The Milky Way over Mono Lake rises above the light-painted tufas. Modern digital full-frame cameras opened up a whole new world of night photography, and the ability to capture more light and detail in the Milky Way better than the human eye can see. Photographing the Milky Way can be technically tricky, needing to use a very sturdy tripod, approximately 25sec shutter speeds, wide open apertures and more. Mono Lake is fairly remote and in a dark zone not affected much by city lights enabling you to better see the Milky Way. I light painted these tufas at Mono Lake to make a foreground for the night sky.