Night 1 of #TheGreatMilkyWayChase... There’s a lot I didn’t take into consideration when starting this endeavor. But one thing I did take into consideration was the fact that the moon was chasing right after the Milky Way on this 1st night and where we were, we had only an hr to shoot... my comp at this location wasn’t high enough to grab the full Milky Way before the moon started lighting up the sky.. This isn’t the comp I pictured here, but it is the comp I got; and besides that, I had such a blast exploring the area with @krl_photo & @sabustories and some fantastic photos from earlier in the evening... we’re now waiting out the heat until we head out to scope our next comp for night 2!! Who else is competing??? We’ve got 3 more weeks to go and anyone is welcome join at any point. Each night is going to get easier as we go along in regards to light; harder in regards to weariness and burning out.. —— 20 images stacked in SLS For NR ISO 6400 F2.8 20 seconds Processed in LR —— @tokinausa 16-28 @ 16 @slikusa 634-CF @canonusa 6DMK1 —— #milkywaychasers #nights_dreamworld #slikusa #nightphotography_exclusive —- #tracylee #tracyleephotos #tracyleephotography #slikusa #canonusa #tokinausa #canonbringit #teamcanon #teamtokina #teamslik #shootslik #longexposure_shots #nightimages #nightshooterz #nightpics #milkywaygalaxy #astrophotography #astrophoto #astro_photography_ #astro_photography #longexposure

#TheGreatMilkyWayChase - We’re addicted, admittedly so & we wanna know who else is as addicted as us! Me and @krl_photo are taking off on a journey of epic proportions (follow on stories!) in an effort to see who can shoot the most nights of Milky Way in one month. We have 23 nights we can shoot in June (1st-23rd, crazy right??) & they will attempt to shoot 14 of them consecutively on our road trip. - So the challenge is this, shoot as many nights as you can in June (1 comp min per night), & the one w/ the most nights wins a new Star tracker & tripod from @SlikUSA & your images featured on @MilkyWayChasers @Nights_Dreamworld & @NightPhotography_Exclusive! The people who do 14 days in a row with us? “Fuck Yeah!” bragging rights, & a feature as well. Random drawing in event of a tie! - The How To… - #1-Every night you head out, before you start shooting do an Instagram story of you, your set up, your general location, & today’s date (the date it was when you woke up, not the day it became after midnight). After you’re done shooting, take a pic of your comp on the back of your camera. - #2- Create a Highlight on your IG and call it MWCHASE. Each night, post your video story & the photo of the back of your camera; on each of them tag: @milkywaychasers @nights_dreamworld @slikusa @nightphotography_exclusive & #TheGreatMilkyWayChase - #3-You must be following all accounts to win; the Story Highlight is how we keep track of how addicted you really are & will prove your sense of nocturnal adventure (insanity)! We know you can’t control the weather (& if you can, please be my best friend!) So at the very least shoot a photo of your comp clouded out; the point of this contest is to inspire you to get out & shoot! - #4- June 1st- July 1st, please post as many of your edited photos to your feed & make sure to use the tags: @milkywaychasers @nights_dreamworld @slikusa @nightphotography_exclusive & #TheGreatMilkyWayChase to submit yourself into our contest; otherwise, how are we gonna find you? On July 1, we will go through & check your Story Highlights to see how many crazy nights you did! - Good luck, & may the skies be ever in your favor!

I took off to Utah for the Cinco De Mayo weekend; not to party but to hang with my girl @the.curly.nomad who is living the RV life.. We had oh-so-many adventures over a short few days, but the last one we had was out to Bonneville Salt Flats to shoot the Milky Way.. We went out early because I had never been and I wanted to see it before sunset. Of course I ended up shooting sunset before we took off to grab dinner in nearby Wendover; We had a cloudy sunset and crossed our fingers for a clear night... I went high aperture because i'm a huge fan of sun stars and I get great ones on my @TokinaUSA lenses! This was before they had sent me a new 16-28 so I was using my 11-20. ---- ISO 100 F22 1/10 second @TokinaUSA 11-20 @ 16mm @SlikUSA 634-CF @CanonUSA 6DMK1 Processed in LR —- #tracylee #tracyleephotos #tracyleephotography #slikusa #canonusa #tokinausa #canonbringit #teamcanon #teamtokina #teamslik #shootslik #sliktripods #mycanonstory #sunset #sunset_pics #sunsets #bonnevillesaltflats #sunset_stream #sunset_ig #sunset_vision #sunset_hunter #sunsetlover #sunsetlovers #sunsetlove #sunset_lovers #sunset_lovee

Thank you to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice so that we may enjoy our freedoms in this beloved country...

Taken w/ my new Slik USA ECH-630 star tracker... --- I caught a flight back to LA from Portland on Sunday, grabbed my girl @XO_Anhie and took off to Mammoth Lakes, CA. Original plan was to backpack into the mountains to hit some glacial lakes with @StevenJMagner and his buddy @LAHikes, but since I was fighting off a cold from the night in Crater Lake, and the weather was looking really bad (Rain snow & 28 degree weather), Anh and I decided to detour to Lone Pine where it would be clear &much warmer instead. --- We hit 3 hot springs in Mammoth before we headed down, &then got side tracked by an arch I hadn't seen before in AH.. It was getting dark so we found a spot to camp & settled in for a nap. We didn't sleep very much because the wind decided to kick up like a banshee; we were worried to leave the tent when we left to shoot so we tied rocks to it &prayed for the best. --- We got to Mobius arch for my 1st night shoot there ever (after hitting the 1st arch for a bit) around 1 am & JUST missed the light of the moon on the foreground. Lucky for us, no one was there! I had some time before the sky darkened so I set up the tracker Slik had sent me to test out. I used the large peep hole to find Polaris, & then fine tuned using a laser ( thank you @drdarius7) through the small peep hole. It was actually pretty quick but this was my 3rd time trying. Foreground I lit using 2 Lumecube.com/160.html (use code TRACYLEE for free US Shipping) --- Later, we made new friends when @d___kim & Sean showed up after 2am to shoot w/ us! --- My fave part of the MW is so prominent now- #rhoophiuchi —- SKY- single image ISO 800 F 2.8 180 seconds - Foreground 10 images stacked in SLS for NR ISO 1600 F2.8 30 seconds --- @TokinaUSA 16-28 @ 24 @SlikUSA 634-CF @CanonUSA 6DMK1 Processed in LR & PS —- #tracylee #tracyleephotos #tracyleephotography #slikusa #canonusa #tokinausa #canonbringit #teamcanon #teamtokina #teamslik #shootslik #slikusa #longexposure_shots #nightimages #nightshooterz #nightpics #milkywaygalaxy #astrophotography #astrophoto #astro_photography_ #astro_photography #longexposure #lumecube #capture4cubes #litbylume #mobiusarch #alabamahills #lonepine #startracker

#TBT I need to go back! —- Repost @tracyleephotos ・・・ I headed off on a 6 day adventure with @KaydenPhan in tow on Saturday evening... She spontaneously joined and we were off within a couple hours.. Our destination?? New Mexico to meet up with @smpetersonphotography & @safatajphoto .. We've just spent the last 3 days with next to no phone service exploring all kinds of hoodoo areas, both known and ones we discovered on google maps.. It was such an awesome time and the adventures are far from over! We're heading to Page now to meet up with a few more photographers and continue the fun.. Season's not over till the fat lady sings I always say, and we're milking her for everything she's got! --- This was taken yesterday evening; the foreground shot around 6pm and the sky about 20 minutes later... I had wanted to get a blue hour milky way and do a stacked image only, but because the sun went down right where the Milky Way rose I wasn't able to get anything that looked great.. So I stacked and blended 15 images for the foreground and 15 for the sky in starry landscape stacker. I used 2 Lume Cubes (Lumecube.com/160.html and use code TRACYLEE for free US Shipping) to light the area with Lighthouse and CTO filters on them. The hoodoos themselves were different colors so that's why they are different colors in the image. I bounced the light off a set of hoodoos off to the left. --- All images both foreground and sky: ISO 6400 F 2.8 10 seconds Tokina USA 16-28 @ 19mm Slik USA 635-CF Canon 6dmk1 Processed in LR & PS --- #tracylee #tracyleephotos #tracyleephotography #slikusa #canonusa #tokinausa #canonbringit #teamcanon #teamtokina #teamslik #shootslik #sliktripods #mycanonstory #newmexico #bistibadands #longexposure_shots #nightimages #nightshooterz #nightshooters #nightpics #milkywaygalaxy #astrophotography #lumecube #capture4cubes #litbylume

I had an amazing trip back and forth all over Oregon last week with @smpetersonphotography @amymichelle4 @safatajphoto @drdarius7 and many more I met along the way! —- On Thursday I took off with @drdarius7 in search of MW Comps.. on Friday we hit waterfalls, hot springs, and then the incredible and amazing Crater Lake... we got there in time for exploring & sunset... we started at Disco Point and hiked along the rim looking for a spot that was far enough NW to be able to get this shot without having to hike all the way to the Watchman. We found this point about a mile and a half in and decided that it was our comp! —- We napped in the car for a bit until about 1030 and then hiked to our spot.. while we were setting up our cameras and getting focus, we couldn’t believe it but we heard voices approaching. They must have seen our lights because they turned away although we heard them nearby throughout the night. Turns out through social media, @pnw.zack figured out it was us out there that night, lol... —- I was having issues with focusing my camera and after opening it up and checking the sensor, I determined there was a residue on the mirror; I cleaned it off as best as I could, got my camera focused and then started shooting. @drdarius7 had already been shooting a while by this time.. I’m anal about my panos with tons of overlap so this 168 image stacked shot took a couple hours to shoot in the freezing cold.. this is a 2 row vertical pano; top row has 14 frames of 10 stacked images each and bottom row has 14 frames of 2 three minute exposures each.. I stacked all images in Starry Landscape Stacker and then amazingly enough, Lightroom EASILY put together the entire pano in about 2 minutes. I thought I I was going to have to blend top and bottom in PS.. - This image is cropped by Instagram and the entire image is actually a lot wider.. and looks way better lol... —— Sky 10 stacked images per frame ISO 10000 F2.8 10 seconds — Foreground 2 stacked images per frame ISO 2000 F2.8 180 seconds —- @tokinausa 16-28 @ 24 @slikusa 634-cf @canonusa 6DMK1 - #tracylee #tracyleephotos #tracyleephotography #slikusa #canonusa #tokinausa #canonbringit #teamcanon #teamtokina

Yesterday @smpetersonphotography took @safatajphoto and I down to check out Panther Creek Falls, a staple in the Oregon Waterfall tour.. the place is absolutely breathtaking and I’m sure this exact comp has been posted thousands of time but I figure, what’s one more? Thanks to Shaun for taking us here, as well as loaning me an 10 stop ND filter to use... I’m sharing settings off the top of my head; I’ll correct them if they’re not right! —— ISO 100 F22 15 seconds - @tokinausa 11-20mm @ 20 @slikusa 634-CF @canonusa 6DMK1 —- #tracylee #tracyleephotos #tracyleephotography #slikusa #canonusa #tokinausa #canonbringit #teamcanon #teamtokina #teamslik #shootslik #slikusa #longexposure_shots #longexposure #pnw #pacificnorthwest #portland #portlandoregon

Last night we did a @milkywaychasers meet up at Mt St Helens in the hopes that we would have clear skies on the 1st day Johnston Ridge Observatory Rd was open... we weren’t so lucky but 13 brave souls made it out to share in our misery, and then our fun as the fog made it easy to get creative. Thank you to @smpetersonphotography for coming up with this fun photo idea! Thank you to everyone who made it out to hang last night!! Check the tags on the photo! We used 3 LumeCube.com/160.html (use code TRACYLEE for free US shipping) to light this! —- #tracylee #tracyleephotos #tracyleephotography #slikusa #canonusa #tokinausa #canonbringit #teamcanon #teamtokina #teamslik #shootslik #slikusa #longexposure_shots #nightimages #nightshooterz #nightpics #milkywaygalaxy #astrophotography #astrophoto #astro_photography_ #astro_photography #longexposure #pnw #pacificnorthwest #portland #portlandoregon #milkywaychasers #meetup

I’m up here in the PNW chasing the Milky Way with @smpetersonphotography @safatajphoto & @amymichelle4 and although we headed towards the coast my 1st night, we got turned back by clouds... we ended up driving 12 hrs that day and scoping out multiple comps.. we finally ended up here at 1am as alignment over Bachelor was getting PERFECT... I ran down and started shooting to get this comp of 20 images stacked... we didn’t give up and ended up with great images that night! —- ISO 10000 F2.8 10 seconds 20 images stacked in Starry Landscape Stacker —— @tokinausa 16-28 @ 28 @slikusa 634-CF @canonusa 6DMK1 —— #tracylee #tracyleephotos #tracyleephotography #slikusa #canonusa #tokinausa #canonbringit #teamcanon #teamtokina #teamslik #shootslik #slikusa #longexposure_shots #nightimages #nightshooterz #nightpics #milkywaygalaxy #astrophotography #astrophoto #astro_photography_ #astro_photography #longexposure #pnw #pacificnorthwest #portland #portlandoregon #mtbachelor #mtbachelorstoked