derek culver captures erosional landscapes + milky way galaxy

professional landscape astrophotographer derek culver traveled to the vermillion cliffs national monument between arizona and utah to capture the rocky landscape at night. equipped with an astro modded nikon camera, culver captures the rocky topography lit by the sky, highlighting not just the curvy nature of planet earth, but also the mill way galaxy and all of its luminaries. 

images by derek culver

inspired by traveling, nature, his own life experience and photography itself, derek culver creates images that are just otherworldly. in the series picture here, the photographer managed to expose a particular spot called white pocket. ‘white pocket is hours down remote dirt and sand roads in an extremely dark area, perfect for astrophotography,’ he told mymodernmet. ‘I used a modded nikon camera by spencer’s camera & photo that allows extra wavelengths of light in, making it more sensitive to the nebulous and red colors in the night sky that most normal cameras do not capture.’

the pictures were created by stacking long exposure shots together in postproduction. ‘I captured 48 x five-minute exposures of the same part of the sky, and stacked all those images together in a software called pixinsight, which is used by NASA and other space agencies for processing pictures taken through space telescopes to extract data out of images using mathematical averages and photometry concepts,’ he said. ‘I then took this stacked image and overlaid it over the foreground of the rocks I took at twilight earlier in the night!’

culver is very open about his experience, not only with photography, but also with his life. on his webpage you can learn more about him and his editing process as he shares tutorials on astrophotography. you can also follow him on instagram here: @clanger_mcbanger.

project info:

name: milky way  and landscape photography 

artist: derek culver