September 30, 2008: False Kiva

[xoxoxoBruce]

Most of us are lucky to see a few stars. Sometimes on vacation, we might get far enough for civilization to get a good show. But not many people get to see what Wally Pacholka does. That's because Mr Pacholka is a pro, it's what he does, and he works damn hard at it.

This picture of his has been on APOD and his site.

Mr Pacholka's description;

"The America Southwest is home to thousands of caves that were once home for millenniums of various Indian cliff dwellers. Few are as hauntingly beautiful as False Kiva, given its name for the round stone circle structure. The hidden cave sits half way down a mesa cliff and has a stunning "room with a view" of rock formations in Canyonlands. One can only imagine the thousands of times individuals through the ages saw the same view of Jupiter and the Milky Way parade across the heavens from their very own back yard... False Kiva is by far the most magical place I have ever been to and everyone that has been there says it is a hauntingly beautiful place lost in a time. During the exposure for this image the crescent Moon lit up the canyons and I artificially lit the inside of the cave. If the photo looks unreal, believe me that place looks like the most unreal scene time wrapped place I have ever been to. I have gotten unbelievably spooked at times being in there alone at night while I was just waiting for a mountain lion to return to its den!"

I told Mr Pacholka that I would link both the APotD and his site, because there is always some clown claiming every cool picture is a photoshop.

He replied;

Over 30 national parks in America sell my night sky photographs over America's landmarks. Each is a real photograph that has gone through each park's Interpretive Department to determine that it is genuine before it can be sold in their park gift shops.
~snip~
All emails should be directed to me (wallypacholka@gmail.com)
~snip~
I have been photographing the night sky now for over 40 years, made TIME-LIFE Pic of Year 3x for my astrophotography, and published by NASA over 29 times so with those credentials behind me and this photograph, I will not answer any emails that mention the photo being fake or Photoshoped as the folks at TIME-LIFE and NASA already did their homework in this regard mulitiple times.

The photo is a real camera on tripod photographed time exposure of the night sky as seen in this real Indian Cave with the exposure being long enought to capture the stars but short enough not to cause blur in the stars or the landscape.

I seem to have struck a nerve, but seeing his photographs, I'll bet he hears it over and over... it's so spectacular, is it real?

He continued;

May you and your team enjoy the photograph and know that each and every night there are things to see in the night sky and may this photo inspire folks to just get out and look and not sit in an arm chair and just say that it can't possibly be true and never venture outside. I travelled 800 miles 5 times to get this one shot (out of thousands taken) on the edge of a canyon cliff.
Wally Pacholka

OK, team... get off your fat duffs and see the world at night... and I'm not talking about a neon sign from under a pool table.

[Kasszia]

I live not 30 miles from here! Never seen False Kiva, although, I think a trip this winter might not be out of the question! Thanks for posting Bruce. This picture is amazing. And I can tell you from experience, you would not believe how many stars you can see out here in the desert... Ah, going outside now!

[xoxoxoBruce]

I know, I spent 10 days at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, one August. There were more stars than wall street could lose in a year, and shooting stars every thirty seconds, all night long.

[Elspode]

OK, its wonderful...but there's no way to get such a deep exposure of the Milky Way without a tracking camera, and that tracking camera would have smeared the foreground.

So, its a faked representation of a real thing...not unlike an Impressionist painting.

[monster]

looks like a painting to me. A good one. Maybe this is the effect of the exposure described by the photographer, but it doesn't appear real enough to make me feel like I'm there, which is what I expect of a good photo

[xoxoxoBruce]

None of the stars are points, they're all little streaks.

[SPUCK]

I'm with spode. I think there has been some uh tweaking here.. That Milky Way is way over the top.. One can say, "yes that was just The Picture", but then overlay 20 of the same picture and say "yeah but it wasn't Photoshopped".

If it was just film then it was hypered film.

[glatt]

It looks like a composite image to me. I don't doubt that if you were there, looking at the scene with your naked eye, it would look a lot like this picture. But cameras aren't as flexible as our eyes when it comes to adjusting for exposure. With a camera, when you expose one part of a picture properly, other parts of it will either be over or under exposed. I think this is either tweaked in photoshop to make the night sky brighter, or it is two pictures taken one right after the other but exposed differently and then stitched together. Much like HDR photography.

Awesome image though.

[xoxoxoBruce]

The wonders of the night sky are out there every night and you can't see them... neener neener neener.
signed, The Third World.

[classicman]

Simply spectacular. Whatever it is.

[Flint]

We're a team? Cool. Nice work, Wally.

[Pie]

If you play with shadows/midtones/highlights in ps, you get effects that look a lot like that. Still love the pic, but it definitely has some tweaking going on.

PS: What makes it false kiva?

[xoxoxoBruce]

A Kiva is a man made structure. This is a natural cave that was apparently being used for the same purpose, hence false Kiva.
Anyway, that's the name of this cave, given by the National Park Service,

[Treasenuak]

This is now my desktop background. Freakin' GORGEOUS! -hums under breath- stone soup, stone soup... since no one's posted a recepie yet

[Elspode]

I've spent many hours under the darkest skies imaginable. Trust me, there are no circumstances under which you would see the Milky Way in this manner. You cannot see the dust lanes that are so prominent in this pic. You cannot see the tremendous differential between the light areas and the darker ones, no matter how long you stay out, no matter how dark adapted your eyes become.

The astro part of this pic is the result of very long exposure photography, and a buttload of post processing. Period.