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A photograph purportedly depicting a man standing at the base of Heaven's trail in Ireland has been circulated on the Internet since at least 2011. While the image has seen various backstories attached to it over the years, the most common iteration goes like this: The above-quoted statement contains several factual errors. According to photographer Thomas Zimmer, this picture was taken not in Ireland but on Sylt (an island in northern Germany), and it was not snapped during a biennial event occurring in June but rather in November around sunset: Even if Zimmer's photograph wasn't taken during a rare June event in Ireland, it is nonetheless a real image. Of course, it took a little post-processing, a serendipitous location, and a happy accident to achieve, as Zimmer explained in a blog post on 8 September 2012. The photographer was trying to light up the wooden steps seen in the image with a flashlight when he realized that the photo would turn out better if a person were standing atop the steps. So he set the self-timer on his camera and ran up the path, and it wasn't until he got home afterwards that he realized his camera shutter had opened while the flashlight in his hand was still alight: It was a mistake. But it was a beautiful one: Zimmer also admitted that he did some editing to the image (e.g., adjusted color temperature, added noise reduction, brightened the stars, etc.) in order to achieve the photograph's unique look. Still, he insists that there is nothing too special about the picture. In fact, he challenged other photographers to go out and shoot their own heaven's trail photo: One last thing should be noted about this photograph. While the photo is often referred to as the Heaven's Trail photo, Zimmer's title for his shot is My God, it's full of stars (a line from Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey novel).
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