Sparklings

The first time I saw her I was struck by her beauty, awed by her power, and comforted by her embrace. It was 1996. It was a moonless,pitch black night and I was submerged in the topmost hot pool of Lussiersprings in south eastern British Columbia. The hot springs are a series of sulphur poolsstepped down a hillside, hot at the top, graduating downto warm, and eventually to cool pools and an icy, glacier-fed creek at the bottom. Being a sulphur spring, it stank. The funny thing is that younever really noticed it until you were driving home, when thepotent smell of rotten eggs had you opening the windows,tossing out your towel, and resisting the urge to vomit. It was on that particular night, all dark and stinky, that I fell on love with the Milky Way. -- To capture her beauty in this image took a 25-minute exposure, and to capture her reflection, just 25 seconds. No stacked images, no generative fills. Simply two photographs combined into art with hope of sharing the beauty we witnessed that night.