These Are The Nights I Live For

When you are in Alabama, you kind of take what you can get when it comes to your adventures. I can remember plenty of times when I jumped in the car and just drove till I found a cool spot. More often than not, I would get an hour from home and turn around. 

But, sometimes, you get lucky.

Alabama isn't all bad, we have places like Birmingham, Montgomery, and many more cities where you can find something good or even a state park or two, but what about when it comes to stars? Where do you go for that? 

I learned fast that in order to have an interesting photograph, you needed a good subject. You can only take so many star photographs before they start to look the same. (Something will always be different but you can see my point, right?)

Then, like some kind of miracle, we found it. The perfect place to shoot stars, with the perfect subject.

Way away from the city lights and not too far of a walk, an abandoned barn sits. It looks as if it needed us more than we needed it.

I have been to crazy abandoned places before, but this place was so simple, it just worked so well with what we wanted.

I have shot the Watchman of Zion, churches, and even some waterfalls under the stars, but this place is amazing because of how close it was and how simple it was. Don't get me wrong, photographing the Watchman is a whole different story, just using it as an example.

We usually start around 10 PM most nights. This is just to help get a feel of the place, set up, and to help give us time to crack bad jokes and just hang out. 

This particular night, things didn't look good at all. The clouds were rolling in, the bugs were awful, and it was humid. I probably sweated more in the extreme heat of the 75 degree, humid night, than hiking Angles Landing in the middle of June (true story).

Then the bugs, so many bugs. Bug bites to the face. They got in our mouths, nose and they were pretty much just using our face as a landing pad. I probably had more bug bites than I have Facebook friends. (1 mutual friend, cool. *adds friend*)

The images we produced though, were something you would never believe we would have got in Alabama. Still to this day, people say all the time, "you took this in Alabama? No way!", and the occasional "you must of had to been on the Alabama/Tennessee line for this." 

Nope, we were right in the middle of the state. 

This night is one that I live for. 

One AM, covered in bug bites and sweat, hanging out with my friends, hours from home, and taking photographs. There's nothing better.

I honestly don't know where I would be today without these type of nights.

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