testmeat photoblog

after i completed the sunset bromo trip, which was so cloudy that you couldn't actually see a setting sun, i felt compelled to return on a sunrise trip to get the complete experience. the journey was similar, although this time i departed at midnight instead of midday. i'd read that there were a few popular viewpoints so when we got out of the jeep at 3am i asked where they were - i was disheartened that the response was a finger pointed distressingly high up the top of a mountain. i had no choice but to start walking, with my camera and tripod on my back, up and up. after one hour i'd gone from freezing cold to profusely sweating and struggling to breathe. it was so dark that it was really difficult to get a sense of where i was, but above my head was one of the most spectacular array of stars i'd seen. it took a considerable amount of willpower to resist stopping to rest and capture the stars, i didn't want to miss the sunrise. the ascent only became more and more arduous, and i started thinking that there can't be that many people at the top if they all had to walk up this steep trail. that thought actually gave me the boost i needed to keep on walking up, so you can imagine how i felt when it started to plateau and i made my way onto a road full of bikes, jeeps and buses. of course there were hundreds of tourists who strolled out of these vehicles and were leisurely enjoying a hot drink as they awaited the sun. i didn't have the energy to even get angry, i just kept putting one foot in front of the other as i squeezed through the mass of people to continue up to a different viewpoint. the problem with choosing a place to shoot was that i'd never been there before and it was still really dark so i couldn't even confidently say which direction the volcanoes were in. when i made it to penanjakan hill i made a calculation with the number of people, time and location and decided that it was the best place to rest, hydrate and set up my camera. i managed it just in time to get a few stars in frame before i waited for the sun to enter from the left, and as the darkness lifted the slow reveal of the alien landscape was an almost spiritual experience. i didn't care that i was surrounded by hundreds of (lazier) tourists who just strolled off a bus, i drowned them out with my headphones and kept them behind in my field of view. it meant more that i'd climbed a (part of a) literal mountain to see this spectacle and it was worth every heavy step.

fun fact, walking back down was way easier, especially when you can see where you going. however it also revealed a bunch of secret viewpoints which would have been so much better if i could have seen them in the dark.

this shot is a double exposure of one of the first photos i took with stars combined with a later one as the sun was rising and casting shadows. i also put together all the photos i took from starlight to sunlight into a little timelapse video