Imma Barrera

• Audio description of "Schoodic Cove"

  
  

  Audio description of "Schoodic Cove" by Imma Barrera, an Artist-in-Residence at Acadia in 2021.
  Audio Transcript

  This is a photograph rendered on a matte-finish metal plate that features the Milkyway bright in the night sky above rocky Atlantic coastline. A beach sweeps in an arc along an ocean inlet from bottom left to the right and back past the center of the frame. The beach is an earthy brown and purple illuminated by the night sky.

  Thick green fir trees growing slightly inland along the coastline grow smaller in the distance as they follow a spit of land into the middle of the frame. The ocean on the left is calm with a slate blue glow. A thin dark thread of land can be seen in the far distance along the ocean’s horizon.

  The Milkyway sweeps from behind the fir trees to the top left corner of the frame. The central axis of this band is a dark blue cluster encapsulated by two parallel light yellow and white bands of stars. These star clusters appear as clouds, simultaneously wispy and cracked. Other areas of the sky hold dark muted tones of green, blue, orange, pink and brown punctuated with specs of white stars.

"Schoodic Cove"

Courtesy of Imma Barrera. Used with permission.

I love to photograph the night sky in Acadia National Park, as it is one of the darkest areas in the US Northeast. The Milky Way is our galaxy and has captured our imagination since the dawn of humanity. We are privileged to have learned so much about our universe since the ancient civilizations gave names to the stars and star formations in our galaxy. One of the most interesting things about a true dark sky is capturing the green airglow mostly caused by excited oxygen atoms in the upper atmosphere of Earth. No, the night sky is not black and not even blue when the moonlight is not present.

The galactic center of the Milky Way is found facing southeast in May, when this image was taken. After scouting many locations, I fell in love with this cove as it boasts the very characteristic rocky beaches, spruce-fir forests and cliffs of Acadia’s coastline.

– Imma Barrera

Imma Barrera

Born in Barcelona, Imma Barrera is a landscape and nature photographer based in Metuchen NJ. She is a biologist but also a graduate of New York Institute of Photography. She has exhibited photography in a number of galleries worldwide and won several awards. In addition she has been invited to join CollectorWorks, a hybrid gallery (virtual and in person exhibits) sponsored by Your Daily Photograph.

Her favorite subject to photograph include landscapes from dusk to dawn, including astrophotography. She has been selected for several National Park Service Artist-in-Residence programs (Capitol Reef, Acadia , Glacier and the Grand Canyon) for her night sky photography. In addition, she was shortlisted in the Landscape category of the 2019 Sony World Photography Awards - Professional competition with her series “Under the Night Sky.”

Imma runs educational programs about photography and seminars to raise awareness about the need to protect our natural treasures. She has published books about the night skies in New Jersey and New York, and about her experiences as an Artist-in-Residence. Currently, she is working on three other books covering Glacier, Acadia and about her project Under The Night Sky.

Visit her website and follow her on Instagram @imma.photo

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