The planet hung silently in space. A tiny jewel in the blackness, it was a half-lit marble of greens and browns and blues and whites. But it was more than a planet, it was a life-bearing droplet, a little oasis of life journeying in infinite patience in its timeless passage around the sun. Soft moonlight […]
David Wilson
David Wilson is a Humboldt-grown photographer. His longtime love is creating nighttime images and he enjoys finding and using unique light. David received his Art degree with an emphasis in photography from Humboldt State University. He currently teaches photography in the Art Department at College of the Redwoods.
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North Coast Night Lights: Be the Moon
In the days of film just prior to digital photography’s boom, photographers simply could not have made many of the nightscape images we see today. Film with enough light sensitivity to capture the stars and the rest of the Milky Way in all of the grandeur we are used to seeing in modern nightscape images […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
The Night the Lights Went Out
I grew up in a home off the grid. We moved there when I was a kid, starting with no electricity at all and using kerosene lamps for light. We built on that continually, and, long before I went off to college, we had set up solar power and hydro power. And if needed, we […]
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North Coast Night Lights: Avenue of the Imagination
Imagine, if you will, a journey down an avenue through corridors of towering redwoods. Between them the stars hang motionless in the sky, while streaking past beneath you fly the yellow dashes of the road. This is a road you think you know. But this night your journey will end in another destination, and what […]
Posted inNews
North Coast Night Lights: Ramparts on the Coast
The Stars in Motion and Thoughts on Geotagging A photograph can be worth many more than a thousand words. It’s an old expression, though, and maybe the number “one thousand” just isn’t what it used to be. But you’ll be happy to know that I’ll spare you the full count today and just touch on […]
Posted inNews
North Coast Night Lights: Fading but not Forgotten
I’ve come to embrace the unexpected when I photograph. I tell people when I go out that it’s always an experiment, but I think they think I’m kidding. In part I am, as I am pretty comfortable with my photography, but there’s also a lot of truth to it. It’s dark while I’m photographing; I […]
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North Coast Night Lights: Beauty on the Redwood Highway
I hope my images stoke appreciation for the beauty and wonders around us here on the North Coast of California. Many people never experience so uniquely beautiful a countryside as ours, and too many who live within them forget the treasure they have. They are the unlucky ones. Perhaps my images and stories will help […]
Posted inNews
North Coast Night Lights: Eel River Stargazer
Not far from anywhere on the North Coast the dark skies and solitude of nature quietly await. People travel great distances to come here to camp and hike in it, enjoying the beauty of our forests, beaches, rivers, and amazing night skies. It’s a wonderland to them, and here we are living right in it. […]
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North Coast Night Lights: Tule Fog on Humboldt Bay
Apparently, the term “tule fog” is specific to a particular seasonal low fog in the Central Valley, but we sometimes see a similar blanket of ground fog around the lowlands and bottoms of coastal northern Humboldt County. Low and mysterious, the veil of mist hugs the contours, it pools in pockets and reduces visibility to […]
Posted inNews
North Coast Night Lights: Metal Beast and Stardust Skies
Late one night along a dirt road in the hills in the middle of nowhere in southern Humboldt County, California, a couple of guys rendezvoused to photograph an old metal beast crouching in the dirt beneath the stardust skies of the cosmic realm through which we float, as a species almost completely unaware of the […]
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North Coast Night Lights: Reflections at Richardson Grove
As you read on your computer or mobile device, remember that you, too, can unplug, go outside not too far from where you are now and experience a night something like the one in this image. I took a break from plugged-in things for a week and camped for part of it in Southern Humboldt’s […]
Posted inNews
North Coast Night Lights: Unexpected Magic: Rabbit Stargazer
What makes a photograph special isn’t always what was planned but what happens instead. Of course, sometimes what happens instead can make a mess of things. One has no choice in the matter, but it seems to me that if I’m open to the possibility that something unexpected can make the photo better then delightful […]