A goal I've had for some time was to learn how to photograph the Milky Way, so a few months ago I took a night shoot workshop in the Sangre De Cristo mountains of south-central Colorado. I still struggle with it sometimes but have the basics down.

While at Glacier National Park in Montana last week, one of my goals was to photograph the Milky Way over Lake McDonald with no planning whatsoever so you can imagine how that worked out. I set up my alarm for 1:30 am and headed over to the lake. Standing alone on the end of a dock at 2 am in the pitch dark was a bit unnerving, especially when I realized I forgot to bring bear spray with me. I was questioning my decision to go and kept looking around to make sure nothing out of the ordinary was going on.

The Milky Way was visible directly above me, which unfortunately meant that the shot I had in mind was not going to work out. I was hoping to capture the mountains that ring the lake and the Milky Way above. The sky also had strange red, greenish and blue tones. This did not make sense to me as there is no light pollution in Glacier. Later I learned that the colors were the Northern Lights. After about 2 hours, I packed up and headed back to the house for a short nap before getting up for sunrise.

Sunrise and sunset at Lake McDonald are gorgeous! Not surprisingly, when I arrived back at the lake in the morning, I found a few people setting up their cameras and others sitting there with blankets ready for nature's morning show.

As it is often the case, our plans don't always go as we would like to. Keep an open mind as the universe might have something better planned for you