Stargazing Ceremony in the Atacama: The Clearest Night Sky on the Planet and How We Shoot It

The Atacama Desert has almost no water vapour in its atmosphere, which is the same quality that makes it the driest non-polar desert on earth, and it is also the reason the night sky above it is clearer than almost anywhere else on the planet. The ESO, the European Southern Observatory, operates multiple telescopes in the Atacama including some of the largest optical telescopes in the world. They are here because the sky is extraordinary. I am here for the same reason, with a camera instead of a spectrograph.

The Night Ceremony Under the Atacama Sky

San Pedro de Atacama is surrounded by flat desert that extends far enough in every direction that the town’s own modest lighting does not reach the ceremony site when you drive fifteen minutes out. The night sky at the ceremony location is the sky that existed before artificial light: dense, structured, and so clear that the dark lanes within the Milky Way are visible as physical features rather than the absence of stars. I have photographed night sessions in the Atacama in which couples standing at the ceremony site reported seeing a sky they had not known existed. This is not hyperbole. Most people who grew up in or near cities have never seen a sky without light pollution and do not know what they have been missing until they stand in the Atacama at midnight.

Photography in the Atacama Night

My technique at Atacama night sessions is similar to Uyuni but the desert landscape provides different compositional options. Volcanic rock formations and salt flats create foreground elements that I use to ground the sky in a physical landscape. Cacti silhouetted against the Milky Way is a specific Atacama image that appears nowhere else. I work with a modified version of the flash technique I use at Uyuni: lower power because the desert surface reflects less ambient light than the white salt flat. Total session time is ninety minutes to two hours. Couples need warm layers. The temperature in the Atacama at midnight drops below zero even in summer months, and the wind off the Andes can be significant.