Tybee Island, Georgia, that is... 

Tybee Island, Georgia is a good location for night photography. It is dark enough for astrophotography, especially on the south end of the island. During the summer months, the lights, e.g. street lights and the lights on the pier, are turned down and dimmed for the loggerhead sea turtles. The sea turtles come up on the beach at night to dig a nest and lay eggs. These nest areas are strictly protected because the loggerhead and other sea turtles are endangered. Thanks to conservation efforts, e.g. the Caretta Research Project, the turtles are making a recovery. If you do go down to the beach at night, you are supposed to keep lights to a minimum and use only red lights during the night if possible.

So, one evening after a storm blew through Savannah in May and a tornado actually skirted off of Wilmington Island and actually touched down on Cockspur Island and hit Fort Pulaski, some power lines were damaged and temporarily repaired. It was about a week after this storm that they announced a full power shutdown for the entire city of Tybee Island at 2am in the morning. One of our local photographers, Georgia Walters, got word of it and asked other photographers if they would be interested in meeting up for some light painting and star photography. This happened to occur around the time of a full moon, so I was already looking for an interesting place to do some night photography. 

Now, for night photography, several things need to line up. You need to have a dark sky location. You need to schedule your time there at night when the moon is below the horizon. You need to have clear skies and no clouds during that time. Now, to throw in a scheduled power outage would almost be asking to much. So, what resulted were some pretty rare astrophotography captures. We did have some intermittent clouds passing by, but other than that, things were lining up pretty well. We had a scheduled (and announced) power outage along with new moon cycle, fairly clear skies, and an already dark location.

What more could you ask for? A shooting star to flash in front of my lens during the 20 seconds I have my camera shutter open? I didn't ask for it, but it happened. How Awesome is that? All I know is that when it does happen, it is pretty awesome if you asked me!

Click through any of the above images for print pricing. I know they would make a good fine art wall art piece if you like star photography, Tybee Island, or Coastal Georgia!