Zaak Barnes Photography

Getting back in the swing of things! Saw this red-tailed hawk just outside my office not too long ago. Glad I had my camera handy :)

Dream Lake on Kodak Portra 800

About a month ago, I took a wintertime hike up to Dream Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. The photography club I'm a part of has rotating monthly assignments, and January's was "frozen water."

I brought my digital camera and wide angle lens to capture the frozen waves Dream Lake is famous for, but I also took my film camera, too. On medium format and with an 80mm lens, it was impossible to capture the same field of view. But I felt like this focal length captured the *true* scale of the mountains.

See if you can spot the two hikers in the distance!

A big thanks also to the fine folks at Indie Film Lab for their excellent work developing my roll! Can't wait to get more scans!

I was on a mission to see the Geminids - literally!

Specifically, I was at Mission San Gregorio de Abó in New Mexico! Abó is a Pueblo community dating back to 800 AD, which was then colonized by the Spanish in the 1600s. The ruins of the mission are still standing and can be visited as a part of the Salinas Pueblos Missions National Monument.

Here's the thing, though: the ruins are fragile so the monument is only open from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. You may recognize that time frame as "not night." This presented a problem for me because the Geminid meteor shower can only be seen at night.

My solution? I spoke with rangers at Abó who worked with me to grant me access to the park after hours! I told them my interest in the site and its dark skies, explained the unique nature of the meteor shower, and in return they gave me some rules I needed to follow to protect the area - but also permission to visit. I was all to happy to oblige!

This image was taken from within the ruins of the mission (and on the trail!), facing southwest. Since the meteors originated to the northeast in the constellation Gemini, all the meteors I managed to capture appeared to fall in the same general direction, "down" over the ruins. This was my first time tracking and stacking star photos using PixInsight, and I am thrilled with the results!

Huge thanks to the NPS team who worked with me to make this possible. They are the real stars!