Filmmaker Gavin Heffernan traversed a good portion of the combined 1,300 square miles of King’s Canyon and Sequoia National Parks in California.
Shooting time-lapse videos, Heffernan seeks night skyscapes in places where the celestial wonders shine uninhibited by city lights. He explained in the description of his video on Vimeo the challenges posed by these Sierra Nevada mountain-range locations: “With the giant sequoia trees and the impossibly steep cliffs of King’s Canyon serving as beautiful-yet-formidable ‘obstacles’ to an unobstructed sky, it seemed a worthy challenge to seek out some night skyscapes in the parks, while capturing the verdant beauty of the landscapes by day.”
You can almost feel the cool breeze in the mountains’ shade as the wild grass dances and sunlight paints the peaks gold. As night falls, a summer campfire takes on air of a mysterious tryst under a night sky heavy with the magic of the cosmos.
Mesmerizing star trails whirl by as the Earth turns. The great sequoias and mountains—the “'obstacles’ to an unobstructed sky”—frame the star trails, creating the feeling that you’re glimpsing the wondrous sight through a cosmic window.
Here’s a look at the adventures behind the footage and more amazing scenery:
STARCHASERS: Kings Canyon / Sequoia National Park from John C. Brookins on Vimeo.
For more of Heffernan’s work, see SunChaserPictures.com, the Sun Chaser Pictures Facebook page and Vimeo, or follow @GavinHeffernan on Twitter. For still frames, see Sun Chaser Pictures on Flickr.
Click the image below to watch another time-lapse video by Heffernan in which he captured the beauty of the Grand Canyon and Milky Way, titled “That Which Awaits the Dawn”:
