Photographing the Milky Way on Jekyll Island
Driftwood Beach, Jekyll Island GA
The Objective:
Capture the beautiful landscape of Driftwood Beach & the Milky Way on Jekyll Island
The Location:
Driftwood Beach, Jekyll Island, GA
Tools
Fast lens 2.8, Hi ISO Camera, Good Tripod, Patience
Purchase prints of these images of the Milky Way on Driftwood Beach, Jekyll Islands, Georgia
Tags: Landscape Photographer Jekyll Island, John Krivec Photography, Jekyll Island Photography, Georgia Landscape Photographer, Jekyll Island Photographer
One of the big perks of being a photographer is always having the built in excuse to chase beautiful places. Driftwood Beach on Jekyll Island off the Georgia coast should be on every photographers beautiful place list at some point. If you are not familiar with the Georgia coast you are truly missing out. Jekyll Island is one of 13 amazing islands that are still largely hidden from the modern world. Luckily, living on St Simons Island, Jekyll Island is just a short 30 minute drive for me.
Shooting the Milky Way is not easy. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, it is often visible at inconvenient times. Springtime in the South offers favorable conditions to shoot the Milky Way. The keys are cool air, low water content in the air, and of course little light pollution. This is an amazing tool to check light pollution and other factors for astro photography.
All of my images so far in this post have had the core of the Milky Way in the shot. The core is what most people are referencing when talking about the Milky Way. These shots were all taken late in the evening facing a SE sky in the springtime. Shooting the night sky without the core of the Milky Way can still provide you with amazing images. 
In our winter months you can still see bands of the Milky Way just not the core usually. The core becomes visible for about an hour before sunrise starting in February. Then as the skies shift the core become visible earlier throughout the year.
Living so close to Driftwood Beach I am fortunate to get to shoot there year round. It took me a long time to learn to finally capture what I wanted shooting the Milky Way and the stars. The keys are just research, patience, planning and a bit of luck.
Even when you do not get exactly what you were hoping for as a photographer, take a pause and think of ways to use what you have. For the above shot I mis-timed the core of the Milky Way and found myself on the beach at 2am. So I took the chance to try some new things and ended up with one of my most loved shots.
