Sunset and star trails on Velika planina

After a busy summer and hardly any time spent in the Slovenian mountains I hiked to Velika planina one Sunday afternoon after work. It was kind of late as I only made it to the chapel around 5.45, but the light was just getting warm. Almost all Sunday hikers had already left so I was pretty much alone.




Having photographed the ridge trail I climbed the chapel hill, waited for the sun to disappear behind the ridge and then wandered around a little, hoping for after sunset colors.








But then I saw amazing red misty light to the north, rising from the Kamniška Bistrica valley, so I practically ran to the other side of the plateau. Totally out of breath I made it to the top and caught the last 10 seconds of the sun before it set behind Mt. Krvavec.


I had a hunch the colors would only get better, so I found a nice cottage for the foreground, set up my tripod and waited.


I had my tripod, the moon was new, so it made sense to try and take some star trails shots. It was so dark I had huge problems composing and focusing. And fog was beginning to creep in from the valley.


It was the fog that made me give up. The lens was fogging up so badly I ended up with a bunch of useless shots. I did manage to get this:


And an ISO3200 shot of the Milky Way.

Star trails on Velika planina

I had wanted to do a serious star trail shooting for a while now and after carefully examining the weather forecast, Luka and I decided to head to Velika planina last week in hopes of getting some nice pictures. The afternoon light was nice enough and as the sunset approached, the snow turned orange and red! The blue hour in the snow-covered mountains was serene and peaceful, and after a hearty plate of jota it was time to get our tripods and remote releases ready! First we shot around the chapel with the Kamnik Alps as the backdrop, and later, when the moon had set, I wandered around Domžalski dom (Domžale hut) and took some more shots. We were lucky: the sky was clear, and the wind spared us as there was only a slight breeze, and even the breeze died down later. Satisfied with the results we slept for a few hours before getting up for the sunrise shots. But more about that in the next post. For now, afternoon and night piccies:






















More photos here.

Midnight mass in the mountains

There is a midnight mass held every Christmas in a chapel on Velika planina mountain. People hike there and it's wonderful to see the procession of torches and lamps moving through the night.
This is what it was like around the chapel: The mountain huts, light pollution from the valley and a passer's-by headlamp:

It was very windy and I had to put all my weight on the tripod to push it to the ground, but still most of the photos turned out blurry.
There was fog in the valley below and those red and orange patches are citylights penetrating through the fog:

Some more photos here.