Circling The Dead

There is only one photograph that I know of that features Deadvlei with star trails, and it was shot by Art Wolfe. I'm in Namibia every year, so on this year's Namibia workshop, I thought I'd give it a try myself.

Wolfe's shot is a double exposure on slide film; one for the overall scene when there was still sunlight (polarizer and grads to darken the sky), the second for the star trails.
For my shot I did something similar, but there are also some differences. For my first exposure I waited until the sun had set and the sky was already quite dark, so no need of any filters - the foreground was lighter than the sky anyway. The 30 second exposure was enough to pick up some glow on the dunes in the background. I then set the timer to start taking 4 minute exposures when the moon had set as well.

The next morning was pretty stressful, because I had left the whole setup in the desert, and our camp was over 40 miles away...but it was all still there, nothing trampled by oryx or chewed on by leopards. The battery of the D3 managed to take 47 4-minute exposures, a total of 188 minutes and more than enough for some decent trails. Back home I stacked the star trail shots on top of the base layer and got this result.