It’s like watching the night sky!
My friends, Ishan and Sahil, took a trip to Spiti Valley a few years ago to chase starry dreams with their cameras. When they got back, and I saw their mind-blowing astrophotography shots, I was seriously shook. Like, whoa, how did they even manage to capture THAT? I had the itch to try it myself but never got around to it.
Last night, things took a turn. I went camping on Mount Rainier, hoping to catch a rad meteor shower. I didn’t have my camera with me, and I wasn’t planning on taking pictures because all we had were phones without internet — no way to hit up Ishan for some emergency crash course.
I snapped a random picture that didn’t exactly capture the magic. Phone cameras are cool, but stars? They just laugh at phone cameras. Still, that so-so shot got me all fired up. My friends Anuhya, Arush, Juhi, Phani, Manaswini, and Ravi supported me even though they didn’t expect a meteor-shower-turned-photography-adventure. (Thank you, guys, for bearing with me!) They listened to my wild ideas to capture the night sky using basic stuff and helped me do exactly that. Fast forward through a bunch of attempts, and ta-da! I nailed it — kind of. The picture wasn’t exactly National Geographic material, but it had this raw, unpolished vibe that felt strangely awesome. The rush of happiness and satisfaction that washed over me was like nothing I’d felt before.
Now, those who know me know I’m not exactly a snap-and-share kinda person. I like to fuss over my pics — framing them just right, editing them till they’re perfect, and then writing about the picture. There are a lot of you who still didn’t get your photos because, well, I was not completely happy with the result. But this time? All of that happened within hours of clicking that shot. It might just be the first.
More pictures of the majestic Rainier after I kind of fuss about it. XD
