Death Valley Nights

Nobody goes to Death Valley in August. We drove in anyway and waited for dark. At two in the morning the sand was still warm through my shoes, and then I looked up and it was worth every degree.
There is no city glow for a hundred miles in any direction, so the core of the Milky Way came up over the dunes with its dust lanes showing. A person stands where the sand narrows to a knife edge, aiming a headlamp straight into it. A small light answering a very large one.
The two colors are the reason this image exists. While the shutter was open I walked the shaded face of the dune with a hand light and painted it cool, so the side the day had left warm stayed rust and the shadow side went blue. They meet along the crest, directly under the figure. None of that happens by itself.
For anyone who has driven into the heat just to see the sky properly. Printed and finished to gallery standard, made for a dark wall where the blues can go deep. A piece of the desert at two in the morning, to keep.