The Climb by Nicholas Roemmelt

The Climb by Nicholas Roemmelt

I finally could realize a picture I had already planned a year ago: 
Only in April the Milky Way is perfectly aligned for my visioned composition, so we did a scouting hike and climbed the moderate to hard Via Ferrata climbing route called „Lehner Wassefall” in Oetztal (Tyrol) afterwork during daylight. I wanted to check out things like the perfect spot in the route, where to place the tripod, how to belay the equipment and ourselves. I found a small but quite exposed ledge in the wall with a wonderful view on the waterfall, where I at least could securely place one leg of the tripod, the other two legs I had to fix to the belay point of the wire rope and the wall. Two days later the weather forecast promised a clear sky and we returned to the spot in the middle of the night, for the Milky way was in the perfect position at 3:00 AM.
Though I am always post processing my pictures in PS in „my style“, I am not a composer and would never combine a Milky Way or other pieces of the scene from a different location or a different time (as it seems quite popular these days) so my „quest“ would nearly have been spoiled due to some nasty clouds that had veiled the rising Milky Way as we reached that point. With a window of roughly two hours before the astronomical dawn and a lot of frames to do for the panorama (focus stack, exposure blend) the Milky Way was finally rising above the clouds and perfecting my vision of the final result as you can see it in the panorama. A big thank you to my wife and brave companion Christina for getting up in the middle of the night and literally freezing there while posing on that exposed piece of rock … I will never take this for granted for I know that the most „girlies“ would rather go blind (or prefer painting their fingernails at least 😉 ) than to come with me for such crazy ideas. FOLLOW ME ON FACEBOOK

Nicholas Roemmelt: Photos