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Travis Novitsky was a major part of the beautifully shot and narrated Northern Nights, Starry Skies documentary that can be found and watched on YouTube.
Due to some medical issues Travis wasn’t able to reply to some questions he had been sent about the one-hour film he narrated and co-produced. Now healthy, he got back to me with some answers to questions I posed to him.
Q- How many years did it take to shoot all of the night sky pictures used in the film?
A- “The documentary uses photos that I’ve taken over the entire span of time that I’ve been photographing the night sky, so 20+ years. While some of the imagery was shot specifically for the documentary, most of it was used from already-existing library. Can’t say that I have one single favorite night image… but if I HAD to choose, it’d probably be this one: www.travisnovitsky.com/TheNightSky-1/The-Milky-Way-Galaxy/iqvH43Vp/A”
Q- How are you able to stay up so late and go to work in the morning?
“I am more of a night owl than a morning person, but as I age, I do find myself adapting my schedule more so I can have productive nights out. Twenty years ago, I would spend all night shooting then go right to work after just a couple hours of sleep. That gets a little harder to do with each passing year. Thankfully, the forecasting is much better now for aurora events, so I spend less time “in the field” but the time that I do spend is much more productive thanks to the improved space weather forecasts.
Q- Your father, Rick is a great outdoors’s photographer. A lot of people might not know that about him. How much influence did he have on you?
“My dad was certainly a huge influence and he and I do go shooting together from time to time. He used to shoot the night sky on film back when I was a kid, and I would often tag along with him when he went out shooting.”
Q- Besides being awestruck by the beauty of the documentary and all of the indigenous stories and history about the night sky, there was also a lot of science interwoven into the piece. Heck, I ended up learning a lot watching this film. Was that one of your goals?
Glad you learned a lot from the documentary! Education was, of course, one of our goals for the project.
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