on Tyler (left side of photo) was really just a happy accident. He had his cell phone light on so I could see where I was going when I was running from the camera over to the rocks we were standing on. He turned it out just a few moments after the shutter opened, lighting us up just enough. We didn't plan that, but it added a really cool effect in my opinion.

We tried several other shots before this one where we were just silhouettes. I felt this one was the best with that short little burst of light. It also took some skill to stand really still for the duration of the capture so we wouldn't be blurred. After this one we put the camera away and just stared at the sky the rest of the night... (and probably talked about aliens)...

Staring up at the stars never gets old.