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# Between Highway Lights and Starlight
- URL: https://robertlaurente.xyz/portfolio/between-highway-lights-and-starlight/
- Published: 2026-10-16T15:33:41.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-16T16:20:00.000Z
- Description: Astrophotography has always interested me. When you look up at the sky, you don’t realize what’s out there until you capture it properly on film. Then you realize how small we are in the grand scheme of things.
- Author: Robert Laurente
- Tags: Astrophotography

Astrophotography has always interested me. When you look up at the sky, you don’t realize what’s out there until you capture it properly on film. Then you realize how small we are in the grand scheme of things. 

At Lake Tahoe, the night can feel impossibly still. From the shoreline near Bonsai Rock, the Milky Way stretched above the dark water while the distant lights along the horizon added a warm glow to the scene.

This photograph was made around 2:30 in the morning after climbing down from the highway and hiking a short distance to the lake with all of my gear in the dark. The walk was worth it—the calm water, scattered granite boulders, and quiet sky created a landscape that felt completely removed from the road above. 

The light pollution is visible across the horizon, but I chose to leave it in the frame. Instead of distracting from the image, it gives the photograph a sense of place and time: a still lake late at night, surrounded by both wilderness and the quiet signs of human presence. 

Bonsai Rock became the anchor in the foreground, connecting the grounded shapes of the shoreline with the vastness of the Milky Way overhead. 

And I made it home before anyone woke up.