It should be said that in no way is anyone at fault for walking on a mountain at night using a headlamp. The onus is on the photographer to plan ways to avoid this issue affecting their work, or hope for a bit of luck. A saunterer may be searching for rare wildlife or any of countless other important projects that must be shared with others on the mountain.

I don't really understand this argument. What rare wildlife would it be necessary to find at night, that wouldn't also be disturbed by bright lamps? If you were looking for nocturnal animals you'd surely want your lamps off, and for anything else you could just search after sunrise.

Can't imagine any other scenario? Perhaps they were looking for a missing colleague? One would never know, for as long as hostility and antagonism is the reaction to assumptions made, instead of .. you know .. having empathy for someone out there on the mountain in the middle of the night, looking for something/someone ..

Sorry, but none of this makes any sense to me. First rare wildlife, now lost colleagues? Tenerife has a mountain rescue service with helicopters and off-roaders.

Having empathy is great, but it still most likely that the availability of ultra-bright lamps is causing people to use them unnecessarily. There is an abundance of evidence that artificial light hurts natural ecosystems, not to mention inconveniencing astrophotographers, and I don't think it's unreasonable to take a dim view of those who use bright lights in uninhabited environments like this.

What does the word "perhaps" mean to you?

The example given was just an example - and in fact, an assumption cannot be made that the light-bearers were intentionally trying to interfere in a photo session.

It is entirely unreasonable to think that strangers on a mountain will account for a random photography project in their thinking. So the blame game doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

The onus of responsibility for having a clear shot, obviously lays with the photographer. Just because a photo is being taken, doesn't mean that others can't access the public space, too ..

They're probably one of those people who tries to take a photo across a busy sidewalk and gets annoyed when people keep walking through the shot.

Ok how about a simple reason like this - they just went for a night walk in the wilderness and are using lamps to see where they are going. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

>> I don't think it's unreasonable to take a dim view of those who use bright lights in uninhabited environments like this.

I think it is, but it's the internet, we don't have to agree.

The simple, and rather obvious, answer is that you use lights at night to see where you're going!

There is nothing wrong with that in general. If people are doing light sensitive things near me I'll of course adapt, if practical.

Yes and no. It's light pollution. It's this attitude that leads people to think it's OK to have way too loud cars/motorbikes and way too bright headlights etc. Photography doesn't affect others, but light and other types of pollution do. People should think more carefully about how their super-important projects and errands will affect others.

I think its more troubling to think that someones Very Important Thing™ might be being disturbed by someone elses More Important Thing™.

Whining about flashlights ruining your shot is one thing - not having compassion for someone who might be searching the mountain for a lost colleague, or any one of a number of other possible scenarios, is another thing entirely.

Its quite psychopathic to not at least consider that there might have been a more noble purpose behind those flashlights than just "some random creep ruining my special shot".

In this scenario, the onus of responsibility is on the photographer, not the other visitors, to ensure the sterility of their scene. Why didn't the author climb up there and talk to them, or coordinate at the visitors center, or some such effort - instead of just immediately jumping to hostile blame.

Aren't you assuming that the author didn't reach out?

There's nothing in the article that indicates they reached out - there is plenty in the article to indicate that the assumption of entitlement to the mountain was being made, in spades.

Very troubling to think the author did not even consider that those people were searching for their long lost colleague after reciveing mysterious signals coming from the Teide crater. All of which indicating an exact point in space and time where a portal would appear and contact could finally be made. Actually quite psychopathic they didn't consider this at all.

Now that I think of it, since they were shouting to turn off the lights ... If I heard some people shouting something I can't understand in the dark near a 3700m peak, I would presume there might be people who need help and try to locate them. It would make sense that they came into their direction.

I hear a lot of astrophotographers take many short-exposure (5-10s) photos and then stich them together in POST. Missing 1 of possible 100 photos in OK I think?

Keeping in mind that you photographing a specific thing in the sky, not the startrails, as missing a frame will be very visible there.

Sub exposures are taken explicitly to avoid this issue. It also lets you easily to be planes and satellites.

I haven’t done long exposure photography in a while, but I also really really don’t like very bright headlamps at night. Very dim, or red light lamps are usually all that’s needed

Can't really pinpoint the place where they were located, but guessing some place between Portillo and Montaña Blanca at an altitude of 2200 meters, I'd say they could have seen either people coming down from the Altavista shelter to Montaña Blanca, or from the workers hut in Montaña Blanca (I think it's for the volcanologists).

I think the shelter's closed right now, so I guess in both cases it would probably be workers coming down.

Seems like they decided last minute to hike up for doing the shooting, so I hope they got the night permit.

It reminds me of one evening around the time of the recent Aurora Borealis sightings in the UK. We finally had a cloudless evening but couldn't really travel right out into a dark sky so tried in a large meadow just outside of town.

Unfortunately, we weren't the only people with this idea. Half the town had descended on to this one meadow. It was quite comical seeing people awkwardly milling around who had clearly never been in a meadow in the dark before. Phone lights were on as well as fully lit screens etc. I think I've had better night vision during the day.

One of them suddenly exclaimed, "is that it?!". It was, in fact, not "it", but rather the glow from the town in which we all lived.