Congratulations to Lisa Phillips, the winner of our Milky Way in May Mindshift Backpack Giveaway! Lisa’s photo, “Yucca Bloom under Milky Way” won over our panel of judges for a number of reasons. We liked the simplicity of the image. The clean, uncluttered look of the foreground, and the leading lines of the roadway, mountains, Milky Way, and the yucca. It was the most complete image from start to finish. Well-composed, well-processed, and we didn’t have suggestions about how to improve it.

"Yucca Bloom under Milky Way" by Lisa Phillips. Over the Memorial Day weekend, I finally got out to shoot the Milky Way for the first time in 2020. The high winds early in the evening put a damper on shooting for awhile. At about 2 am they settled down enough to get a couple hours of shooting in. This image is a blend of several images taken at the same location. One long exposure for the foreground, and about 6 images stacked in Sequator for the sky. I then blended the two images together in Photoshop. #milkywayphotographers
“Yucca Bloom under Milky Way” by Lisa Phillips.

Here’s the story Lisa submitted with her entry:

Over the Memorial Day weekend, I finally got out to shoot the Milky Way for the first time in 2020. The high winds early in the evening put a damper on shooting for awhile. At about 2 am they settled down enough to get a couple hours of shooting in. This image is a blend of several images taken at the same location. One long exposure for the foreground, and about 6 images stacked in Sequator for the sky. I then blended the two images together in Photoshop.”

You can check out more of Lisa’s work here:
https://www.instagram.com/lisa_a_phillips_photography/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/49754031@N06/
https://lisa-phillips.smugmug.com/

And the Rest

There were several submissions that ranked highly. We’ll write an article and discuss Lisa’s photo along with the runner up images in the near future.

Lisa’s entry won her the Mindshift Backlight 36L Backpack.

We, at MilkyWayPhotographers, would like to thank everyone that entered this contest. There were many excellent entries! We feel so fortunate to have such a talented community of Milky Way and night photographers following our site.

Mindshift Gear/Think Tank Photo

We’d also like to thank Mindshift Gear for donating the four backpacks. We would not have been able to do these contests without the support of Mindshift/Think Tank Photo. We’re big fans of their products. If you need a new camera bag, backpack, roller cases, harness, or accessories to hold your gear, check out ThinkTankPhoto.com.

Kirk Keyes