Capturing The Milky Way At The Church Of The Good Shepherd, Lake Tekapo.

First built in 1935, The Church of the Good Shepherd at the shores of Lake Tekapo is one of the most over photographed churches in New Zealand.
Having seen hundreds of images of the church all looking pretty much the same I wanted to create something different from the usual run of the mill shots that I had seen.

So to capture the church in a different way and hopefully avoid the crowds I set off at around 8pm to capture the Milky Way and Church together.

Being the middle of winter it was rather cold, a chilly two degrees in fact so I was rather rugged up for the occasion. When I got there however, the sky was shrouded in clouds making for a pretty uninteresting shot. I played around for a while, getting exposures correct and after about an hour decided to pack it in.

I went back to my hotel, poking my head out the door to see if there had been any change in the skies and by 11pm the cloud had finally lifted. This meant that getting some shots would be relatively easy, with any luck.

Unfortunately being that the church is rather popular every few minutes or so a car would show up to take a look, ruining my long exposures. Owners of the church have deliberately kept the building free from any light pollution so that photographers are able to capture night images. Not everyone got that memo, however.

Setting the camera to the Bulb setting I used my Nikon WMU App on my phone to control the camera from a distance to avoid camera shake. With exposures lasting up to a full minuet it was the best option for the job.

With the temperature dropping to a chilly -2 degrees it started to get too cold, and eventually the battery began to drain. I managed to get half a dozen good exposures before both myself and the camera got too cold.

It was time to call it a night and head in for a nice cup of hot chocolate.

For more information visit my website:
www.alstarkeyphotography.com