In the past 15 years, San Francisco based photographer Beth Moon has been capturing ancient trees all around the world. For her new serie “Diamond Nights”, she photographed African trees, from Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, with starry nights backgrounds, inspired by her interest in several new studies suggesting a relationship between starlight and cosmic radation on tree growth.

The majority of these photographs were created during moonless nights, shot with a wide angle lens and ISO of 3200 – 6400. The Milky Way, a ribbon of stars that stretches from horizon to horizon burns brightly in some of the images. Exposures up to 30 seconds allowed enough light to enter the lens without noticeable star movement. Each location required a lot of experimenting. and different lighting techniques. Sometimes a short burst of diffused light from a flashlight was sufficient, or bounced light from multiple flashlights was used for a softer more natural glow.