This scene was captured not far from my hometown in southwest Colorado. I live in Ohio now and don’t get back often. I miss the mountains. I had the location in mind and in fact tried to capture the scene a few times. One year, the weather didn’t cooperate. The next year, it was a light snowpack and not what I had in mind. This year, it finally came together with a heavy snowpack for the year and good weather. I was able to capture the snowcapped San Juans with a summer Milky Way. Growing up, I guess I always took the scenery for granted. Not anymore.

Emerald Lake was the first location we stopped at during the August 2019 Lassen Volcanic National Park Night Photography Workshop. The frogs were very noisy as we initially made our way down the path around the lake to our imaging site … the night sky was specular as we were looking south to the central core of the Milky Way. This is a single image taken with a Canon 6DM2 camera and a Sigma Art 20mm lens (15sec, f/2, iso6400).

The challenge of combining multiple techniques in both shooting and editing this image makes it the most complex image I’ve ever created. The beauty of the scene, the night spent under the stars with friends and the fond memories of my time spent in Utah easily makes this my favorite image of 2019.

I grew up in Kansas where storms were common and came with assertiveness. Living in Seattle now for twenty years I have greatly missed thunderstorms like it was a lost love of mine that I hadn’t known I loved until it was gone. Then one September night, without warning, I heard thunder from my home and then I saw a bright light flash from my window. Could it be? I drove to my neighborhood viewpoint with my umbrella hovering over my camera and I photographed and yelled out in glee to have had my lost love visit me.

This may not be my best image of 2019, but it is my favorite. This was the first shoot in which I took full advantage of my astro modified A7 III. It shows the Reds/Magentas of the nebulae in the northern Milky Way, revealing that it can be can nearly as interesting as our galaxy’s core. I shot this pano at the May workshop after I had “finished” shooting, and while I waited for everyone else to start packing up. Everything else I shot that night was meh…and that’s how it always seems to go.

Kristin Arlett See more of Kristin’s work by visiting her Homepage & Instagram

The dark skies of SE Oregon were my go to location in 2019, with four visits during the year. Several of the trips were to experiment with new gear combinations, mounting vintage fish-eyes on a new mirror-less body, pushing f/5.6 lenses with new sensors, or trying really fast glass under the stars. The heavy green air glow made it a challenging year, still figuring out the best way to adapt to it. In the fall I hoped to be there when a land speed record would chased, but the day before I was to go they tragically had a crash that claimed the drivers life. I postponed my trip until a month later and enjoyed crisp nights with brilliant stars, and a somber visit to lake bed. This image sums up the year, great skies under the watch of the Steens, with tracks leading to who knows where. caelum certe patet

Here is my favorite image from 2019. It is titled, "Death and Life".

I chose this picture because even though this lighthouse in the Outer Banks has been shot many times I really liked the composition and the fact that it was without the Milky Way. It does have a funny story behind it, while I shot it I had no idea if I was staying in a remote beach house without a car alone with a serial murderer. (he wasn’t) So this shot also has a sense of fear to me.

Best photo of 2019, Raven's nest Maine. Foreground in the blue hour; sky is a stack of 10 exposures 20 seconds each, in sequator. Did it the night before my workshop and was pleasantly surprised.