It's been said that there are as many stars in the universe as there are grains of sand on earth. Not that you'd know it looking up at the heavens from the heart of a city.
The glare of urban living all but blots out the cosmic show overhead, denying you the dazzling vision of countless constellations and celestial bodies. LA filmmakers Gavin Heffernan and Harun Mehmedinovic reveal what you're missing with Skyglow, their photo book of the cosmos as seen from quieter corners of the country. “In Los Angeles, there’s this urban crush,” says Heffernan. “When you get away from it, with these amazing night skies, you realize that your imagination opens up—you understand that we’re part of something so much bigger.”
The pair found themselves inspired by the nighttime sky over the Grand Canyon during a photo shoot there three years ago. They set out to find other locations largely untouched by light pollution, a journey that took them more than 150,000 miles to some 500 locations across North America. Heffernan and Mehmedinovic worked with International Dark-Sky Association to create maps of light pollution across the US, identify spots to visit, and even persuade park rangers to let them in after dark.
Once they arrive, they set up five or six cameras across several miles of terrain and make 25-second exposures for several hours. They might use a single frame to create a sweeping landscape, or stitch hundreds of them together digitally to create a kinetic image of stars streaking across the sky. Stars spin above tumbling red rocks at Vermillion Cliffs in Arizona, a meteor pierces a lavender sky in Mono Lake, California, and the Milky Way slowly emerges at sunset in the desert at White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. “It’s so quiet and still, you feel like you’re on Mars by yourself,” says Heffernan. “There’s a thrill to it.” Skyglow reveals the wonders you see only by traveling to a quiet, remote place and looking up.
