Five Questions: Meteor Shower in Death Valley, Leveling Bases, Coast Flashlights and More

If you have questions, we like to try to have answers. Below are five examples.

This installment of our “Five Questions” series features inquiries about photographing meteor showers in Death Valley National Park, diffusing an LED panel, saving stacked files, Coast flashlights and using leveling bases for panos.

If you have any questions you would like to throw our way, please contact us anytime. Questions could be about gear, national parks and other photo locations, post-processing techniques, field etiquette, or anything else related to night photography. #SeizeTheNight!

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1. Meteor Shower Locations in Death Valley

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Moon over Mesquite Flat Dunes, Death Valley National Park. © 2016 Chris Nicholson. Nikon D5 with a Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8 lens. 10 seconds, f/5.6, ISO 3200.

Question:

My wife and I and our two dogs are going to Death Valley National Park to shoot the Geminid Meteor Shower in December. Finding a foreground subject is going to be a challenge because the radiant is relatively high (72 degrees according to PhotoPills). Here is a list of potential foregrounds I have come up with: Mesquite Flat Dunes, twenty-mule team wagons, Ashford Mill, Keane Wonder Mine, Twenty Mule Team Canyon, Badwater Basin, the palm grove at Furnace Creek Ranch. Any thoughts would be much appreciated. — H.J.

Answer:

Yay! What a great idea. We love photographing meteor showers, and we love Death Valley.

As for locations: If you want the radiant in the frame, you’re looking for a view toward east-northeast. With that in mind …

• Mesquite Flat Dunes always works. Be ready to walk in a bit to find dunes without footprints. Also be ready (food, water, second camera) to stay out there, because you’re likely not going to be walking back and forth to the car.

• Twenty-mule team wagons: I assume you mean the ones at the Borax Museum. I wouldn’t shoot there. The wagons are surrounded by a fence. Also, the east-northeast view will have the road in the background of your frame, and being so close to Furnace Creek, cars will definitely be driving through.

• Ashford Mill could be interesting. You could get an east-northeast angle from behind the structure; the road would be in the background, but I’d be surprised if another car goes back there at night. The downside is that there’s not a lot of variation to the location. It’s primarily just two structures, and one of them is more visually interesting than the other. I’d definitely scout it in daytime before committing to a night shoot there, because it’s just isolated enough so that changing locations midstream would be impractical.

• Keane Wonder Mine is a fun location generally, but you’d have a tough time finding a good east-northeast angle.

• I love shooting in Twenty Mule Team Canyon. Interesting rock formations that aren’t difficult to navigate on foot, and plenty of foreground material from east-northeast angles.

• Badwater Basin is great any time of day or night, but it wouldn’t be the easiest spot for this particular shoot. From any east-northeast angle you’ll have either the parking lot and/or road in the background, so you’ll be dealing with headlights. My other concern is that when the shower is peaking, the radiant will be so high that you’ll need to be pointing upward with a wide-angle lens. That would minimize any flat foreground at the bottom of the frame. I’m sure there are creative ways to make it work, but my hunch is that making it work well would be challenging, so I’d definitely day-scout any ideas before trying.

• The palm grove at Furnace Creek is an interesting place to shoot, but there’s a lot of artificial light in the area. You’d need to fight with that to find a balance that would work with star captures.

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Golden Canyon, Death Valley National Park. © 2020 Chris Nicholson. Nikon D5 with a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. 43 stacked images shot at 4 minutes, f/4, ISO 400.

Here are a few spots I like besides what you’ve mentioned:

• I’d consider the Wildrose Charcoal Kilns. The caveat is that it will be cold up there in December, and there’s even a chance the road will be snowed in, so I’d ask a ranger before committing to the drive. But you’d surely find an east-northeast view you like, with a very interesting foreground.

• The east-northeast view at Ubehebe Crater is spectacular. It would be cold up there at night, but the east-northeast view is also right next to the parking lot, so you could wait out the exposures in your warm car if needed. However, the crater is very dark without moonlight, which you won’t have on the peak nights, so you’d probably want to get a twilight exposure to blend in. That would require some precise positioning and waiting around for quite a while without moving the camera. Also, the rim of the crater sometimes gets too windy for even a tripod, so there’s a possibility you’d have to abandon the location mid-shoot.

• Golden Canyon could be fun. Steep walls, but you’ll be pointing up anyway. Also, it’s close to the services at Furnace Creek.

Good luck, and please let us know how this goes! We would love to see the results. — Chris

Note: If you’re also interested in getting out to shoot next month’s Gemenids, be sure to pick up a copy of our e-book Great Balls of Fire: A Guide to Photographing Meteor Showers.

2. Viola Diffusion

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Luxli Viola LED Light Kit with Softbox & Diffusion Filter.

Question:

I have been playing with the Luxli Viola for few months. Do you ever use the diffuser for it? Any tips on using it? — Steve W.

Answer:

I do use the diffuser on occasion, and sometimes even add a piece of neutral density gel inside if I’m looking for the subtlest kiss of light. Mostly, I pull out the diffuser when I’m aiming for a subtle natural effect, or for night portraits.

Another great tool to diffuse the Viola is a 2- or 3-foot square scrim that mimics the effect of a softbox. That’s not always practical on location, and it requires some additional grip equipment, but it is a nice option to have. An old picture frame with a piece of white sheet stretched across it is all it takes! — Lance

3. Saving or Deleting Files for Stacking

Question:

How do you manage the number and size of photo files when stacking? For example, Starry Landscape Stacker uses TIFF images to combine into one huge file. Can I delete those individual files and keep just the final image? When I create a stack in Photoshop, can I delete the images the final photo is composed of? — Sue W.

Answer:

For Starry Landscape Stacker or any other program that creates JPEGs or TIFFs to bring them into their program: Once you finish your processing and are 100 percent happy with it, you can definitely delete those individual JPGs/TIFFs. Save yourself some storage! However, if you do that, make sure you have the final file organized somewhere that makes sense to you. I typically will import this new TIFF into Lightroom, where I can do a final edit and store it in my catalog.

However, there is a caveat: What if you want to re-process the idea later? For example, I just recently revisited and reprocessed my “Road to the Milky Way” image that I originally worked on two years ago. I still had all those individual TIF files in a folder on my hard drive—that was a time-saver for me, because I didn’t have to re-export them all.

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Road to the Milky Way. © 2019 Gabriel Biderman. Nikon D5 with an Irix 15mm f/2.4 lens. Foreground: 13 minutes, f/2.5, ISO 1600; background: nine frames shot at 25 seconds, f/2.5, ISO 6400 and stacked in Starry Landscape Stacker.

So there can be benefits to keeping or deleting those raw materials. The key is that whatever you do, have them organized. Whenever I create JPGs or TIFFs for third-party software or any other use, I always store them in a subfolder that is clearly marked so that I can find them down the road.

If you do delete those images, be sure you are deleting only those exported files—not your original RAW files.

Stacking in Photoshop is a different matter. For this you’re not creating multiple exported files and importing them, you’re instead opening a new Photoshop file with all those images as layers. This creates one very large file. So the question isn’t really about saving lots of individual files, but rather whether to save one giant file with tons of layers or to flatten the layers and save a smaller file. That’s a personal choice, and can be affected by circumstances.

I try to get all my layer editing adjustments done in one take, then flatten the file and save it back to Lightroom. However, if I am not done editing, or if I want to keep a version to revisit at a later date, I’ll save the layered file as a PSB (Photoshop’s large-file format), which Lightroom can absorb as part of the catalog. — Gabe

4. Value of Coast Flashlights

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Coast HP7R.

Question:

In your gear list and blog posts you pretty much always mention the Coast HP7R, Coast HP5R or another Coast flashlight for light painting. I’m curious why. If I have another brand of flashlight that has the same lumens output, what’s the difference? — Lynn

Answer:

You can use just about any flashlight for light painting, but we like Coast for the quality of the light (i.e, the high CRI value), as well as the precision of the focusing. Most flashlights have a lot of “spill” around a bright center spot, but Coast lights have a patented focusing mechanism that concentrates the light more intensely, as well as evenly across the beam with less spill around the edges. This makes for much more control when light painting. — Lance

5. Is a Leveling Base Redundant?

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Bryce Canyon pano. © 2019 Matt Hill. Nikon Z 6 with a Zeiss 15mm Distagon f/2.8 lens. 14 stitched frames shot at 16 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 6400.

Question:

I read your blog post on night panoramas and I have a question. I have a Really Right Stuff TVC34L tripod with a BH-55 ball head, both with levels. Do I also need a leveling head? — Brien

Answer:

Technically you do not need to have a leveling base if your tripod gets leveled first. After that, anything mounted to it will pan without tilting to the left or right.

However, sometimes it’s annoying to have to separately adjust three legs to level the tripod, especially on uneven ground. Seriously. That’s the moment you wish you had a leveling base. It’s pretty much always faster to level with one. I find them invaluable when I’m serious about shooting for pano stitching.

If you shoot panos only occasionally and you’re willing to tolerate the minute adjustments to legs and then checking the bubble level on top of the tripod over and over, then no sweat—it can be tedious, but it’s easy enough. But if panos are going to be a regular thing for you, a leveling base will improve the experience.

For the record, I use the Acratech Leveling Base. I love it. — Matt

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.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

How I Got the Shot: Ubehebe Crater at Death Valley National Park

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Ubehebe Crater, Death Valley National Park. Nikon D5 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens at 24mm. 11 stitched frames photographed at 10 seconds, f/5.6, ISO 2500.

The Location

Ubehebe Crater could be the most underrated natural feature in Death Valley National Park. Lots of folks know about Badwater Basin, where hexagonal formations rise from the salt flats; and Mesquite Flat Dunes, where sand rises and dips in patterns that lead toward desert-mountain backgrounds; and Racetrack Playa, where rocks appear to sail across the dried, cracked mud.

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Figure 1. Look out!

All those things are well-renowned, and they should be. But I’m continually bemused at how few people know about Ubehebe, a half-mile-wide, 600-foot-deep volcanic crater. Why? Because it’s amazing!

Standing at the edge (carefully, Figure 1) reveals a beautiful, mesmerizing landscape. Standing at the bottom is awe-inspiring, as you look up and marvel at the power of nature to blast such a massive amount of earth over an area of 6 square miles.

It’s also a fun place to hike, as immediately to the south sit a few more smaller craters. You can hike along the rims or to the bottoms and explore the wonders of geology and wilderness.

However, one thing that Ubehebe Crater is not? Easy to photograph. The main attraction is the main crater, and it’s a pretty massive subject.

The first time I photographed it, in 2017 (Figure 2), I used a Nikon 14-24mm lens at its widest zoom, which was OK, but I could barely fit the whole crater in the frame. Moreover, at that wide a focal length you really need foreground material to help create a sense of depth in the composition, and the crater rim offers very little of that.

In 2018 I got to try shooting the crater with the rectilinear Irix 11mm lens (Figure 3). That allowed me to get the whole crater into a 35mm frame, and some wild clouds helped add a special dynamic to the scene, but I still wasn’t thrilled with the photo. I visited again in 2019, and didn’t even bother shooting. I was completely out of ideas for how to make the scene work in a photograph.

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Figure 2. Nikon D3s with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. 1/1250, f/8, ISO 400.

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Figure 3. Nikon D5 with an Irix 11mm f/4 lens. Three blended exposures of 1/640, 1/1250 and 1/2500, at f/8, ISO 100.

Another challenge to photographing the crater is that its sharp angle of decline prevents sunlight from fully illuminating the interior unless the sun is relatively high in the sky. So on a bright day, you need to choose between harsh light at midday or big shadows earlier or later. You might think that overcast conditions are the answer, but I’ve tried that too. Flat light wipes out all depth and diminishes the warm-toned hues on the eastern flank that are such a crucial part of the crater’s aesthetics.

Honestly, as much as I love Ubehebe Crater, by early 2019 I’d just about given up trying to make a photograph of it that I like.

The Aha Moment

Then in February 2020 I was back at Death Valley for National Parks at Night’s very first Alumni Excursion, a 5-night, 6-day photography jaunt through this amazing place. Toward the end of the workshop, we made a day and night trip to Racetrack Playa, and on the way we stopped at Ubehebe Crater.

I was leading this workshop with Lance Keimig and Matt Hill, and Matt had never been to the crater before. As most people do, he loved it. And he said, “On the way back tonight it’d be awesome to shoot a moonlit pano of this.”

Aha! That was the answer. I knew it right away. I had to get this image.

So, we scouted. Matt went off to explore his idea for the photograph, and I went off to explore mine. I hiked along the northern rim to find an angle where I could get a good vantage point over the crater with the snowy peaks of Hunter Mountain in the background. I made a quick auto-pano using my cell phone, just to make sure the composition would work the way I wanted (Figure 4). Then I checked PhotoPills to confirm a suspicion: That evening, I could shoot the full moon drifting through background of the scene. That was my shot. It was scouted and ready to be executed hours later, in the dark of the California desert.

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Figure 4. A daylight test pano from my scouted spot, using my Google Pixel 3a.

The Shoot

Unfortunately, the Racetrack is hard to leave, and we stayed late. By the time we returned to Ubehebe, the moon had drifted way out of the scene. But it was still high, and delicately sidelighting the crater, and that was beautiful.

The hour was late—well after midnight on what had been a long day at the end of an adventure-filled week—and I was exhausted. But I was also determined. I was getting this image.

With my eyes half closed, I carried my tripod, Nikon D5 and two lenses one-quarter mile to my spot. I set up, tested each lens, and decided the Nikon 14-24mm (zoomed all the way to 24mm) was my best option for creating the image I had in my mind.

The first key to shooting a pano is to level the entire setup. I own a Gitzo GSLVLS Leveling head, but unfortunately didn’t have it with me. So I needed to level manually. That required three steps:

1. leveling my tripod legs by using the bubble level on the top as a guide (Figure 5, left, bottom circle)

2. leveling my ball head by using its bubble level the same as above (Figure 5, left, top circle)

3. using the in-camera Virtual Horizon to ensure that all the leveling was correct by panning the setup left to right and back again and watching to see that the camera stayed level across the scene (Figure 5, right)

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Figure 5. Perfectly level in every way.

I fired off a couple of test photos to nail down an exposure. The NPF Rule told me I could shoot as long as 10 seconds before the stars began to trail. That was easy under moonlight, as I could achieve that shutter speed at ISO 640 with the lens wide open. However, I unconditionally trust the ISOs of the D5, so I pushed to ISO 2500, which allowed me to close the aperture to f/5.6 and really take advantage of the best sharpness levels of the lens.

I was finally ready to shoot. I started with the camera panned far to the left, way past where I needed it for the final composition, to give myself flexibility to crop in later. I shot the first frame. Using the engraved degree markings on the bottom of my Really Right Stuff BH-55 ball head, I rotated the camera 15 degrees to the right, then shot again. (That’s really more overlap than I needed, but I always prefer to have more than less.) I repeated this nine times, until I was shooting far right of my composition, for a total of 11 frames.

The Post-Production

The only change I wanted to make before assembling the pano was to apply lens corrections. This is best practice when making panos (particularly at night), so that any natural vignetting of the lens is removed. Otherwise, the color and brightness of the sky can fluctuate across the final panorama.

In Lightroom, I selected all 11 images in Grid view (Figure 6), then clicked to the Develop module. At the bottom right, I toggled the switch next to the Sync button to enable Auto Sync (Figure 7). Then I opened the Lens Corrections panel, then checked the boxes to turn on Remove Chromatic Aberration and Enable Profile Corrections. Then I went back to the bottom right and turned off Auto Sync.

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Figure 6.

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Figure 7.

To start the stitch, with the 11 frames still selected, in the menu I chose Photo > Photo Merge > Merge to Panorama. In the resulting dialog (Figure 8), I selected Spherical for the Projection, because it created the look I had in mind more closely than Cylindrical. I choose not to use Boundary Warp, Fill Edges, Auto Crop or Auto Settings, because I prefer to perform those tasks manually and deliberately. I did, however, click on Create Stack, because I like my multi-frame images to be neatly organized in the Lightroom catalog.

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Figure 8.

I clicked Merge, and Lightroom did a great job stitching the 11 frames.

I switched to the Basic panel to apply some basic edits to Whites and Clarity, to make the overall image “pop” a little, then I manually made my crop to hone in on the elements I felt were most important to the composition (Figure 9).

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Figure 9.

I felt the sky and stars needed even more punch, so I used the Graduated Filter tool to create a mask over the top half of the frame. I wanted the changes to affect only the sky, and not the mountains, so I enabled Range Mask and chose Color. Using the Color Range Selector (the eyedropper) to sample the blue sky, then used the Amount slider to tweak the selection. When I was happy with my mask (Figure 10), I made minor adjustments to Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Blacks, Texture, Clarity and Sharpness—all to add just a little extra “oomph” to the sky, to make it appear in the image how it looked to me in person.

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Figure 10.

Because the moon was off camera-right, the right side of the sky was noticeably brighter. To tone that down a bit, I created another mask in the same way as above, but instead of the top of the frame, I targeted the right (Figure 11). I then brought up Dehaze a bit to increase the local contrast of that portion of the frame, making it appear a little darker, and massaged the mask a bit to ensure a transition that looks natural.

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Figure 11.

Wrapping Up

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The final image. Ubehebe Crater, Death Valley National Park. Nikon D5 with a Nikon 14-24mm lens at 24mm. 11 stitched frames photographed at 10 seconds, f/5.6, ISO 2500.

That’s how I finally, after four tries, made an image of Ubehebe Crater that I’m happy with.

The 3-year process from first visit to final image reinforced three ideas:

1. Revisiting locations almost always leads to making better photographs.

2. Photographing at night almost always allows for a unique way of photographing a scene.

3. Creative breakthroughs can come from listening to what others think. I love teamwork and collaboration! (Thank you, Matt!)

Am I now done with Ubehebe? No way! On my hike back to the car that night, I thought of another idea, and I’m confident it will work. Stay tuned. Some night I’ll shoot that idea too.

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.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Two From the Road: Our Favorite National Park Night Photographs of 2019

Here we are again, at the end of a year, when nature dictates to our psyches that we examine all that we’ve done in the 364 days prior. And that, of course, includes everything we’ve done with cameras under dark skies.

We at National Parks at Night have accepted this annual self-assignment—for the five of us to examine the work we’ve done in the past year and each choose our favorite two photographs. The reasons for our choices vary. Some are favorites because of overcoming a technical obstacle, some for making a new technique work, some for exploring a new place, some for the experience and the memory.

Whatever the reason for these images making our cut, all have two things in common:

1. Each of these ten photographs are from units of the National Park Service—our homes away from home, and some of the very best places in the world to practice night photography.

2. We enjoyed making all of these photographs, and we enjoy recalling the stories of how they came to be. Enjoyment, of course, is the best goal for photography all around.

So here we go. The ten images that we most enjoyed making in 2019 …

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Gabriel Biderman

Lassen Volcanic National Park

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Cinder Cone and Milky Way, Lassen Volcanic National Park. Nikon Z 6 with Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. Twilight foreground: 15 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 100; Night sky: 25 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 6400.

My favorite photo of the year is from our Lassen Volcanic National Park workshop, at the Cinder Cone volcano. Lassen Volcanic, in California, is a true gem, as well as an under-visited national park.

All four types of volcanoes are featured in Lassen, and they make for great foregrounds against the incredibly starry skies. Cinder Cone is one of the best for photography, though it takes some work to get to, as it sits in the more remote northeast corner of the park and requires a 2-mile one-way hike with an elevation gain of 846 feet over the last .8 miles up the side of the loose-rock volcano.

We started the hike in the afternoon so that we could get to the top before sunset. Halfway up we took a break, and I loved the visual of the trail carving up the side of the volcano. I checked PhotoPills and was ecstatic to see that later the core of the Milky Way would be rising right above the summit. That night was dedicated to shooting along the rim, but the next evening I revisited the trail for this composition.

I set up the camera and tripod low to the ground so I could make the path appear larger in the composition. The idea was to take two shots and blend them together, which was the only way to get the rich detail of the cinder fragments balanced with a good exposure of the stars. I shot one image that yielded the foreground detail (but a blown-out sky) and another image 45 minutes later that yielded a great Milky Way (but a silhouetted foreground).  In post-production this was a fairly easy image to blend.

Now to make some room on my wall for the print!

Cape Hatteras National Seashore

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Space X, Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Nikon Z 6 with a Nikon 28mm f/1.4 lens. 10 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 12800.

My other favorite image was more spontaneous, and also happened on a workshop—this time at Ocracoke Beach in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. This workshop was incredibly fun, with the overriding theme of photographing lighthouses at night.

We took the morning car ferry to Ocracoke, which is mostly contained within the boundaries of Cape Hatteras National Seashore. We spent the afternoon exploring the village, and we of course got our passports stamped at the park visitor center. We shot the sun setting over Pamlico Sound, then moved to Ocracoke Beach for the night shoot.

We heard rumors from a few beachgoers that we might be able to see Space X’s Falcon 9 shortly after it would be launching from Cape Canaveral that night. We really didn’t think much of it, as we assumed the spacecraft would be pretty small from our vantage point; in 20-plus years of shooting night skies, I had never witnessed any rockets or space junk worth photographing. But that was about to change!

We had been shooting for an hour when lo and behold, the rocket started to shoot across the sky, very apparent and looking like nothing I’d ever seen before—like an arrow of light. Luckily most of us were already focused at infinity and just needed to pan our cameras to the direction of the rocket. The spectacle lasted for no more than three minutes, but it was as thrilling as a solar eclipse.

I’d been shooting for supersharp stars with the new Nikon 28mm f/1.4 lens with a 10-second shutter speed, and I absolutely loved the resulting “rocket trail.” If we flip the photo vertically, doesn’t it look like the emblem on the Star Trek uniform? I was able to shoot six frames amid all the excitement. We were all hooting and hollering and sharing what could be a once-in-a-life nighttime experience!

Tim Cooper

Glacier National Park

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Going To The Sun Mountain, Clouds and Star Trails, Glacier National Park. Nikon D850 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens, lit by the rising moon and a Luxli Viola. 6 minutes, f/4, ISO 100.

This image from Glacier National Park in Montana is one of my favorites of the year simply due to the fact that so many factors came together at just the right time. Louis Pasteur famously said that “chance favors the prepared mind.” I truly believe this. Most of our happy accidents would not occur without some planning and preparedness.

In this case, I knew the rising moon would illuminate Going To The Sun Mountain, and I also knew I wanted to capture some of the scraggly trees growing on Sun Point, so I kept my eyes open for a composition looking northwest. After finding my spot, I mounted my Luxli Viola on a small tripod to illuminate the lone tree in the lower right of the image. I wanted the tree to stand out from the darker conifers in the background, but I didn’t want the tree to overpower the moonlit mountain, so I set the power very low.

The next step was to create a composition that would incorporate the foreground with the distant mountains and sky. My initial hope was to capture long star trails over this famed mountain range, but after a few high-ISO test shots I realized the impending clouds would soon command most of the sky. So instead of firing a 25-minute exposure, I decided to switch gears.

In the past, 2- to 4-minute exposures have worked really well for highlighting the movement in low clouds. So I set my Nikon D4s to Bulb and triggered it with a Vello Shutter Boss intervalometer set to 3 minutes. The result? It was OK. The clouds were not moving as fast as I’d thought, so I increased my shutter speed to 6 minutes. Boom! This was the shot.

The clouds flowed through the western gap while hugging the mountains and spreading throughout the image. I also loved the fact that Going To The Sun Mountain was fully illuminated while the more distant mountains where shaded by the clouds. Everything came together. Luck? Planning? Perhaps a bit of both.

Big Bend National Park

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Balanced Rock, Big Bend National Park. Nikon D4s with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens, lit by two Luxli Viola lights controlled remotely with the Luxli Conductor app. 2.5 minutes, f/8, ISO 800.

The problem with iconic scenes is that they are just so … iconic. Think Landscape Arch in Arches National Park or Half Dome in Yosemite. Who could leave these places without snapping a shot of them? I’m no different than anyone else in that I, too, want to make my picture of the icons. And like everyone else, I want to do it my way—to put a bit of my personality into the image.

However, this can be terribly difficult with some icons. Often there are few places to stand and very little choice of lenses that can adequately contain the scene. We also have to contend with our preconceived notions of what the image should look like—invariably we are influenced (sometimes subconsciously) with the abundance of imagery we’ve seen of the spot. And then there’s the weather. And the light. Are they as good as that one moment in time that the other photographer experienced? Bagging the icons can be as frustrating and disappointing as it is thrilling and satisfying.

Such was the challenge for one of my favorite images of 2019, which I shot at Balanced Rock in Texas’ Big Bend National Park. I have to admit: I usually don’t do well with photographing the icons. My shots often turn out trite or barely distinguishable from the mass of similar shots. So I really laid into this scene, and decided that I wanted to match the otherworldly landform with light that was equally otherworldly.

Using two Luxli Violas, I was able to create light that could never happen naturally. I positioned them to highlight the dominant features of each of the forms in the composition: the belly of the boulder and the layers of the supporting rocks. Again, this light could never occur naturally, but that’s OK—I wanted to make it my light. The result is a rare case where I felt I actually created my own take on an icon.

Matt Hill

Badlands National Park

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No So “Bad”lands, Badlands National Park. Nikon Z 6 with a Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art lens. 10 minutes, f/1.4, ISO 100.

Chris and I were fortunate to visit Badlands National Park in South Dakota during an unusually rainy season. The result was both positive and negative.

The positive included the uncharacteristically lush and verdant carpet of clover blanketing the troughs between the badlands formations. I mean, these are badlands, right? They’re not supposed to look lush. However, the negative was that the standing water spawned a hellacious cloud of mosquitoes that actually drove us away from a couple of nice shoot locations. Waiting out long exposures while having blood painfully sucked out of you isn’t among the best of times to be had.

But this spot was too good to give up on. Wearing my full rain gear (on a clear night) to avoid being eaten alive, I attempted to focus through the buzzing of bloodsucking insects to document this dichotomy of a typically barren landscape with the beautiful, albeit invasive (confirmed by rangers), yellow sweet clover.

My setup was facing north, and the rising moon was kissing the right face of the land feature. The star trails raining downward feel peaceful and soft to me, much like the clover felt to the touch.

I’m very much looking forward to going back to Badlands with Lance for our workshop this coming summer, where we’ll be able to photograph the Perseid Meteor Shower in the dark skies of this amazing park.

Bryce Canyon National Park

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Polaris in the Queens Garden, Bryce Canyon National Park. Nikon Z 6 with a Viltrox 20mm f/1.8 lens, light painted with a Luxli Cello. 25 stacked exposures each shot at 4 minutes, f/5.6, ISO 200.

During our late-spring workshop in Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park, a small group of us hiked pretty far down along the Queens Garden Trail. The experience is a commitment—the air is a little thin at Bryce, and while hiking down is pretty easy, hiking all the way back up with backpacks full of camera gear is not. But the photo opportunities are so worth that commitment.

We kept going until we found a view of Polaris above a hoodoo. The moon was moving around to the left quickly. So we set up to capture the cross-lighting for detail on the hoodoo, followed by at least an hour’s worth of images for star stacking. As the rock face fell into shadow, I went around to the other side and set up a Luxli Cello to create some up-lighting to give the hoodoo depth.

Then we engaged in the most enjoyable part of night photography: getting to know each other. After a relaxing hour and a half, we packed up and began the ascent to the rim, stopping dozens of times along the way to photograph more rocks and stars, as well as to catch our breath.

In post-processing, I had 25 versions of shadows in the foreground from the moon passing through and behind nearby trees. I chose one and masked it in to create more focus on the star field and hoodoo, and also for its lovely tree shape.

Lance Keimig

Glacier National Park

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Many Glacier, Glacier National Park. Nikon D750 with a Tamron 15-30mm F/2.8 lens at 24mm. 198 seconds, f/4, ISO 100.

Every once in a while, I find myself in the right place, at the right time, with a camera on a tripod, when the forces of nature align themselves and afford an opportunity to both witness a remarkable scene and also to record it. The night when Tim and I took our group to Many Glacier during July’s Glacier National Park workshop was such a time.

Early in the evening, the moon was rising behind a mountain and backlighting a small cloud that was perfectly positioned at the silhouetted peak. It was an extraordinary scene, but I was working with a workshop participant and wasn’t able to make a photograph. The cloud dissipated, but a few minutes later, almost magically, another one formed in almost the same location. I was still occupied and watched that one dissipate too. Unbelievably, a third cloud formed over the mountain and I raced to get my camera set up while I had the chance.

Unfortunately, by that time, the moon was rising above the horizon, and the magic was lost. Disappointed, I picked up my gear and turned around, only to see the perfect reflection of Grinnell Point in the unusually still lake. There were clouds streaming over the peak toward my position. Better than a consolation prize, the scene before me was superior to the shot I had missed, and this time I would not be denied.

I had time to carefully compose, confirm my focus and make a series of exposures ranging from 30 seconds to 6 minutes to assure that I captured the most interesting cloud movement possible. About 3 minutes yielded the best result.

Straight big-vista landscape photos are not what I usually make, but that’s what was called for here. After I was confident that I had my shot, I took a few minutes to set the camera aside and simply enjoy the beauty before me––something that can get easily lost when one is excited about photographing what’s in front (or behind) the camera.

Cape Cod National Seashore

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Nauset Light, Cape Cod National Seashore. Nikon D750 with an Irix 15 mm f/2.4 lens. 13 seconds, f/3.2, ISO 6400.

My second pick for favorite image of the year was made during our October workshop in the Province Lands area of Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts. Quite unlike the Many Glacier image that simply presented itself to me, this scene didn’t exist as you see it here—the beam rotates, as opposed to streaming out in different directions simultaneously. What makes the image special to me is that making it involved discovering a new way to solve one of the challenges of photographing a lighthouse with a rotating beam.

If you have ever heard me talk about my work, or taken a class with me, you’ll know that I exhaust every opportunity to make an image in a single frame. I like to stick to a RAW workflow, and go into Photoshop only when I can’t find another way to get the shot. That was the motivation here too.

I’ve made images like this before using a post-production technique I learned from another night photographer, but this was a whole new strategy that Gabe invented accidentally by misunderstanding the technique. (It’s a funny story that we’ll save for a future blog post.)

I was captivated by the possibilities, so I worked on the idea for this image. It took me over an hour of many attempts and variations to come up what you see here, but it was well worth the time invested. Even if it’s not the most amazing shot, discovering and working through the kinks of a new solution to an old problem, and finding an in-camera alternative to what was previously a complex, multiple-exposure method, was all immensely rewarding.

The two images I chose are completely different in style and technique. Aside from being night images, what they really have in common is that they both serve as reminders of the experience I had while making them. To me, the experience is usually at least as important as the resulting image.

Chris Nicholson

Devils Tower National Monument

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Moon, Meadow and River, Devils Tower National Monument. Nikon D5 with a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. 15 seconds, f/8, ISO 800.

Wyoming’s Devils Tower National Monument is a place I’d never visited before this past summer, despite having traveled quite close to it in 1998 and 2006. Finally 2019 brought me to this amazing and mystical place, as I was leading a National Parks at Night workshop there with Matt.

The week was full of great photo opportunities, as varying weather allowed us to shoot everything from Milky Way panos over the tower to lightning storms behind it. But the photo I most treasure from the trip is one I made before the workshop even began.

Whenever I’m working someplace new, I always try to schedule some time to make my own photography, and such was the case at Devils Tower. I arrived a several days early, along with Matt (who had been there a few times before, but accommodated me). One of the ideas we chased down was photographing an S-curve of the Belle Fourche River with the tower in the background, which was the quest that led us to this meadow. The photo idea we had in mind didn’t work in that location, but Matt spotted this possibility instead, and graciously pointed it out to me.

I needed the shutter speed to fall within a sweet-spot range: long enough to blur the moving water, but short enough to freeze the moving moon. I settled on 15 seconds. I then tried adding some light painting to the foreground, but after a few tries realized that I preferred the simpler approach of letting the moon gently back-light the grasses of the meadow. It’s a good lesson to learn when to leave perfect alone.

I find that the combination of all the elements—the moon and its reflection, the smooth water, the gentle grasses, the cool tones—creates a peaceful feeling of nature at its finest.

Death Valley National Park

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Moon and Dunes, Death Valley National Park. Nikon D5 with a Nikon 14-24mm lens at 24mm. 10 seconds, f/5.6, ISO 3200.

Death Valley is one of my favorite national parks to shoot, and one of my favorite spots in this park is the Mesquite Flat Dunes. So after 2019 provided five opportunities to shoot there, it shouldn't surprise me that one of my favorite night photos of the year came from that location.

Though Death Valley is perhaps best known for its dunes, they actually cover only a very small percentage of the park. But boy, what they do cover makes for amazing opportunities for photographing interesting shapes in the landscape. Mesquite Flat encompasses 14 square miles of sand that crests and troughs toward each horizon, creating patterns among the ridges and more patterns in the ripples on the slopes. All those patterns and leading lines are where the compositions are to be found.

For this image I chose a short dune that curved nicely back toward where the full moon was rising over the Amargosa Range. I framed low to the ground, then used my Luxli Viola to light paint. I started at the right of the composition and side-lit the dune and the mesquite, then moved to the left with the light to add some fill light in and behind the bush. The goal was to use a color temperature and approach that created a subtle visual impression that the light could conceivably be originating from the moon.

Your Turn

So there you go—from Wyoming to South Dakota, from Montana to Massachusetts, from Utah to North Carolina and beyond—our favorite photographs from 2019.

Now we’d like to see yours! Please share your favorite night image from the past year, either in the comments below or on our Facebook page. And then let’s all move on together to 2020, when we’ll find new ways to enjoy seizing 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.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Sometimes it Takes Two Takes: How Revisiting Locations Can Improve Your Night Photos

I learned early on in my career that revisiting sites and images over time can lead to a deeper understanding of the landscape, as well as to better and less obvious photographs. In a way, this is like going back to reprocess an older image after gaining more knowledge of post-processing software, except you’re remaking the image in person—bringing additional personal experience, acquired skill and a more mature mindset to the scene.

Of course, multiple factors can change in addition to the photographer’s vision or perception, most of which have more to do with the location than the photographer. Places are different across the seasons, in different weather and during different phases of the moon.

If you first visit a place in winter, perhaps coming back in early summer to include the Milky Way core in your image would be worthwhile. Other less obvious things can change the nature of a location too––a streetlight that has burned out or been replaced, a car parked in an unfortunate spot, or some other distraction that prevents (or creates) an ideal composition.

In this week’s post, all five of us present examples of photographs that we made on different occasions in the same location.

Panorama Point, Capitol Reef National Park

by Gabe Biderman

I love all the Utah parks, but if you were to ask me which was my favorite … well, I’d have to tip my hat to Capitol Reef National Park.

I was fortunate enough to visit this Gold Tier International Dark Sky Park twice, the first on an epic road trip with Matt, Chris and my brother-in law Sean in 2016. We stopped at the aptly named Panorama Point and fell in love with the S-curve of the road cutting through the spectacular red rock landscape. We talked about driving the car, with headlights on, down the road to emphasize the line, but Matt suggested that we level up by taking advantage of the car’s moonroof—we could hold his Pixelstick out of it and carve a unique band of light around the curves.

It was a true team effort. I ran all three of our camera rigs from the top of Panorama Point, Matt drove the car without the headlights on, and Chris held the Pixelstick straight through the roof. It took a few attempts under the mostly full moon, but this has remained one of my all-time favorite collaborative images.

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Take 1, April 2016. Nikon D750 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens at 24mm, light writing with a Pixelstick. 2.5 minutes, f/8, ISO 800.

When Matt and I returned to Capitol Reef to lead a workshop in June 2018, we knew we wanted to share Panorama Point with the group. This time there was no moon and the road that cut through the dark foreground led exactly to the core of the Milky Way. I wasn’t even planning on shooting that night, as I had already taken what I felt was a pretty unique shot of this location—but this was just too good to resist.

The Milky Way was definitely the dramatic feature and could have very well stood on its own with a thin silhouetted foreground. But I wanted to revisit the road. This time I aimed my camera down the opposite end as it curved toward the core. By total coincidence, a car drove down while I was exposing, and this time it ruined the shot—it was way too bright, despite no one holding a Pixelstick!

Because the conditions were so dark, to get the best image quality I shot multiple high ISO frames that I would later blend in Starry Landscape Stacker. To get a clean foreground with good detail, I let in an additional 3 stops of light and shot at a lower ISO (1600). I then blended the sky and foreground. (You can see how I processed the final image in the video that accompanies the blog post linked above.)

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Take 2, June 2018. Nikon D5 with an Irix 15mm f/2.4 lens. Sky composed of multiple frames at 25 seconds, f/2.4, ISO 6400; foreground shot at 13 minutes, f/2.5, ISO 1600.

Mesquite Flat Dunes, Death Valley National Park

by Chris Nicholson

In 1995 I drove cross-country with a college buddy who was also a photographer. When we got to southern California, we saw that our route took us close to, though not through, Death Valley National Park. For a moment we considered veering toward the park, but instead opted to beeline toward the Pacific. Big mistake. Twenty years later, I finally made my way back and instantly fell in love with this stark and beautiful landscape. I developed an affection for this place that’s so strong, I’ve returned a half-dozen times in the four years since.

One of my favorite locations in the park to photograph is Mesquite Flat Dunes. Everything about this area lends itself well to landscape photography—the strong lines of the dune crests, the patches of playa in the troughs, the ripple patterns in the sand, the way light and shadow interplay, the desert-mountain background on every horizon. Really, you can’t go wrong here.

Well, I suppose you can go wrong, and I have, more than once. One case to prove the point: On my third trip to Death Valley, I wanted to locate and light paint a single shrub among the dunes. I found a good candidate, composed it, lit it … and lit it, and lit it, and lit it … and just wasn’t creating what I wanted. I could see the final result in my head, but couldn’t get the light to match it. Eventually I abandoned the idea and moved on to more successful matters.

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Take 1, February 2017. Nikon D3s with a Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 lens, light painted with a Coast HP7R flashlight. 8 seconds, f/8, ISO 200.

Later that year, on my next trip to the park, I was out in the dunes again, determined to find a way to make my old idea work. I adjusted a few things about my strategy:

• I shot later in the evening, toward the end of twilight, when I could have a nice blue sky but also get some stars.

• I found a shrub on a more gradual slope, which provided a more uniform background.

• That slope was also wide, which provided me an angle from which I could backlight while facing downhill, from well outside the frame—which meant I could light paint from one spot to create nice, hard-edge shadows that didn’t drift off the bottom of the frame.

Not only did this approach work much better than what I’d tried and failed at just 10 months before, but the result ended up being one of my favorite photos of the year. And actually … maybe one of my favorite photos I’ve ever made in Death Valley.

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Take 2, November 2017. Nikon D3s with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens, light painted with a Coast HP7R flashlight. 20 seconds, f/5.6, ISO 1600.

Marshall Point Lighthouse, Maine

by Lance Keimig

I’ve had the good fortune to teach at Maine Media Workshops for the last several years, and over the course of five or six workshops there, I’ve been able to photograph some of the area’s iconic lighthouses on multiple occasions. Marshall Point Lighthouse is one that never fails to give up a picture that I’m excited to go home with.

A photographer’s vision may change and develop over time, influencing the way that they might respond to a location. But in the three examples shown here, the local conditions at the lighthouse were more significant than anything else.

I first visited this beautiful Maine lighthouse in August 2016 and had the incredible good fortune to experience a little aurora borealis. That led me to photograph the lighthouse from the south, the opposite from where most people usually set up. The exposure was dictated more by the appearance of the aurora than the lighthouse.

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Take 1, August 2016. Nikon D750 with a Sigma 24mm f/1.4 lens. 15 seconds, f/4, ISO 1600.

In June 2017, the beacon had been replaced with a much brighter and cooler LED light source, which changed the scene dramatically, even bathing the shoreline across the bay in bright greenish light. My first thought was that the residents of the homes across from the lighthouse must have been dismayed at the change, as their backyards were continuously illuminated by the crazy-bright light. Fortunately I figured out how to compensate for the brightness, by positioning my camera in a way that prevented the lantern from blowing out completely.

By choosing a closer and lower camera position on the northwest side of the lighthouse, as well as blending separate exposures for the lantern and landscape, I was able to keep the bulb out of the frame and therefore control the exposure better than on my first visit. The Milky Way core is in the background, and dictated the overall exposure. In hindsight, I should have used ISO 100 for the lantern exposure to preserve maximum dynamic range.

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Figure 2, June 2017. Nikon D750 with a Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 lens at 20mm. Two exposures of 1/3 and 20 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 1600.

Finally, in both July 2018 and this past May when I went to Marshall Point, lightning was flashing out at sea. The lightning enhanced the images from those nights, and made for a memorable experience.

I used a longer overall exposure and lower ISO to preserve dynamic range and also to allow more time to increase the chances of catching a lightning strike. As it turned out, I captured three of them! I used Lightroom’s Merge to HDR feature to combine the images. The wider angle of view of the 15mm lens allowed me to include the reflection of the lantern in a puddle in the foreground.

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Take 3, July 2018. Nikon D750 with a Tamron 15-30 f/2.8 lens at 15mm. Three blended exposures of 8 seconds, 20 seconds and 110 seconds, f/4, ISO 400.

Zion National Park

by Tim Cooper

Zion National Park just may be my favorite park to photograph. Not because it’s more spectacular than any other park, but because it’s simply so rich with photo possibilities. It seems everywhere you look, there is some version of beauty to capture. Day or night, cloudy or sunny, spring or fall, you can always find a photograph here.

My first visit to Zion was in 1994, and since then I’ve led workshops there almost every year. Frequenting the park has given me the opportunity to revisit locations that I love.

I’d had this particular image in my mind for some time but had never been able to pull it off, for one reason or another. Finally during a workshop in 2011 the conditions and timing were just right—or so I thought. A nearly full moon provided the foreground illumination I wanted, and the semi-clear skies allowed for a chance at good star trails. I located the North Star and framed it with the tree and the distant mountain.

Full-moon nights are tricky conditions for capturing star trails. The brightness helps illuminate the foreground, but makes using long exposures difficult. In this example I had to stop down to f/5.6 to achieve a 12-minute shutter speed. While I liked the shot, I never really loved it. The foreground illumination is uneven, the star trails are a bit short (12 minutes isn’t really long enough when pointing north), and I somehow ended up with a gap in the trails.

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Take 1, November 2011. Nikon D700 with a Nikon 24mm f/2.8 lens. 12 minutes, f/5.6, ISO 200.

Fortunately, I was able to visit again the following year. Same place, similar moon phase. But this time I started a little earlier in the evening, which allowed the moonlight to provide more even illumination throughout the foreground. Conditions dictated an aperture of f/8 and a shutter speed of 5 minutes. That was clearly not long enough for star trails, so I needed to shoot multiple frames to stack in post-production. After setting up my composition, I calculated that to get an hour and a half of exposure time, I would need to shoot 18 5-minute exposures. I set my ShutterBoss II intervalometer and sat back to enjoy the night.

My reshoot solved all the problems, and I had an image I was happy with.

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Take 2, March 2012. Nikon D700, Nikon 35mm f/2 lens. 18 5-minute exposures at f.8, ISO 200.

Newfound Gap, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

by Matt Hill

Visiting Great Smoky Mountains National Park two years in a row was a real treat. One of my favorite views includes a portal to see the road you drive to get up to Newfound Gap. So, car trails plus star trails!

On my first visit, I had a crazy mix of clouds, thunderstorms and Milky Way. Plus, the namesake smokiness the mountains exude was drifting over the peak into the scene. (I wrote about this photo last year—see “How I Got the Shot: Car and Star Trails in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.”) It was simply magical. But so much about executing the image involved compensating for obstacles to my vision. Which is fine—that’s part of photography—heck, it’s part of art (and life) in general. But I knew there was more potential in that place and in that idea.

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Take 1, May 2018. Nikon D850 with a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. 960 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 400.

This year, I was running a workshop in Great Smoky Mountains with Lance. We took the group (and Chris, who was visiting from nearby!) up to Newfound Gap, and all the obstacles from the year before were absent. The weather was entirely different. Clear. Crisply cold. Expectant. Awaiting the coming moonrise. So I set up to shoot it again. The result was a pastel mix of yellows and greens from the horizon to the star field, and then clear-as-a-bell star trails.

I was smitten. Both photos earned a place for months as the lock screen on my phone. And if I had to choose, I couldn’t say which was superior. I love them both. You?

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Take 2, May 2019. Nikon Z6 and a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8. 871 Seconds, f/4, ISO 200.

We all reshoot, right?

When have you revisited a location to improve upon an idea? We’d love to see your images and hear your stories!

Please share in the Comments section below or on our Facebook page.

Lance Keimig is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He has been photographing at night for 30 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.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Finishing What We All Started: Wrapping Our 2018 Workshops

About two weeks ago I bid farewell to eight workshop attendees in Death Valley, who were all part of National Parks at Night’s second Ambassador Series adventure with Atlas Obscura. Why do I mention this? What’s the significance? Because those farewells marked the end of our 2018 campaign of leading eager night photographers into some of the most fantastic and fascinating destinations in the U.S. and abroad.

Over the past 12 months we’ve led workshops in six national parks, two national historical parks, a national scenic byway, a western outdoor art garden, and three countries. Back in June we recapped the adventures from the first half of our year in the blog post “So Far, So Good.” Now, to round out our coverage, we recap our second half. Below you’ll find words, images and videos that reveal the journey we enjoyed with our attendees in 2018.

Capitol Reef National Park

June 17-22
by Matt Hill

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Deep in southern Utah is one of the lesser-known jewels in a majestic crown of the state’s beautiful parks: Capitol Reef. Featuring gold-tier dark skies and an impressive geologic scale, it was an ideal place to host a June workshop.

Gabe and I began with our first-ever backcountry experience. A smaller group traveled out to the Temples of the Sun and Moon to camp overnight. With 4x4 high-clearance vehicles and a sense of adventure, we conquered the remote northern tip of Capitol Reef’s Cathedral Valley.

The main workshop began a day later, with a full complement of eager night photographers. It’s hard to say which location was my favorite, so check out the above slideshow with images from Sunset Point, Fruita Orchard, Chimney Rock, Capitol Gorge and more.

We covered a lot of ground, including star points, star trails, light painting, light writing and night portraiture. All in all, we had an amazing, tight group of people who came together in the desert to make beautiful images and to enjoy the natural and gargantuan scale of Capitol Reef’s features.

Redwood National and State Parks

June 25-30
by Lance Keimig

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In June, we held a very special workshop at Redwood National and State Parks, which coincided with the national park’s 50th anniversary.

In 1968, Congress protected lands adjacent to three California state parks with the creation of Redwood National Park. In 1994, the California Department of Parks and Recreation and the National Park Service concluded that joint management of the four-park area would be the best way to protect the fragile resources of the Redwood Coast.

There are not many experiences that can compare to the awesomeness of walking in a redwood forest. Trees as tall as football fields are long, and sometimes 15 feet or more in diameter, have a way of clearing one’s mind and soothing one’s soul. They also tend to be rather difficult to photograph, in part due to their sheer enormity and in part because it can be difficult to work with your jaw dragging on the ground. It’s truly a breathtaking experience, similar to standing above the chasm of the Grand Canyon.

Our workshop was based at the historic Requa Inn in Klamath, California, which we had reserved in its entirety for our group. The small boutique hotel and restaurant proved to be the perfect base to explore the park––it was welcoming, comfortable and convenient, being situated more or less in the middle of the long stretch of shore that encompasses the redwoods and coastline that we were there to admire and photograph.

Because we had the run of the entire hotel, we were able to set the cooking schedule to our needs, with a late breakfast and early supper, enabling us to both sleep in and to get out into the forest to photograph while there was still some available light to work with. Did I mention it was dark in the forest? Only 3 percent of sunlight penetrates the canopy and filters down to the forest floor, so theoretically, the same goes for moonlight and starlight—so yeah, it was dark in there.

Chris and I arrived a couple of days early and determined that the best strategy for the group would be to arrive in the forest before sunset and figure out a composition or two while we could still see our cameras on the tripod in front of us. Light painting was a critical component of every shot, and workshop veterans and newbies alike were both challenged and inspired.

While the true stars of the park are the trees, the coastline of far-northern California is spectacular in itself, and we divided our time between the two. We spent a night outside of the park at the outstanding beach in the small town of Trinidad. And one of the highlights of the workshop occurred on the last night when two of our veteran participants led an impromptu light writing extravaganza for everyone at the aptly named Big Tree. It was a great way to end a spectacular week.

Blue Ridge Parkway

July 29-August 4
by Chris Nicholson

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This summer we embarked on our first road trip, cruising along about two-thirds of the 469-mile Blue Ridge Parkway, stopping both day and night to photograph the rolling hills, the winding road, the tunnels, the bridges, the farmland, the landscape and more.

We also photographed rain. Quite a bit, in fact. Precipitation fell almost every day of the trip, at some hour. It started on the second night, as we were planning to shoot Mabry Mill; not much was lost, as we returned the next day and shot it under perfect overcast conditions. The third night rain washed us out once more, but again not much was lost, as we retreated to the hotel meeting room for a two-hour tethered demo on light painting.

The fourth night, the rain retreated long enough for a great shoot at the Moses H. Cone mansion. Large holes opened in the clouds, revealing beautiful starry skies, and we light-painted the whole mansion with Luxli Viola LED panel lights. Alas, on the fifth night rain came again, but the group was not to be denied—we all donned rain gear, and one participant bought a portable picnic tent from a nearby Walmart that protected about half a dozen camera setups, and for about three hours we photographed car trails through one of the parkway’s iconic tunnels.

On the last night, the group ventured dry and high—all the way to the Richland Balsam Overlook, at 6,053 feet, the highest point on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We finally had a wonderfully clear night, and were able to photograph the Milky Way spanning over the landscape.

Our road trip was not all about photography, though. We shared a great many experiences, including dinner at the Peaks of Otter Lodge, brunch at the Mabry Mill Restaurant, bluegrass music in the breezeway at the Blue Ridge Music Center, BBQ in Asheville, and more. See ya on the road!

Rocky Mountain National Park

September 15-20
by Chris Nicholson

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When we first scheduled our Rocky Mountain National Park workshop for September, one of the things we hoped for is that we might catch some fall foliage. It’s hard to predict—you know the foliage will turn, but trying to figure out which week it will, over a year ahead of time, is an exercise in silliness. So you just take a shot and hope for the best.

Well, boy did we nail it. Right as the workshop was beginning, the aspens of Rocky Mountain started lighting on fire with fall color, and our workshop attendees were all over it.

Of course, there’s much more to this park than autumnal color. So much more. And we photographed all of it.

We photographed the valleys, the waterfalls, the lakes, the ponds. We made a day-trip to Grand Lake, where we had a group BBQ lunch, then hiked to and photographed the beautiful East Inlet. We braved the night cold of the tundra, where we photographed a lightning storm skimming the horizon. We made Milky Way images at the edge of mountain meadows, where we could hear the bugling and the clashing antlers of elk in the darkness.

Then after the main part of the workshop ended, it was time for the optional backcountry add-on. We hiked about 2 miles up into the woods with five attendees to Dream Lake and Emerald Lake, two of the most scenic places in the park. We reached Emerald Lake in daylight, ate a picnic dinner, then started shooting as night fell. In the darkness, we slowly worked our way back down the mountain, photographing at each successive amazing location along the way, finally ending our night with one of the most stunning valley views in all the national parks, bathed in moonlight on a clear Colorado evening.

Chaco Culture National Historical Park

September 23-26
by Lance Keimig

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As you likely know, there are a number of designations for National Park Service properties: national parks, national monuments, national seashores, national recreation areas, and national historical parks, among others. Matt and I led NPAN’s first workshop to a historical park in September, at New Mexico’s Chaco Culture, the site of the densest collection of ancient Puebloan structures in the world.

Photography at Chaco is all about the massive pueblos, as well as how they fit into the landscape. The various archeological sites at Chaco Canyon range from about 800 to 1,000 years old, and are the most significant feats of engineering from the ancient world in the American Southwest. We arranged for special nighttime access to the sites, which are closed to the public at sunset.

Many of the parks we visit are remote and hard to get to, and Chaco is no exception. The nearest accommodations are well over an hour away, but there is a campground at the edge of the park. In order to minimize travel and get the most out of our time at Chaco, we elected to base ourselves at the campground and to use one of the spaces at the park’s visitor center for our classroom. Many of our participants opted to bring an RV, but a good number decided to rough it and go for tent camping.

Our workshop coincided with this dark sky park’s annual astronomy festival—which was ironic because we were there during the full moon, specifically so that we had moonlight to illuminate the landscape while we focused on light painting the structures. Dr. Erica Ellingson and Nick Conant were there from the Fiske Planetarium at the University of Colorado at Boulder to present Ellingson’s Ancient Light program on Chacoan astronomy in their mobile planetarium, and we were able to arrange an extra presentation of the program for our group.

Chris and Matt had just completed their Rocky Mountain National Park workshop, and they drove to Chaco from Denver so that Chris could join us for the first couple of days and nights.

Of particular note was a high level of coordination and cooperation among the workshop participants, which proved essential while working in the tight quarters of the archeological sites. That’s not really a big surprise, because our groups are amazing, and we are truly fortunate to work with such great people on a regular basis.

This was my last workshop of the year, and it was a great way to end it. Thank you to my partners at National Parks at Night and to all of the wonderful workshop participants I’ve had the pleasure to work with over the year.

Catskills Night Portraiture (Fall Session)

October 12-14
by Matt Hill

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I co-led our second night portraiture workshop in Catskill, New York, with Tim. Over one intense weekend we worked with two local models, Rip and Galaexius, to make iconic and creative portraits in the Hudson River Valley and some cool locations in the Catskill Mountains.

During the daytime, we did hands-on learning with lighting and posing models, as well as studying how to build up to a properly balanced exposure. In the evenings, we applied that knowledge in the field down at the river, as well as at the nearby natural art installation, Opus40.

Our models were the bomb, and our attendees really stretched themselves to do the complicated task of not only making a great photograph at night, but also a thoughtful and deliberate portrait.

We liked the experience so much, we’ll be bringing the idea back in a five-night format. Stay tuned … and on the mailing list. ;-)

Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark

November 15-18
by Gabriel Biderman

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Our last workshop of the year was in an incredibly unique location, the Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark. Located in Birmingham, and built in 1880 and operated until 1970, Sloss is the only 20th century blast furnace in the U.S. being preserved and interpreted as a historic industrial site. And we were the first group to lead a dedicated night photography workshop there!

Our focus of the workshop was to interpret the location in black and white and to add a heavy dose of light painting. We had a diverse group of attendees—including several locals from Birmingham as well as people from Germany and both U.S. coasts—who came to explore the site with us.

We were also thrilled to work very closely with Sloss. They gave us a private tour of the whole site to kick things off, and they worked very closely with us through the whole process.

One of the big things that made this workshop so different for us was that we could return to the same location each night. The preserved footprint of Sloss is one-third of what it used to be, but it’s packed with a vast amount of subject matter. Participants could focus on a different subject each night, or they could revisit, reinterpret or finesse the same.

That flexibility of repetition was especially helpful for honing our light painting skills The variety of ways that we could interpret Sloss—wide overall exterior shots, tons of abstract details, and rooms that were pitch dark—offered infinite opportunities to create by adding light to the scene.

An unexpected surprise was the amount of stars that could be seen above the Furnaces. We could really heighten the sense of time against this timeless machinery. And because of the unseasonably cool temperatures, we were able to set up rigs to get 1-hour-plus exposures without much concern for long exposure noise in our images.

Our classroom time was spent discussing black and white techniques, as well as sharing one another’s work. Each day we were eager to get back to Sloss and cover more ground. We were fortunate enough to witness an iron pour one night, as Sloss continues to operate a workshop area for educational purposes.

We always end our workshops with a slideshow of our images, typically shared in our classroom. However, Sloss offered to have us showcase our images at their visitor center. The event was open to the public and showcased a nocturnal look at the site. We were also invited to have our work in a group show later in 2019. Rumor has it that we’ll be returning to Sloss as well as exploring other historic industrial sites in the near future!

Death Valley After Dark: Astronomy and Photography in the Backcountry

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December 5-8
by Chris Nicholson

Our second partnership with Atlas Obscura was also a departure for us, in that this workshop was about not only night photography, but also astronomy. Out in the field with us day and night was Tyler Nordgren, astronomer and author of the book Stars Above, Earth Below: A Guide to Astronomy in the National Parks.

The workshop was an experience of photographing and exploring the night skies of the park’s most remote fascinations, including Racetrack Playa, Eureka Sand Dunes and the Wildrose Charcoal Kilns. We also visited some spots that are easier to access but are just as amazing, including Badwater Basin, Salt Creek Flats and Ubehebe Crater.

And that was only the tip of the adventure iceberg. We rented red Jeeps from Farabee’s for hours upon hours of backcountry driving, we camped at the Racetrack, we enjoyed fresh-cooked chili at the tent site, and we shared an outdoor pancake and coffee breakfast on a very cold desert morning (after a very cold desert night).

In addition to the night (and day) photography, Tyler continually waxed poetic about the universe above us. We learned about constellations and nebulae, we looked through his telescope and image-stabilizing binoculars at galaxies and a comet, and he taught us more than we could have imagined about the Milky Way and zodiacal light.

We’re looking forward to many more opportunities to seize the night with both Tyler and Atlas Obsura.

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Astronomer Tyler Nordgren powered his telescope with one of the ONsite recharging packs that Tether Tools provided for our Death Valley backcountry workshop.

Partner Participation

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: When we form brand partnerships, we look for the relationship to benefit our workshop attendees too. Nikon, Coast Portland, B&H Photo, Peak Design, Light Painting Brushes, X-Rite, BenQ, Bay Photo, Irix Lenses, Valleret, PhotoPills, Tether Tools and Luxli all offered loaner gear, discounts, gifts and other perks at various locations. As always, our gratitude is unending.

Looking Forward

Wow. 2018 was amazing. And we couldn’t have done it without all the photographers—ranging from 16 to 80ish, male and female, from night photography rookies to veterans—who attended and made these workshops and tours so memorable.

It makes us want to do it again! And do it again we shall. If anything gets us more excited than our memories of 2018, it’s our anticipation for 2019. We’re heading to six national parks: Big Bend, Bryce Canyon, Glacier, Great Smoky Mountains, Grand Canyon and Lassen Volcanic. We’ll also be visiting Cape Cod, Devils Tower, the Outer Banks, San Francisco and Valley of Fire. We’re venturing overseas again too, to Morocco, Easter Island and Cuba. And we’re running two firsts: a Post-Processing Intensive in Catskill, New York, and a multinight backcountry backpacking adventure to Shi Shi Beach in Olympic National Park.

Several of the 2019 workshops still have seats available. As for the sold-out experiences? You can still sign up for the waitlist for any workshop at no cost and with no risk. If a spot opens up, we’ll invite you to apply.

So come join us, to 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.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT