Our summer break in 2024 was spent in the Ligurian Alps, the range that straddles the border between north west Italy and France. I’d been scouting for somewhere dark and high to watch the Perseids peak, and settled on Monte Saccarello, at just over 7,000 feet one of the tallest peaks in the region, and a stop on the Alta Via dei Monti Liguri, the long distance trail and pilgrimage route that threads along the ridge. Near the summit stands a huge bronze statue of Christ the Redeemer, and I had a feeling it would make quite a foreground.

Hiking up with a full load of kit was never the plan, so I spent days trying to work out whether a 4x4 could actually make it to the top. A few grainy videos online suggested it was at least possible, so I set off mid afternoon with plenty of daylight in hand in case the route fell apart on me. Two hours to reach the foot of the mountain, then the trail took over: rock and dirt clinging to the mountainside, hairpin after hairpin, the views opening up wider with every bend. It was every bit as exciting as it sounds. A little over an hour later I crested the summit ridge just as the sun was setting, the valleys already sinking into blue haze while the peaks around me still burned gold, and distant thunderheads added their own drama to the horizon.

I cooked dinner as the sky turned, and it darkened fast. The Milky Way’s core punched through the last of the twilight far earlier than I expected. Up at that altitude, all the haze and grime of the lower atmosphere was sitting beneath me instead of in front of my lens, and the sky took on a clarity I hadn’t seen in years.

The rest of the night was spent chasing that clarity: a few compositions, some timelapses, and long tracked exposures to pull out every bit of detail the Milky Way had to offer. Meteors fell every few minutes, and the rate climbed noticeably after midnight, while storms lit up the central Alps in the distance all night long, somewhere between backdrop and spectacle. Then, in the small hours, I watched in disbelief as my camera started filling with soft pink light. Aurora, from this part of the world, the last thing I expected to capture here. I could even make out the faint brightening with my own eyes, no camera needed.

It’s nights like this one that explain why I do this. The images matter, but it’s the adventure, the drive up a mountainside I had no real business attempting, the steak cooked as the sun went down, the sky slowly revealing itself in ways I’ll never forget, that stays with me. Some nights just live on in memory long after the last frame is shot, and this was one of them.