Hi and thanks for checking in on the details page for what I think is an amazing collection of images. They were so much fun to put together.
Q. So why did you do these?
A. Because I love dinosaurs, I mean who doesn’t? Since I was a child, when I played with my little plastic dinosaurs and wondered about their world. What did it look like? What did they look like? Finally, as I was sitting under the Milky Way in wildly remote areas, my mind switched to what would the sky have looked like then? With them in it? There are no realistic photos or even drawings that exist.
Q. Anything else that caused you to want to do something like this?
A. I love fossils, always have. I have a pretty nice collection I have gathered over the years. To me at least, there is little that is more exciting than pulling something out of the ground that has been buried there for 150 million years. I’m the first living being to have seen this object since the age of the dinosaurs. If that can’t get your blood pumping, I’m not certain what could.
Q. So what are these? Are they actual photographs?
A. Yes, they are actual photographs. All of them are a panorama. Typically the ground is around nine images and the sky (depending on type is 24). The long Milky Ways are 24 images; the Orion winter Milky Way images 15. The storm is actually in its entirely correct location but taken on a different night.
Q. So were these taken together?
A. All the ground images were shot in July and August of 2016. The Milky Way (summer versions) were taken at the same time in the same general area. I took the Lovejoy comet image and the Blood Moon eclipse that I shot in Kansas and added those to the skies. They are just to show how these might have looked. Also, I thought if you are running all of the images, moving the eclipse and the comet images to the last two could be a metaphor for the age of the dinosaurs being eclipsed and then destroyed by comet/asteroid.
Q. Were there any changes you made?
A. Yes, there were a large number of edits needed. Mostly to remove traces of modern life. There was a railroad track in the background of most of these images. Plus railroad crossing lights, lights from the park, planes, trains and automobile headlights, overhead power line and large power pylons all had to be removed. There were also fences/paths and more that had to be cropped or removed from the images. This was an enormous undertaking to make all of these edits appear as natural as possible.
Q. What will other astrophotographers say about these images?
A. The vast majority will appreciate the work and skill needed to do this. There will be some that complain that these are a composite, which they are. I know of no other way to gather images like these without a time machine.
Q. What are the Dinosaurs? Tiny models?
A. No they are full sized replicas that are done to scale. It is amazing being there at night (all images are at night without any artificial light) standing at the base of these large critters.
Q. Where exactly were these images taken?
A. Almost all of the images were taken near Moab, Utah at a museum called the Moab Giants.
Q. So what are you thinking of doing with these? You have a large amount of time spent making all these images.
A. I think these images have a chance to go very, very viral. People love anything dinosaurs, and Milky Way images are wildly popular as well. Put the two of them together, and I can’t imagine how interest in these with a fun story and narrative does not equate to a massive number of eyeballs. I’m less concerned with financial compensation (would not refuse such offers mind you and could be a tie-breaker), but I am far more interested in someone that would feel like promoting these in a major way. Someone that could see the fun and excitement kids, in particular, would see in these. The few children I’ve shared these images with have freaked out.
Q. Have these been published before?
A. No, and there is no Google link to the pages. Other than a few friends and their children these have had no exposure or any hint of their existence.
Q. How do I get to run these?
A. I’m sending this link to 3-4 publications that have run my images before and that I think would dovetail with this type of image and has a sufficient base to disseminate them to. Let me know what you would like to do with them and your timeframe to do it. That’s it. I hope to make a decision in the next couple of days and let you run with them.