INTRODUCTION BY AUTHOR
When was the last time you were in a dark place, in a forest, on a mountain or a meadow outside the city and away from light pollution and just - looked at the stars? Enjoyed the night sky?
Unfortunately, we are less and less in such occasions, and more and more chained to the city asphalt and indispensable screens. Screens of mobile phones, tablets, computers.
Fortunately, there are photographers who bring us the beauty of nature right on our cell phone screens, on social networks or in the public spaces we visit. And while exhibitions of daytime landscapes, nature and animals are relatively common, it is very rare to see nighttime astrophotography. When they do appear, it is mostly about specialized astronomical exhibitions, the so-called deep space.
However, the "Croatia under the stars" series, for which I have been collecting material for the last five years, brings something different. Photography of night landscapes, created at famous Croatian tourist and historical locations, such as Plitvice Lakes and Krka, the spring of Cetina river, Jasenovac, Cape Kamenjak, pastures around Dinara or Pag's salt fields.
I always shoot the night sky in RAW format, I choose nights when there is no Moon, of course, I follow the weather forecast. I use applications with which you can plan in advance the setting and rising of the Sun, the Moon, the position of the Milky Way, meteor showers, etc...
However, the most important are will, knowledge and a bit of luck. Willingness to voluntarily give up sleep, knowledge that you never have enough of because you are constantly learning something new, and a bit of luck to help you with the forecast, which has become increasingly unstable in recent years. That the wind is not strong, that high thin clouds do not appear that no application perceives as clouds, and that the location you plan to visit and record is not polluted by (mostly unnecessary) light sources, reflectors, decorative lighting or something completely different.
The photos in this book bear witness to my journey, growth and urge to bring the heavenly beauties closer to the readers. To the elderly, who remember what it was like to live in a country without a billion lighting fixtures that make us no longer see the stars; and younger people who find it difficult and, they think, unnecessary to look up from their mobile phone screen. To look up. Towards the stars.
Before you are photos taken in (almost all) parts of Croatia. Because some parts are so light polluted that it is impossible to record the stars in those locations. Fortunately, our country still has enough dark skies, so this book is an appeal to everyone who decides to install lighting fixtures - to think twice about it. Not all churches in Croatia need to be lit from dusk to dawn; it is unnecessary to illuminate every branch on the highway with a hundred public lighting poles (while at the same time Germany, Austria, Hungary or Slovakia do not have a single lamp on their highways); I really don't see the sense that some villages turn off their public lighting to save money, while at the same time an "entrepreneur" from the same village illuminates his company/warehouse/parking lot with a stadium-strong spotlights.
And no, it's not just a question of commotion and curiosity of us astrophotography lovers. Numerous scientific studies have been published so far on the negative impact of light pollution on flora and fauna, and then on human health. But that's a story for another book.
My wish with this book is to show that in every part of Croatia there are places that are beautiful during the day and mystically enchanted at night. Thousands of kilometers in the car, hours and hours in the dark woods, galons of sweat while I was dragging equipment weighing 20-30 kg to the desired location, numerous dawns that I met somewhere in the middle of nowhere, muscle fiber and insomnia upon returning home. But it was worth it.
I imagined, planned and recorded. And "Croatia under the stars" was born.
Branko Nađ, Zagreb 2024.
