The Present and the Past

🌌“Every night landscape holds an eternity.”

The mountain in front of me is the present. The sky behind it is the past — the light of those stars left them tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of years ago, and only now reaches my lens.

In a single frame: the now and the ancient. The near and the infinite.

That is what keeps me standing in the cold at 2 AM, on the edge of a marshy shore, in the pitch dark, with the wind in my eyes.

Not just to capture a beautiful scene. But to hold, for a moment, the feeling that the universe is both impossibly large and — somehow — completely present.

In night landscape photography, what matters most to you: the sky, the shape of the peaks, the atmosphere, or the emotional silence of the place?

All of this together. One is dwarfed by the huge mountain peaks that pierce the sky. 

All of this is topped off by the sight of the endless sky.

For me, what is particularly exciting and incomprehensible about night landscapes is that the landscape in front of me is the present, and the background is the endless past.

Because the light of the stars that we see set out towards us tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years ago. Such a night landscape contains an eternity.

Your series feels both majestic and intimate. How do you balance technical precision with the feeling of wonder that night landscapes can carry?

Astrolandscape photography is a truly technical challenge. The lens is wide open, the camera sensor is set to high ISO, a tripod that is stable even in the strong winds that are common in the mountains, and the photographer himself are put to the ultimate test.

The little light available must be captured in a way that both the landscape and the sky, meaning the subject and the light source, are perfectly depicted, balancing the movement of the stars and the noise caused by high ISO.

However, meeting the technical requirements should not distract attention from the soul of the image, the mood and feeling that we want to convey.

⏭️ …Continue reading (next question) here.

All content of this series:

Global Lens Award 2025 winner interview (Travel)

Original shorter interview published in https://globallensawards.com/interview/2025/gabor-takacs/