"Starship Saguaro"

 I was photographing the Superstition Mountains at sunrise in early January of this year.  The sunrise was absolutely clear.  As I say "with no clouds in the sky for 300 miles in any direction".  A straight up bald sky.  I really enjoyed the backlit Saguaro and the light streaks coming across the desert floor.  What I didn't like was that the sky was completely boring.  As I was looking at the image on my computer monitor I began to wonder,"what would happen if I could show a starfield in the sky above the cactus.

Back in the late fall I had been camped in Northern Arizona.  While there I made some photographs of the night sky, which is amazing when you get out away from the light pollution that afflicts any urban area or even the area around small rural towns.

From that it was a relatively simple process to add the starfield.  The trick is, of course, to hide the fingerprints of the work that was done.