Catching a Miracle Part 1

It was a few months into the pandemic and over 100 degrees, early in the day I had received life changing good news and I was itching to celebrate. My housemate was on her way home, but would have to quarantine outside of the house, with no one around and energy to burn I took a drive up to Glade Park, Miracle Rock was on my list. A few test shots and I’d be on my way home, I would return at another time to create an image of the Milky Way, or so I thought. Minutes after I took this shot I would suffer a life ending medical event.

Last photo taken by Conrad Earnest July 2020

People always say it is great to pass away doing something they love… well at least I have that. But I didn’t finish, and I would have liked to have lived another day, another month, another year. I had a full life I was a skier, a professional soccer player and a well respected researcher, and in the last decade of my life I fell in love with photographing the night sky. But I always finished what I started and this picture was left unfinished. Tonight I was alone, but regularly a friend would tag a long to keep me company, while she too loved photography, her art was rooted not in the night sky or even landscapes but in people. So it is with irony (but not at all surprise) that she rallied friends to finish my last project, learning how to capture the Milky Way and in the process enticing new people to see the skies much as I did…….

Photo completed by Sloane Milstein October 2022

Finally I can check this project off the list, watching over my friends,I now see the night sky through the photos created in my memory. Thank you Warren MacEvoy for guiding, Claire Codling for assisting with weather and location, and Jason Girt for technical assistance.

- Sloane Milstein