The sky is the limit

Photographer Imma Barrera is on a mission to document and protect America’s dark skies.

For the past several years, the New Jersey-based artist has been working to her goal of capturing images of the Milky Way in diverse ecosystems across the country while also raising awareness of light pollution and its effects.

The July 2021 Glacier National Park Artist in Residence, Barrera has also been an artist in residence at Acadia and Capitol Reef national parks and plans to spend a month in the program at the Grand Canyon this summer.

“I want to cover different kinds of ecosystems that are very different from each other with my work. I have been very fortunate to get residencies in parks that are very different from each other,” Barrera said. “I am picking the parks for their foregrounds. Obviously, the Milky Way is going to look very much the same no matter where I am photographing it from, but each park offers a different and unique foreground for my photos.”

After publishing “The Stars, the Moon and the Sun (in the NJ/NY area)” in 2019, Barrera began her study of the night skies in national parks at Joshua Tree National Park before being selected as an artist in residence at Capitol Reef National Park in Utah in 2019.

“Joshua Tree National Park, with its trees and cacti, is very different from Capitol Reef National Park, which covers more rock formations with their strata and geological history,” she said. “Acadia was important for me because it is on the East Coast and I was able to incorporate the ocean. Glacier represents the Rocky Mountains with snow, ice and majestic peaks. They are all so different.”

With a doctorate in molecular biology, Barrera worked in the research field before becoming a full-time photographer. Also a graduate of New York Institute of Photography, Barrera has exhibited her photography in a number of galleries worldwide and won several awards.

“Photography has always been my passion. It has been a tool I have been able to use to document; it was infected cells before and now it is the night sky,” she said. “My photography shows the things I care about. As a biologist, I care about the environment. I care how pollution, any kind of pollution, affects the environment and our planet. With my photography, I thought one nice way to document the effects on light pollution is to photograph the night skies.”

Barrera plans to release a new book showcasing her nighttime photographs from the national parks in the near future and recently was the subject of an online presentation as part of the Glacier National Park Conservancy’s Glacier Conversations series.

Barrera says she hopes to do another presentation with the group later this year once she is finished working on the rest of her images from her time in the park, including landscapes, wildlife, waterfalls and more.

In the meantime, she will continue to focus on educating the public about light pollution while continuing to capture her signature images of the night sky.

“I want to raise awareness of light pollution and what we can do to protect our night skies for future generations. I want to teach people how to photograph the night sky, but I also want to raise their awareness of light pollution and what we can do about it,” she said. “It’s pollution we can actually do something about and it’s easy and not expensive.”

To learn more about Imma Barrera and her work, visit her website at imma.photo

Reporter Jeremy Weber may be reached at 406-758-4446 or jweber@dailyinterlake.com.