Sunsets will forever be my favorite part of the day. Some argue that they’re all the same, but I say it’s exactly the opposite. Creative photographer Dario Giannobile observed the sky in the sunset, recording its changes day after day. And he came up with an idea. Combining time sequencing and 360-degree photography, he has created unique “stellar flowers” that will leave you speechless.
While Dario usually recorded sunsets for these “flowers,” his image Twilight in a Flower shows the evolution of the colors of during the transition from the blue hour to the astronomical night. It also shows the sunset of Venus, Aldebaran, and the Moon. Dario took it on April 22, 2023, at the Argimusco’s Rocks site in Sicily.
For Twilight in a Flower, Dario took 16 individual images. All of them were shot with a Canon 6D, Sigma 24-35 at f/3.5. The ISO varied between 400-1600, and Dario used AV priority setting.
This double sequence of “petals” you see in the image are the rocks of Argimusco. “By combining the almost linear trajectory of the setting of Venus and the Moon with the circular distortion of the image, a sequence is obtained that takes the form of a spiral that winds around itself twice,” Dario tells DIYP. “The first rotation is given by Venus, the second by the Moon until it disappears behind the large rock.”
The process
When he takes pictures of “stellar flowers,” Dario keeps the white balance the same in all the pictures. This helps him study the differences in color without any camera interference like changes in tint or temperature. Finally, he aligns all images in a horizontal strip to show the chromatic variations over time in a single photo.
Dario then aligns the images into a horizontal composition, later distorting it into a square and mirroring it vertically. From this point on, he applies the circular distortion that creates the “little planet” or “the flower.”
Twilight in a Flower ended up being NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day on May 6, 2023. But other than a flower, it reminds me of the iris of a human eye, reminding me that we’re all a part of this vast universe. That’s probably why I was drawn to it so much and wanted to learn more. Make sure to check out more of Dario’s work on his website, and connect with him on Facebook and Instagram.
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