Night Photo Sampler

© 2023 Steve S. Saroff

Not because of anything technical — just use a tripod and set the exposure for 30 seconds with a high iso and a large aperture — but night photography is difficult because you have to stay awake with the stillness as the stars, clouds, moon and memories all slowly move...

There was no moon. In the cloud of stars, the milky way lined up with the Kiln’s sparks and my awake-all-night memories. A runaway, hitchhiking towards Alaska, every mile getting further from anyone. As the miles became thousands the stars became friends. Wood fired pottery is absurd. It does this to me. It brings me back. The work, the labor, the time. Days and nights with this big kiln. Like hitchhiking for months — with no destination — you find more than any plan could ever give.

Missoula, northern lights, midnight May 11th/May 12
I’ve always been a hoarder of memories. My stockpiles include words I should have written mixed with the letters I waited for that did not arrive. I also keep photographs that never existed, like the ones showing the color of your laughter as it washed over my ordinary gray, surprising me into dropping my burdens to follow you. Sometimes I still go to those places we went and wander in the rows of Mondays among the stacks of lost hours which were filled with perfect, wasted time. What I keep no one can steal. And these sounds that I listen for when it is quiet, and this brightness that I look towards when I close my eyes, these are the intangibles that brought hands from slouched pockets and into the open air where we greeted each other, these are what pushed and pulled us into our lives. - Steve S. Saroff

Total lunar eclipse over mount Jumbo, Missoula.

Those moments that we took for granted, those easy ones between the hard parts, are like the stars we sometimes forget to look for on the rare, dark nights when the sky is clear and the storms are long ago. What is infinite is not a number that I can explain, but it is a place that I dream of, a place where we have been and a place where we are going.

One in the morning, on a clear, moonless night, camped off of a forest service road. Hello, is anyone there? Across the water, the light from a house miles away. Or up there, the spine of our milky way. Through this Aether of radio waves and glowing screens, what lights do we shine?
Utah Sun Tunnels. They are art work by Nancy Holt, set up in the late 70’s, placed on the edge of a salt flat to line up with the solstices. 9 foot diameter, by 18 foot long cement pipes truly in the middle of nowhere.

I got to Mono lake early in the morning and after walking near the tufa formations I wanted to photograph them at night, so I camped nearby in the desert. Went to sleep in the late afternoon, set an alarm, and woke at midnight. Then I was up all night. Watched the clouds move, waited for the patches of clearness and a brief appearance in the south of the Milky Way. Listened to coyotes, heard geese land in the saline water, saw bats skimming the lake surface, watched the stars fade as the sun came up.

Writing Sampler

And to my readers who want more: the best way to encourage the publication of my next book is for my current book to receive more reviews. If you have read Paper Targets please consider leaving a review of it on Amazon. - Thank you!!!
Fiction: Non-fiction: Photos with words: Available Books:
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(c) 2023 Steve S. Saroff & Saroff Corporation www.saroff.com
Author. Start-up consultant. Adviser to artists, writers, and a few good actors.