Tender is the night: The Glacier National Park photos of John Ashley

There are many ways to celebrate the vast and intriguing landscape of Glacier National Park. For nearly 30 years now, photographer John Ashley has been capturing Glacier’s beauty in a unique and breathtaking way — at night.

Ashley’s book, “Glacier National Park After Dark” is more than just pretty pictures, however.

“The book is a plea for conservation of darkness disguised as a coffee table book,” the Flathead Valley photographer said last week.

First published in 2015, “After Dark” will enter its second printing, with a hardcover version due out this year.

Ashley grew up in Texas and Florida and pursued a career in biology. But he also had a penchant for photography. When he moved to Montana in the 1980s to study at the University of Montana, he worked as a photographer for the Missoulian, often spending more hours on the photo end of life than the studying end.

He eventually received the biology degree and worked as a seasonal biologist in Glacier National Park for several years, both paid and as a volunteer, studying an array of creatures for the Park Service. In some of his early work, he helped Park biologist Riley McClelland with bald and golden eagle studies in the Park during the era when there were big runs of salmon up McDonald Creek. Ashley is also known for his studies on harlequin ducks.

But photography is and has been his primary livelihood through his adult life as a fine art nature photographer. He spends hours and sometimes days to capture his images, scouting out locations, waiting for the right celestial moment.

A few years ago he spent three solid nights along Glacier’s Lake McDonald to capture the comet Lovejoy as it traveled across the night sky. Temperatures the first night dipped to 9 below zero, the next 11 below and the last night 21 below.

One evening he spent three hours photographing the night sky from Apgar because fog from the lake had rolled in, obscuring the view from Sprague Creek campground where he wanted to set up as the comet went over the skies above Mount Brown Lookout.

But in the fourth hour a light breeze came up and he went up to Sprague Creek to get one of the most memorable shots of his life — the comet over Brown and the heavens filled with stars.

Many areas of the U.S. no longer have such night skies and this is Ashley’s greatest lament. Artificial lights in most towns and cities obscure the natural dark skies, obliterating the stars for most folks. The light pollution has biological impacts. Birds in urban areas will sing at street lights, bird migrations are thrown off and light pollution skewers the mating of frogs. Glacier still has good night skies, but towns around the Park are polluting the Park’s skies. Inside the Park, there are still lights that  are in need of retrofitting so they reduce light pollution as well. The Park is working on getting International Dark Sky Certification and in recent years has embraced a summertime astronomy program.

Ironically, Ashley notes in his book, some simple fixes to lights and light fixtures in cities and towns improve humans’ night vision. Normal bright lights actually blind people, making it more difficult to see in the dark. But properly fitted lights that are friendly to night skies, also make it easier to see in the dark.

There are towns in Texas that now use night -sky-friendly lighting and people can see better in the dark, crime is down and property values are up.

“You know it’s not a tree hugger issue when Texas is leading the way,” Ashley said.

Ashley’s book is not just a photography book, however. It also offers helpful tips on how to read Glacier’s night skies and includes tables for upcoming night sky events in the Park. It also delves into the history of the Park before the white man and has humorous stories from the field, including a grizzly bear encounter as he was taking night photos. It is also a technical document at times, complete with footnotes.

With cell phones and tablets, there are a host of apps that make it easier to map out the night sky. But the light they produce is some of the worst a person can have for their eyes. Ashley’s advice is simple.

“They should put away the technology and look at the sky,” he said. “They’d see so much more.”

Ashley also continues to volunteer his time as a biologist across the state. Next year he said he’ll do some work with black-footed ferrets in his spare time.

“I volunteer as much as I can afford to do,” he said. “My problem is I’m interested in too many things.”

Readers can view more of Ashley’s work and order the book at: http://www.johnashleyfineart.com or follow him on Facebook at: 

https://www.facebook.com/JohnAshleyFineArt