I had not visited Joshua Tree National Park in ten years, so I was in scouting mode when I entering the park to familiarize myself with all the great Mojave desert landscapes that the park offers.  I initially drove by the turnout for Skull Rock on the parks loop road while looking for potential shooting locations without giving the giant granite feature much of a glance. But on my second pass through, the distinct shape of the rock really caught my eye. It really does resemble a human skull and the parking lot was full of visitors, most getting their picture taken in front of the “skull”. Then the vision came to me. I would return in the middle of the night to photograph Skull Rock with a gazillion stars above it and light it up with my camping headlamp.

4am and I headed back into the park. With sunrise slated for 6:40am, this gave me ample time to complete the shot while there was  plenty of night sky filled with stars on this clear and windy morning. I set my tripod up with my Canon 5D Mark III and 24-70 L lens and while shining my headlamp on the rock surface I attempted to manually focus the scene which is no easy task on a darkened night.

On my first attempt, I set my exposure for 30 seconds @ f4 ISO 3200 which would render a sky full of stars perfectly. The constant wind was a concern as the vegetation would be blurring in the shot.

I shined my light directly onto the rock surface for a few seconds and light painted the rock. This wasn’t going to work! The skull was washed out from too much light intensity and the surrounding vegetation was not only blurring in the wind but also distracting to the composition.

Aah, I remembered while attending a seminar at the NANPA Summit only a few days earlier on night photography tips and the instructor suggested trying to bounce your light source off something instead of shining it directly upon the subject. I happened to be standing right in front of a nice flat  wall of granite, so I shined my headlamp on that surface and now the skull rock looked just right. However, I still had too much going on in the composition. I moved closer to the rock to eliminate the distracting elements and re-focused again. My tripod and camera actually fell over in the wind! Thankfully, right onto a bunch of vegetation and a potential crisis was averted as this was just the beginning on my trip.

Now, I had the shot that I had envisioned earlier the previous afternoon. Just the skull nicely and evenly lit with sky full of stars in the background. Now, for the final touch. I wanted the eyes to glow to bring the shot alive. I took a separate capture where I carefully walked up the rock and shone  my light into the eye socket for just a second or two, turned the light off and repeated on the second eye. In post processing, I added the glowing eyes shot with layer masking.  There you have it. I was extremely happy to “create” such a unique shot and it one of my favorites that I have taken this year, so far. I love pushing the boundaries of photography. Creating a personal vision is the real rush behind my craft.