Dark Sky Dreams

About the Artist

Jerry Day is a Southern California-based photographer specializing in nighttime and astronomical photography. Jerry has been an avid amateur astronomer and astrophotographer for many years, but recently has explored other aspects of photographing under the night sky.

Long fascinated by the scenic beauty and history of the desert southwest, his photography reflects this fascination by incorporating the wind sculpted rock formations, gnarled vegetation, or the relics and ruins to be found along lonely desert back roads. He finds particularly compelling the ghost town, with its abandoned dwellings and mines, rusting equipment and vehicles, and all the other forlorn wrack and ruin of days long past. Perhaps the most poignant of all are the rock art and cliff dwellings, remnants of an even more ancient and vanished people.

All of these subjects and more are photographed at night, often by the light of the Moon. Long exposures, at times lasting many minutes, are used to capture the moonlit landscape and to compress time - the stars streak through the skies, passing traffic forms streaming rivers of head and tail lights, wind-blown palm fronds leave a soft blur, and a flashlight becomes a paintbrush for a darkened canvas - the film. Using flashlights or camera flash units with colored gel filters, Jerry can 'paint with light', adding color to shadows and enhancing the mood and mystery of the composition.

Initially working with a selection of venerable Olympus OM-1 35mm film cameras for both astronomical and night photography, Jerry has since joined the digital revolution and now makes use of Canon Digital SLR cameras for his photography.

Jerry earned Bachelor of Science Degrees from Iowa State University at Ames, Iowa, and moved to Southern California in 1987 for employment in the software industry. There he met his wife to be, Kim. He is an active member of the Redlands Art Association.