Crater to Cantle

During the human experience, there is quite often a desire to be completely alone with the entire universe. The company of humans is inadequate when attempting to experience a “oneness” with all of creation, and serves only as a distraction.

The bottom of a crater is the perfect place for this communication. One stands inside a void created by the violence of the Cosmos, whether it be by meteor or vulcanism, and looks up at the source of that creation. But there are only so many craters within easy trips; so often, a substitute must be found. Typically, those are places that provide the same type of wrapped coziness by virtue of tall rock formations on all sides, but there can be a similar feeling in many other places. These, like the rear of a saddle, are known as cantles. What it takes to capture the feeling is deceptively simple - a ultra-wide-angle lens.

Reaching from horizon to horizon on all sides, these lenses are so wide that they can often see more than 180 degrees. This means they are so vast, they can actually see behind themselves. When camping at the bottom of one of these craters or cantles, the lens is pointed straight up, allowing it to capture not only the entire sky, but the sides of the crater, the rock formations above, and even the landscape around the area, which is minimized at the extremities of the round image produced by the lens.

Swinging all the way to the other end of the spectrum, this shot is from the total eclipse of 2017, from a depression in a golf course in Stapleton, Nebraska. Close inspection will reveal the visible corona, as the sky itself turns dark as a result.

The wonderful people of Stapleton were exceptionally welcoming, leaving an unforgettable impression almost as deep as seeing a full eclipse. The first of three total eclipses in North America in just seven years, future generations of Americans will not be so lucky.

Let’s start off with a bang, from the bottom of the crater of Mt. Capulin, New Mexico. This is a composite of two images, one taken before the sun went down, and another from a series that was shot during the night. Jupiter is seen at the bottom of the sky portion of the image.

Before setting up the camera for the evening, I used this opportunity to return a couple of large rocks to the mountain, which my family had purloined when I was a small child. Too young to complain, I rode with the rocks in the no-seat rear compartment of the Corvette, all the way back to Denver.

Capulin is a young volcano, created about 60,000 years ago. Located in the northeast corner of New Mexico on a relatively flat plain, the views from the top are simply astonishing, looking all the way to the foot of the Sangre de Cristos. This shot is about 400 feet below the rim.

From the same evening, this stack of hundreds of shots ignored the darker portions, only adding light as it came in. This makes the towering rock features lose their form, and adds the amber glow from Moab, seen here all around the perimeter, since the camera is turning all night long.

There are myriad methods of capturing the night sky, but this is a method almost never utilized, as it adds reality in a twisted fashion.

In the middle of a field of native grasses, just outside of evergreen, Colorado, we can see a few houses lining the perimeter, as well as some headlights from passing cars. What we can’t see too well is the night sky. Like so many places, Evergreen used to have wonderful night skies, but light pollution has taken over. Fortunately, we can still see more than the unfortunates in the passing cars.

This is a stack of about twenty images, which is what gives us the star streaks. The camera was stationary.

Also at Crestone Crater in southern Colorado, this was more the desired result, sans moth. The illumination on the crater sides can be seen in this layering of a couple of hundred shots.

The black strip at the bottom, above the crater lip, is the Sangre de Cristo Range, containing ten peaks that are over 14,000 feet, including the Crestone Needle, which is visible here, but the angle deceives the eye into thinking it’s just a small hill.

In Park Avenue, Arches National Park. This sequence was shot with the camera rotating, but not synchronized with the sky. Putting the images over top of each other, the result of the stars moving at odd angles gives the impression of scratches of light in the glowing sky.

The rocks themselves are lit only by starlight; this location is not lit by passing cars, which are becoming more common at night with increased visitor numbers.

Ubehebe Crater, on the north end of Death Valley, gives us quite a different view of our Universe than did Capulin. Here, nothing grows, giving the crater walls an eerie, grey tone quite reminiscent of the Moon.

The sky was cloudy this night, and few stars were visible, making us feel even more isolated than usual.

In this, another overnight sequence, lanterns were set up underneath the camera to illuminate the Crestone Crater’s interior edge, since the night was so dark. An unintended side effect of this setup was that it attracted a moth, which chose to stay four a couple of hours. Thirty solid minutes were spent by the moth perched directly on top of the lens, ruining sixty frames. The moth passed the rest of his time in the crater flying around the lanterns. This is the result. Initially, this seemed ruined as well, but further reflection concluded that the moth was a welcome visitor.