Conference

Announcing the First-Ever Online Night Photo Summit

We are so pleased to announce the first-of-its-kind dedicated Night Photo Summit, to be held February 12-14, 2021.


One of the things we love best about National Parks at Night is the amazing community that’s grown around our mutual love of night photography since we began this project back in 2015. We’ve been talking about a way to celebrate that for a long time.

Last year, we held our first all-alumni workshop in Death Valley, and the energy and camaraderie we all experienced was cathartic. (It seems like a decade ago now!) We’ve long wanted to do a larger-scale event to bring the entire community together, and to introduce more people to the magic we experience under the stars in our amazing national parks.

Rather than wait until we can all gather together in one of those parks, we decided to produce a virtual event now that will enable even more people to gather to share and learn from an extraordinary group of speakers and educators.

We are over the moon to present the first Night Photo Summit

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Join us this February for three days of presentations from 28 dynamic speakers discussing a wide range of topics on all things nocturnal, and all things national parks, and a little more.

You’ll learn from photographers, astrophysicists, writers, artists and rangers about astronomy, dark skies, creativity, and of course photo techniques––both in the field and post-processing. 

There will be panel discussions (including one on “Women in Night Photography”), image reviews with the National Parks at Night instructors, a screening of the amazing aurora film Light Side Up, and opportunities to connect with the wider community of creative professionals who share a love of night photography.

Our incredible lineup of speakers and talks includes:

  • Kevin Adams: “Photographing Waterfalls between Sunset and Sunrise”

  • Gabriel Biderman: “Urban Nightscapes: Creating Magical Long Exposures Under Streetlight”

  • Paul Bogard: “Is This the End of Night?”

  • Gary Bremen and Grant Livingston: “Songs and Stories of our National Parks”

  • Russell Preston Brown: “Creative Night Photography with a Mobile Phone”

  • Forest Chaput de Saintonge: “Getting Started With Deep Sky Astrophotography”

  • Michael Frye: “Noise Reduction Strategies for Night Photography”

  • Matt Hill: “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark: Fostering a Creative Night Photography Habit”

  • Rachel Jones Ross: “Winter Nights: Capturing Night Sky Magic Without Freezing Your Bits”

  • Lance Keimig: “Abbreviated History of Night Photography”

  • Jennifer Khordi: “Shooting the Moon and New York City”

  • Erik Kuna: “Ignite Your Nighttime Rocket Photography”

  • Nate Luebbe and Autumn Schrock: “Chasing the Aurora Borealis”

  • Susan Magnano: “Chasing Moonlight”

  • David Marx: “Creating a Basic Time-Lapse Video Clip”

  • Harun Mehmedinovic: “Skyglow”

  • Dr. Tyler Nordgren: “Astrophysics for Better Astro-Landscape Photography”

  • Troy Paiva: “Night Photography and Light Painting: the Lost America Style”

  • Eric Paré: “Getting Started With Outdoors Tube Light Painting”

  • Sherry Pincus: “Backpacking: the Key to Amazing Dark Skies and Unique Photo Opportunities”

  • Rafael Pons: “How to Plan any Sun, Moon and Milky Way Photo You Imagine with PhotoPills”

  • Sandra Ramos: “Planning the Perfect National Park Adventure”

  • Jess Santos: “Blending Magic: Blue Hour Blends and Composites”

  • Adam Woodworth: “Milky Way Panoramas”

  • … and more to be announced!

The Basics

There will also be something very special to this summit: a Night Photography Fundamentals track that will allow a newcomer to this genre to learn the necessary skills, or the photographer with know-how to brush up their skills.

Sponsors & Giveaways

Every attendee will be automatically entered into drawings for a large number of giveaways from our generous sponsors, as well as amazing session-specific giveaways from some speakers. Prizes include a one-year Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, a night photo walk in New York City, B&H Photo gift cards, an Irix lens, books and video classes by our speakers, and more.

The Night Photo Summit is sponsored by B&H Photo, Adobe, Tether Tools, X-Rite, Coast Portland, Acratech, PhotoPills, Vallerret, Bay Photo and Irix, with additional sponsors to be named soon.

How to Join Us

If you’re into night photography, or if you want to get into in it, this is an event you absolutely do not want to miss.

Tickets are $399, and include:

  • three days, 28 instructors, nearly 40 hours of inspirations and instruction

  • 1 year access to re-watch any of the courses

  • three live image review sessions

  • three panel discussions

  • Friday-night film screening with filmmaker Q&A

  • exclusive summit T-shirt (mailed to attendees with U.S. addresses, and we may be able to help those from other countries too!)

  • personal access to product experts from brand sponsors

  • lots of giveaways throughout the duration of the summit

  • an unprecedented opportunity to connect with like-minded photographers passionate about the night

Registration is available now, so sign up today and mark your calendars to join National Parks at Night for the world’s first online Night Photo Summit!

Join Us on Social Media

As if that isn’t all enough, we’ll be releasing plenty more information over the next few weeks. To stay tuned in to it all, we invite you to follow the Summit social media accounts on:

We are very much looking forward to seeing you online next month. In the meantime, feel free to ask us any questions via the social media accounts above, in the comments below, or through the Summit webpage.

Seize the night … online!

Lance Keimig is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He has been photographing at night for 35 years, and is the author of Night Photography and Light Painting: Finding Your Way in the Dark (Focal Press, 2015). Learn more about his images and workshops at www.thenightskye.com.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Conferences, Clubs and Excursions, Oh My! Come Join Us for an Event This Fall

One of our favorite parts of doing what we do is getting out into the photography community to meet and talk with like-minded photographers. It gives us a chance to share what we know, to learn from the experiences of others, and to swap stories about working in the dark and working in the parks.

We do this all year round, but autumn seems to be the time when some of the biggest opportunities fall into a line of quick succession. It’s kind of like the “Conference District” of our collective schedule.

With that in mind, we wanted to share some of the events we’ll be participating in this fall. We hope you can join us at some of these amazing gatherings!

Out of Acadia Photography Conference

Bar Harbor, Maine

This one actually just ended, and was the first landscape photography conference organized by the Out of Chicago group. They’ve been running tours, workshops and walks in their home city since 2011, and conferences since 2016. Gabe and I were honored to speak and lead walks at their Out of New York Photography Conference last year, and last week I did the same at their conference in Maine’s Acadia National Park.

I taught a class on photographing the night sky, and delivered the conference’s closing session, “From Acadia to Zion: 59 Parks to Inspire Your Photography.” In addition to the myriad classes and presentations by the instructors and leaders, the conference had a very shooting-friendly format. Each morning, afternoon and night featured scores of photo walks and excursions, to places like Monument Cove, Boulder Beach, Cadillac Mountain, Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse, Schoodic Peninsula and many, many more.

Me, during an Out of Acadia photo excursion up to North Bubble. Great photo courtesy of conference attendee and new friend Ron Johnson.

Me, during an Out of Acadia photo excursion up to North Bubble. Great photo courtesy of conference attendee and new friend Ron Johnson.

Out of Acadia was a dynamic event that left the attendees, instructors and organization exhausted (in a good way) and creatively fulfilled. If you were there, you’re probably still sorting through images. If you weren’t there, you can look into attending their next landscape event: the Out of Moab Photography Conference, to be held in October 2018. I’ll be there too!

PhotoPlus International Conference + Expo

New York City, New York

It’s one of the kings of the photo-conference world, held in New York City at the famous Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. And we’ll be speaking there on the final morning, for the third successive year. This time, we’re sponsored by one of the biggest supporters of the National Parks at Night workshop program: NIKON.

On Saturday, October 28, from 10:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., Matt, Gabe and I will deliver a two-hour presentation titled “Seize the Night—Taking your Night Photography to the Next Level.” From the session description:

“The National Parks at Night Team is excited to share their expertise and nocturnal visions with you. Go behind the scenes of some of their most challenging shots and see how they prevailed or failed. Take a look at the many aspects of night photography: astro-landscape, light painting, urban and Milky Way. Have your work reviewed and get valuable feedback on how you can elevate your night photography. You'll learn about essential gear, post-production tips, light painting, star trails, star points and urban night photography.”

If you’re not yet registered for PhotoPlus and would like to do so at 15 percent off, feel free to use our speakers’ link.

Lance Keimig will also be at PhotoPlus, delivering two presentations at the Irix booth during the day (at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.), and leading a night photo walk on the famed High Line (from 6 to 8 p.m.). For more information, see the event page on Facebook.

The Great Smoky Mountains Photography Summit

Townsend, Tennessee

From November 1-5, I’ll be on the road again, this time to Tennessee and North Carolina, where I’ll be speaking at this singular event held at one of the jewels of the park system, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Clouds in the valleys of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. © 2013 Chris Nicholson.

Clouds in the valleys of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. © 2013 Chris Nicholson.

I’ll be one of 12 instructors delivering presentations, offering image critiques and leading field sessions in the park. I’ll be talking about light painting and national park photography, and others will be discussing topics as diverse as metering, creativity, master field techniques and more. There’s also a print competition, with a grand prize of a Fuji X-E3 kit.

If you’ve never been to or photographed the Smoky Mountains, this is an excellent opportunity. See the Great Smoky Mountains Photography Summit website for more information about how to register.

Camera Clubs, etc.

After mid-fall, things slow down for us a bit in terms of speaking at conferences. But that doesn’t mean we won’t be out and talking about photography whenever we get the chance. We’re currently booked to speak at camera clubs in four states between now and mid-winter, including the Churchville Photography Club in Pennsylvania, the New Haven Camera Club in Connecticut, the Englewood Camera Club in Florida and the Greater Lynn Photographic Association in Massachusetts.

Last year we partnered with the New York Adventure Club, sponsored by by B&H photo and Hudson Mercantile, to host a light painting class on a secret rooftop in Manhattan.

Last year we partnered with the New York Adventure Club, sponsored by by B&H photo and Hudson Mercantile, to host a light painting class on a secret rooftop in Manhattan.

And we’ll happily add more to the schedule! If you belong to a club that might like to hear about night photography and/or national parks, etc., feel free to contact us. There are numerous topics we’re prepared to talk about. We’re also eager to speak and/or lead photo walks for podcasts, trade shows, outdoors groups, night sky festivals, arts councils, museums, educational institutions and … well, probably for anyone interested in participating in engaging discussion about the topics we are crazy-passionate about! :-)

To keep updated about where and when we’ll be presenting at any given time, reference our Speaking Engagements webpage, or sign up for our event notification emails.

We look forward to meeting you all out in the photography community at some point soon. Until then, seize the night!

Chris Nicholson is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

NPAN to Lecture at B&H OPTIC Conference June 5-8 in NYC

We are honored to join B&H on-stage for the second annual OPTIC Imaging Conference and Tradeshow about Travel, Outdoor & Wildlife Photography.

On June 6 (Day Two) at 3:45pm, all five of our instructors will be presenting:

Night Visions of National Parks

Description: Ever wanted to come away from an experience in a National Park with outstanding and unique images? The NPAN teams takes to the OPTIC stage at once; Gabriel Biderman, Tim Cooper, Matt Hill, Lance Keimig, and Chris Nicholson, all diverse night photographers and educators, as they explore options for finding your clearest and most creative voice in America's natural wilderness–at night.

So please RSVP (it's free!) and join us live and in person, or from anywhere in the world via the LiveStream.

You can also visit us at a table during the open trade show hours to chat about night photography & national parks or to browse the books our educators have to offer. Drop by for a free NPAN sticker and tell us you read about it here.

And don't forget to RSVP and attend the Nikon-sponsored Dinner Party and Cocktail reception on the evening of June 5th. Details here.

See more about Matt's photography, art, workshops and writing at MattHillArt.com. Follow Matt on Twitter Instagram Facebook.

Upcoming workshops from National Parks at Night