Returning to Nature, Returning to the World: Where We’re Ready to Go

It’s official. We at National Parks at Night have broken all previous records of days without travel.

The current situation does remind me a bit of being on the road with a photography group. As challenging as staying at home or in one place can be, one positive personal experience for me is that each night, to honor the first responders and essential workers of New York City, my wife Nancy and I cheer and clap with our neighborhood in Brooklyn at 7 p.m.

These few minutes have been perfectly timed with the sun setting to the west, so I’ve seen more sunsets than in any other two months of my life. Meeting new neighbors and feeling the warmth and beautiful light have added to the incredibly uplifting moments. That all reminds me of the many moments and shared adventures we have on our workshops, and that kicks my wanderlust into high gear!

While we have been focusing on cleaning our catalog clutter and re-editing images from past adventures, all of us at NPAN have also been dreaming about where we want to go next when all the travel restrictions are lifted. More than ever we are craving large green spaces to roam as well as magical dark skies to envelope ourselves in.

We love turning dreams into reality. So to inspire you to envision where you’d like to go next, we created this video that features some of the amazing places in the world we have explored.

In that same spirit, below all five of us share a place that we’re dreaming about, a place we are looking forward to exploring in the near future—hopefully with you!

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North Cascades National Park

by Chris Nicholson

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North Cascades National Park. © 2016 Chris Nicholson. Nikon D810 with a Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 lens. 10 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 3200.

I miss mountains. Pretty, snow-capped mountains. Especially ones reflecting in glassy alpine ponds.

I miss waking on foggy mornings and walking through grass damp with dew. I miss days warm enough for T-shirts followed by nights cold enough for coats. I miss thin, clean air, and how easy breathing is. I miss remote, quiet meadows centered among softly rustling forests, and I miss the trickling sounds of delicate cascades and the thunder of tall waterfalls.

I miss how rock feels beneath my trail shoes: thousands of feet of rock that don’t budge even a smidge under my step as I climb to reach heights to see over the endless miles of valleys and lakes below.

I miss Washington state’s North Cascades, and the national park that bears their name. The beauty there is at once still and dynamic, at once present and ancient, at once silent and alive. The mountains rise around in all directions. Layers and layers of peaks and ridges that recede toward the horizon. And above that horizon at night, the glorious Milky Way that floats among a million stars.

I’m feeling one with John Muir. Those mountains are calling, and I can barely wait to go.

All the Islands of Scotland

by Lance Keimig

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Sligachan, Isle of Skye, Scotland. © 2017 Lance Keimig. Nikon D750 with a Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 lens. 1/200, f/11, ISO 100.

I’ve always had a thing for islands. Perhaps it’s because I’m a sucker for all things romantic––and what’s more romantic than a mist-shrouded shoreline, crashing waves and quiet fishing villages? Maybe it’s because I’m a bit of a rebel and an island has clear boundaries to push up against, be they geographical or cultural. Regardless, if you give me a map, my fingers will quickly find the coastline, searching for those offshore land masses just out of reach.

I had the good fortune of spending the month of August 1995 in Scotland. I was there for the glorious cacophony colloquially known as “The Fringe,” one of two concurrent arts festivals that take over the city of Edinburgh every summer. After almost three weeks in the city, I signed up for a jump-on/jump-off mini-bus tour and found myself making a loop around the country with extended stops on the Isle of Skye and Orkney. One is a very traditional and conservative island off the west coast, and the other an archipelago of islands off the north coast that is steeped in history yet is very modern and cosmopolitan. Two worlds equally fascinating and distinctly different.

That was a life-changing journey for me, and it marked the beginning of my career as a professional photographer. Three years later, I began teaching night photography workshops in San Francisco, and five years after I led my first photo tour to Scotland––to Skye and Orkney.

The rest is history, but I have a long way to go to visit All the Islands of Scotland. I doubt that NPAN will offer a trip to each of them, but you can know that I am scouting them all and will be planning trips to the very best to share with you in the coming years.

South Island

by Tim Cooper

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South Island, New Zealand. © 2017 Susan Magnano. Canon 5D Mark IV with a Canon 17-40mm f/4 lens. 30 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 6400.

Where do I want to explore in the near future? New Zealand’s South Island. I find the landscape there to be simply awe-inspiring.

In many ways it’s like North America in miniature. Starting in the east you have gentle coastlines that rise up into low country, and then farming plains like our eastern and central United States. Then the plains rise up to the Southern Alps, which easily rival our Rocky Mountains. On the western downslope, glaciers flow into rain forests much the way they do in Alaska and British Columbia. All of this on an island that you can cross in less than a day.

Similar as it may be, everything is just a little different. A little more green. A little more remote. Even the trees have a mystical quality about them. From the fjords in the south to the parks of the north, you’ll find magnificent and rocky coastlines, tree ferns twice the height of a human, mountains that rise straight up and spill glaciers into magical forests. It truly is a landscape lover’s paradise.

My first trip to South Island was nearly 20 years ago when on assignment for a magazine. While the magazine work came off fine, my efforts at personal photography failed miserably. I had taken an extra nine days to shoot for myself using my Wisner 4x5 camera loaded with a new type of holder for preloaded sheets of film. I shot nearly 100 sheets during my time there. Upon returning home I found that every sheet was blank. The new system had not been working properly and I didn’t know because I had never tested it before leaving! Ughhh. Talk about heartbreak. I must return!

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

by Matt Hill

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Theodore Roosevelt National Park. © 2019 Matt Hill. Nikon Z 6 with an Irix 15mm f/2.4 Firefly lens, light painted with Luxli Cello and a Coast HP7R. 2 minutes, f/5.6, ISO 500.

If I could go anywhere, I’d really like it to be someplace that has lots of things I enjoy. This park in North Dakota checks off lots of those boxes. And it was a total surprise to visit. Chris and I drove there last summer after learning that the elevator had broken at Wind Cave National Park. And boy, was the detour worth it. 

Roosevelt’s South Unit features a wondrous, windy river (the Little Missouri) with excellent lookouts, plus herds of bison and wandering wild horses. Outnumbering them all are the prairie dogs—watch your step or you’ll turn an ankle in their holes. Not to mention the badlands landscapes and the petrified forests.

Drive toward Polaris, and the North Unit has more wildlife, plus the cannonball concretions and even more views of another section of the Little Missouri.

Easily drivable, this less-known park is an ideal place to spend some quality time in nature and with stunning night skies. 

Easter Island

by Gabriel Biderman

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Rapa Nui National Park, Easter Island. © 2019 Tim Cooper. Fujifilm X-T2. A series of stacked images shot at 2 minutes, f/4, ISO 400.

When Nancy asked me 14 years ago where I wanted to go for our honeymoon, I didn’t skip a beat and said: “Easter Island.” As luck would have it, the enigma that is Easter Island had also been at the top of her bucket list since seventh grade. But then we did the research and realized Easter Island is a challenge to get to. It is 2,200 miles away from Chile and in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Remote is the understatement. So unfortunately the time and financial commitments didn’t make sense (however we had one heck of a honeymoon driving across the U.S. and visiting 14 baseball stadiums).

That was 2006. I can’t remember the first time I became aware of the mysteries of the moai, but I always loved ancient history, mythology and photographing sacred places. When Lance suggested our first Easter Island workshop that we offered in 2019, I quickly raised my hand to assist. But again, timing was not on my side. The workshop was a huge success and we decided to keep running more trips there as long as people are interested in going. And I’m going next! Even though our second Easter Island workshop isn’t until January, I have already starting thinking ahead and packing accordingly.

Most of Rapa Nui, as it’s known to the locals, is a national park. We have worked very closely with the park and local guides to get rare access to the moai at night. Most trips to Easter Island are a brief 2 to 3 days, but I’m looking forward to fully immersing ourselves on our 8-day adventure. I’ll be loading up infrared film for our day hikes and for photographing the moai under the Milky Way.

They say the third time is a charm, and Nancy already said she is coming on what she is calling part two of our honeymoon. If you can’t join us next year, stay tuned—2022 isn’t that far away!

Wrapping Up

So, that’s where we’re dreaming of going when we can travel again. Where are you dreaming of going? Share in the comments section, or on our Facebook page!

Gabriel Biderman is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He is a Brooklyn-based fine art and travel photographer, and author of Night Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots (Peachpit, 2014). During the daytime hours you'll often find Gabe at one of many photo events around the world working for B&H Photo’s road marketing team. See his portfolio and workshop lineup at www.ruinism.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

The Simmer Dim: Photographing in Twilight that Lasts Till Morning

What if I were to tell you that one of the best experiences a night photographer can have is to travel to a time and a place when the surrounds hardly get dark at all? The idea is not one of fantasy, but rather one of fancy. I much enjoy shooting in twilight, and with time to plan the travel properly, one can shoot in it all night long.

That time? Within a few weeks of summer solstice. That place? The further toward the north or south pole, the better.

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Stones of Stenness, Orkney, Scotland. Canon 5D with a Nikkor 28mm f/3.5 PC lens. 30 seconds, f/8, ISO 800.

Chasing Twilight

Traveling to a far-northern destination in May or June (or to a southern one in November or December) may seem like an odd choice for a night photographer. It doesn’t get fully dark north of 47 north latitude for several weeks a year. To note:

• Above the Arctic Circle, at about 66 degrees north, the sun never sets at all around the summer solstice.

• Between 61 north and the Arctic Circle, (which includes Scandinavia, parts of Alaska, and Canada, Iceland and Greenland) the sun sets, but never gets more than 6 degrees below the horizon in high summer, which means the sky never grows darker than civil twilight.

• Between 53 and 61 north (the United Kingdom, parts of Alaska and Canada), summer nights in June are spent in nautical twilight.

• Between 47 and 53 north (much of Europe, China, Ukraine and the northern U.S.), it doesn’t get darker than astronomical twilight.

Yet all of these are great locations for night photographers. Just why is that?

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Dornee, Kyle of Loch Alsh, Scotland. Canon 5D, Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 macro lens. 4 minutes, f/22, ISO 100.

To many contemporary photographers, night photography is all about the Milky Way, which we need dark skies to photograph. But there’s much more to night photography than that, which I’ve written about previously (see “Beyond the Milky Way” and “The Night Photography Mindset.”)

To that end, this article is about making the most of nautical and astronomical twilight, especially when it lasts through the night—which is exactly what it can do in many of those places mentioned above. (You can read a rundown of the different stages of twilight on EarthSky, or in Tim’s blog post “Out of the Blue: The Importance of Twilight to the Night Photographer.”)

Dusk That Never Quite Ends

One of the places that enjoys this phenomenon is Scotland, and it’s the Scots—especially those from Orkney and Shetland—who call this phenomenon “Simmer Dim.” This is one of my favorite times to photograph, especially when I’m lucky enough to shoot in those northern Scottish isles. (Which is exactly why we’re running a night photography tour in Orkney next May!)

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Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland. Canon 5D Mark II, Zuiko Shift 24mm f/3.5 lens. 10 seconds, f/8, ISO 100.

Why do I love Simmer Dim? Imagine spending an entire night in twilight—that enchanting time between daylight and darkness when the earth’s atmosphere scatters the last rays of the sun’s light to create deeply saturated colors in the sky. It’s nothing short of magical. Under normal twilight conditions, there’s only a brief window of opportunity when the light is perfectly balanced for both sky and ground—but during Simmer Dim, that balance may last for hours.

I’ve been fortunate to photograph during Simmer Dim on many occasions, but there was one night in particular in early July 2007 that I’ll never forget. I was leading a photo tour of Orkney, and the weather had been rather gloomy for days with a dense fog that just wouldn’t break. The fog was so thick that it had begun to dampen our spirits, but we decided to go into Stromness—Orkney’s second largest town—to see if we could find a picture for the making. It was amazing!

The fog held the glow and the colors of the streetlights low in the sky, and they were perfectly balanced with the natural luminance of the twilight. We photographed all night until the sky began to lighten further around 3 a.m. We suddenly found ourselves hoping that the fog would last or come back the following evening. It did, and we spent the next night in Kirkwall—the largest town on Orkney—photographing through the night and into the morning again.

Tips for Twilight Photography

Photographing in twilight can be a little different depending on whether your environment is natural or settled—or, more precisely, whether it contains artificial lighting. In nature, twilight often calls for the use of light painting or graduated neutral density filters, as the light level at the ground is usually several stops darker than the sky. In urban areas, especially small towns and villages, the streetlights and sky require similar exposures during twilight, which means you can usually keep your filters in the bag.

In nature, such as one of our Beautiful National Parks:

• Use a 2- or 3-stop graduated neutral density filter to even out the exposure between the foreground and sky.

• Or, make multiple exposures for foreground and sky and combine them in Photoshop.

• The color of light changes quickly at dusk, so consider using auto white balance. Or, do what Tim and Matt do, which is to use Daylight white balance to render colors “as they are” even if they’re not “what we expect.” These are both valid approaches to the same problem, albeit with different results.

• Use an incandescent flashlight or other warm color temperature light source to contrast with the cool blue of twilight.

• Keep an eye out for vampires.

In an artificially lit environment:

• Look for a balanced exposure between the ground-level illumination and the sky.

• Manually set your white balance. Choose a setting that makes your foreground look the way you want it.

• Utilize the blinking-highlights feature to help maintain important highlight details in your exposure.

• Make multiple exposures of the same scene at different stages of twilight.

• Keep an eye out for hipsters.

Finding Simmer Dim

In the Northern Hemisphere, we’re past the Simmer Dim for 2019. Our Southern Hemisphere friends can look forward to it at the end of the year, but aside from Antarctica and the southern tip of South America, there’s not a lot of land that sees the effect.

Either way, it’s never too early to plan a trip for Simmer Dim 2020, and regardless, twilight in general is great for low-light photography year-round. Twilight is often dark enough for light painting, and is a great time to get better color saturation into your images. So get out there early and give it a go!

A Simmer Dim Gallery

Below is a selection of ten images from Simmer Dim shoots I’ve done, including the all-nighters mentioned above. For notes on the gear used and the exposures, download the accompanying PDF.

If you’ve shot in the Simmer Dim, please share your stories and images in the Comments section below or on our Facebook page. (And if you haven’t, come join us in Orkney next May!)

1. Callanish, Isle of Lewis, Scotland.

2. Stromness, Orkney, Scotland.

3. Birsay, Orkney, Scotland.

4. Birsay, Orkney, Scotland.

5. Birsay, Orkney, Scotland.

6. Birsay, Orkney, Scotland.

7. Kirkwall, Orkney, Scotland.

8. Kirkwall, Orkney, Scotland.

9. Kirkwall, Orkney, Scotland.

10. Kirkwall, Orkney, Scotland.

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

Tales of Two Photos: Our Favorite Pairs of Images from 2018

For one last moment, as a group, we’re taking time to reflect on the incredible journey we embarked on in 2018. We visited even more destinations and had even more adventures than the previous year.

All in all, it’s a moment where I say, “I am so proud to be doing this with these people.” That not only includes my esteemed National Parks at Night partners and fellow educators, but also the workshop attendees who make this all worth it. Bravo and brava to all of you for inspiring us to be more and to do more every day.

And now, the hardest assignment of them all: The five of us choose only our two favorite images each from the entire year, and tell the stories behind their births.

This is our final look back—and then it’s all 2019, baby!

Gabriel Biderman

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Reality is Outside the Skull. Nikon D750, Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. Light painting exposure: 80 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 1600, painted with a Coast HP5R; star exposure: eight frames at 15 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 10,000 blended in Starry Landscape Stacker.

I love revisiting locations to search for new visions. I’ve been very lucky to travel to one of our favorite dark sky parks, Joshua Tree, for each of the last two years. The first time is always the discovery phase—getting to know the place. You can do all the research prior, but nothing beats being on location, and for Joshua Tree you feel like you are in a Dr. Seuss book.

This year, for me, the park was all about the rocks. On one of our scouts during the day I had discovered this wide-open area that had tons of smaller but randomly wonderful rock formations. I found so many scenes to get lost in! When I happened upon this “skull rock” with its eye open to the southeast, I immediately went to the Night AR in PhotoPills to confirm the orientation of the formation. Indeed, I could see that on that night the core of the Milky Way could be placed inside the “eye of the skull.”

The scene reminded me of the George Orwell quote from 1984: “Reality is inside the skull.” However, in this case the breathtaking reality of the Milky Way is outside and available to all.

It was a very challenging shot because I needed to position the camera about 3 to 4 feet from the skull. Hyperfocusing wasn’t a viable solution because the foreground subject was just too close. I was shooting with my favorite rig: the Nikon D750 and 14-24mm f/2.8 lens at 14mm, low to the ground. After a few test shots it seemed like my best option was to do a focus blend—take one shot focused on the close rock formation and then a second shot with the focus on infinity to keep the stars sharp.

The light painting was added to an exposure of 80 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 1600 with two passes of a Coast HP5R flashlight from an oblique angle. I then refocused and took eight shots for the stars at 15 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 10,000. I stacked those images in Starry Landscape Stacker to get a cleaner, sharper sky with minimal star movement. That result was then blended as masked layers in Photoshop with the light-painted frame. It took a while to finesse this image, and even though I shot it eight months ago, it is an image that I’ve cherished but not shown until recently.

Ironically this image had gotten inside my skull, from original concept, to complex capture and blend, to finally being able to release it to the world. A reminder that a wonderful reality can be found just outside our mind.

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Fire Island Lighthouse. Nikon D750, Irix 15mm f/2.4 lens. Multiple exposures at 1/2 second, f/2.4, ISO 6400.

When we were preparing for our New York Night Photography Summit shoot at the Fire Island lighthouse, one of the main questions was, “What if we have bad weather?” The obvious tendency is to get disheartened when you’re expecting stars and then the clouds cover the sky.

However, we love all the challenges of the night. Well, maybe not 60 mph winds mixed with rain, sleet and snow, but there are many opportunities to create unique images in inclement weather. So many that we decided to teach a class on it at the summit, and it totally prepared us for the first night!

When we arrived at Fire Island, our minds were blown—the light precipitation was capturing the light beams and extending them out to the farthest reaches of the ocean. Our previous clear nights of photographing this location were good, but this was awesome! The light beams on a clear night don’t have the added benefit of passing through particles and clouds that reflect the light back. An overcast night is actually the perfect time to shoot a lighthouse, as the beams are truly defined and the lighthouse effect is remarkably enhanced!

On this particular night, everyone who had been so bummed to be shooting in the rain and under the clouds was now elated with this new heightened experience. There wasn’t a bad angle to capture the ever-reaching beams, but this symmetrical angle ended up being my favorite. I worked together with a group of friends to light paint the foreground and to get the timing of the beams down. (I’ll be sharing a more in-depth capture-and-post breakdown of this image in a “How I Got the Shot” blog this winter, so stay tuned.)

In the end, the “bad” conditions were a boon. I’m now excited to go shoot in the fog, snow and overcast conditions more than ever. I hope this inspires you too!

Lance Keimig

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Raufarhöfn, Arctic Henge. Nikon D750, Nikon 24-120mm f/4 lens. Lit by four Luxli Viola lights controlled remotely via the Luxli Conductor phone app. 30 seconds, f/4.5, ISO 5000.

For the second year in a row, one of my favorite photographs is from Iceland. Last year’s was a simple image of a familiar place, and what made me choose it was how it transported me back to Djupavik, one of my favorite places on the planet.

This year’s image is a different story altogether. It was made in a place I had never been before, and one that required determination, spontaneity and flexibility on the part of the group I was traveling with, along with a significant amount of expectation management. If you read our 2018 first-half workshop wrap-up, you may remember that our plans in Iceland were derailed by some truly awful weather, and that the group came together with clarity and force to reorganize and change our itinerary midway through the trip.

That change of plans made for some serious logistical hoop-jumping, but in the end it was truly worth the effort as we saw some wonderful aurora, we mostly avoided the horrid weather, and when we did encounter some, we were able to work with it.

Once we had changed course and wandered into uncharted territory in the north of Iceland, we came across images of Arctic Henge in the far northeast of the country. We were intrigued.

The aurora forecast called for a level of 5 Kp, meaning a very high probability of seeing the northern lights. We were starting from 4-plus hours away, but guided by the seemingly boundless spirit of our group, we decided to make the drive and see what this henge thing was all about. Through hour after hour of lonely road, and mile after mile of increasingly overcast skies, our confidence was wavering. But the weather forecast insisted we would have clear skies, so we doggedly soldiered on, despite what our eyes (and windshield wipers) were telling us.

We arrived at the beginning of twilight to find an enormous but only partially finished stone henge. And it was moist. Very moist. The tiny nearby village was shuttered—there were no open shops, hotels or (most importantly for some) bathrooms.

Moreover, there was no clear sky. So we made do, and adjusted our expectations. Out came the Luxli lights, and we made a few images, many of them looking more like a Las Vegas spectacle than a pagan ritual site. As the natural light faded and the sodium vapor lights from the village a few miles away began to lend their orangeness into our images, a magical transformation occurred. The spaceship appeared in the sky above the henge, and a lone alien life form was transported to the surface, conveniently positioned in front of our cameras.

Nah, I’m kidding. Chris walked into the scene and positioned himself in front of the light from the nearest Luxli, and history was made.

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Marshall Point Lighthouse, Port Clyde, Maine. Nikon D750, Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 lens at 15mm. 110 seconds, f/4, ISO 400 for the foreground, plus a second exposure at 20 seconds, f/4, ISO 100 for the lighthouse. Light painted with a Luxli Viola at about 20 percent brightness, swept across the foreground to illuminate the dark rock.

Just like the Arctic Henge image, this one required a bit of luck––being in the right place at the right time. In the opposite of the way that the world conspired against our Iceland group to create a perfect storm of challenges, this night at Marshall Point Lighthouse in Maine presented a perfect storm of photographic opportunities.

I was at the lighthouse with a class from Maine Media Workshops. It’s a place I always bring my classes to when I teach in Maine. Marshall Point is a fixed beam lighthouse, meaning that the light is always on. Not flashing, pulsing, rotating or anything else. It just shines—and oh, does it shine.

A couple of years ago the old incandescent light was replaced with a far brighter and cooler LED light that makes it more difficult to photograph. In order to get a good shot of the Lighthouse without majorly blown highlights, one has to get almost directly below the tower, which obscures the light source from the camera. This is a precarious activity, as it requires crossing a rocky beach that’s covered with slimy, seaweed-encrusted round stones. You have to be there at low tide, and you have to be sure-footed.

Luckily for us, conditions were perfect. The tide was receding, and there was enough moisture in the air to show beams of light around the lighthouse, exaggerated by the shadows of the lighthouse window frames. There was a small tide pool in the foreground where I was able to position myself in such a way to get the lantern room reflected in the water, the tower with its glorious beams, and—the icing on this maritime cake—a lightning storm in the distance seen below the bridge that leads from the shore to the lighthouse. Boom!

I did have to make a second, shorter exposure for the light to complement the longer exposure. The latter allowed enough time to light paint the dark foreground stones, and to capture the rest of the scene and a few bolts of lightning. But the image came together quickly and easily once I found the right spot.

Tim Cooper

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Serpent—Borrego Springs. Nikon D4s, 14-24mm f/2.8 lens set at 24mm. Three exposures at 15 seconds, f/4, ISO 6400.

Two years ago, I had never heard of Borrego Springs, California, or of Ricardo Breceda, or of the art he has created. Even after I heard about all of this, I was not prepared for the scope of beauty and sheer volume of the installation. So, I thank the intrepid explorers at Atlas Obscura and our NPAN partner Gabriel Biderman for introducing me to this truly unique collaboration of earth, man and sky.

I was lucky enough to visit the area with 14 curious photographers during our 2018 Ambassador Series workshop with Atlas Obscura titled Dark Skies, Desert Beasts. With over 130 free-standing metal sculptures in the desert surrounding Borrego Springs, it was hard to choose a favorite. But I did really like the serpent.

I chose this as one my favorites for the year for several reasons. The first is that the photograph was a collaborative effort on the part of the workshop participants and myself. Taking turns as director of the shoot and working together on light painting is a great way to learn and use the many hands to help bring a vision to life.

The second reason is the serendipity of the cloud mimicking “smoke” coming from the serpent’s mouth. Sometimes you just get really lucky. I could go back there a hundred times and never see it like this again.

The last reason is the serpent itself. As a lover of light painting, I’m always looking for interesting subjects to illuminate against the night sky. I couldn’t have asked for a more detailed, textured and beautifully sculpted subject. Couple that with the clear dark skies of the desert, and you’ve got a recipe for night of fun!

(FYI, we just announced new dates for another Dark Skies, Desert Beasts workshop with Atlas in 2019.)

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Star Trails over Golden Gate Bridge. Fuji X-T2, Fuji XF 10-24mm f/4 lens set at 10mm. Sixty exposures, each 30 seconds, f/4, ISO 200.

San Francisco is set in one of most beautiful locations in this country. The headlands, the bay, the shoreline and the city are all just simply gorgeous. I also really, really like The Bridge. I can’t say why, precisely. Perhaps it’s the engineering. Maybe it's the color. Or most likely a combination of those things plus its location. Whatever the reasons, I can’t go to San Francisco without visiting the headlands and making images of the bridge as the sun goes down.

I can’t count how many times I’ve stood in this spot and contemplated the view as I made image after image. Most of the time, however, I was there only for dusk and blue hour. Rarely did I get a chance to stay well into the night, and when I did the skies were not conducive to star trails.

This night proved to be different. All of the elements came together for a star trail shot. The trick here was to capture the stars without overexposing the city and the bridge. When you give enough exposure to reveal the stars, the bridge and city lights completely blow out. If you limit the exposure to make the city look good, the stars are barely visible. To address this dichotomy, my plan was to break up the exposures into separate ones for the bridge and city lights and ones for the sky and the star stack.

After focusing, I took several test shots and settled on a focal length, composition and initial exposure. I found that using an ISO of 200 for 30 seconds at f/4 produced an exposure that made the stars visible, but overexposed the bridge. A 15-second exposure at the same ISO and aperture retained highlight detail in the bridge and city. I made these two images and proceeded to the next step.

I set the intervalometer on my Fuji X-T2 to shoot 60 images at 30 seconds with a 1-second delay between frames. Once I plunged the shutter, I sat back for half an hour to enjoy the view.

When I returned to the computer, I opened all 60 frames in Photoshop, selected all of the layers and then chose the Lighten blend mode to create the star trails. My next step was to flatten the file to minimize its footprint on the hard drive. I then opened the 15-second exposure and copied it onto a layer in my first file. This darker image allowed me to mask in the properly exposed city lights and bridge while keeping the lighter sky with the stars.

Shooting star trails near cities takes a little planning and some post-processing work, but it’s also a ton of fun. I can’t wait to return to San Francisco this year with Gabriel Biderman to run our Golden Gate National Recreation Area & San Francisco Workshop in November!

Chris Nicholson

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Boathouse near Campbeltown, Scotland. Nikon D5, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. Light painted with a Luxli Viola. 30 seconds, f/4, ISO 2000.

I’m an ardent believer in the idea that a good photograph should not be just of something, but also about something. And this image is definitely about something important to me.

When I was four years old, I lived in Scotland for about half a year because the U.S. Navy stationed my father at the Royal Air Force Machrihanish base at the tip of the Kintyre peninsula. We lived in nearby Campbeltown, and I still carry a fair number of memories from the experience.

So when National Parks at Night began scheduling a night photography tour of The Hebrides for the spring of 2018, I knew for sure that I wanted to work it. I hadn’t been to Scotland since my family left in 1976, and this was an excellent chance to revisit one of my childhood haunts. So it was that Lance and I jumped over the pond a few days before our tour began and drove up to the Kintyre peninsula.

The couple of days I got to spend in Campbeltown were incredible. I found our old apartment on Queen Street, traced the steps I used to make to the nearby beach, and drove downtown past my old playground and along the fishing port. We stayed overnight at an old captain’s house we found on Airbnb, and that’s where we based our night shoot.

I focused all my attention on this old boathouse. I set up the camera on a jetty, and walked back onto the land atop some rocks to light paint the structure and water with a Luxli Viola. My goal was to mimic the warm tones of the light with the warm twilight sky, and to illuminate the crashing waves just enough to capture some motion and reveal some detail.

I liked the resulting photograph enough so that it truly is one of my favorites of 2018. I like the light, the color, the composition. But the most important part of the image for me is the experience of those two days: reconnecting with memories of my mom, who I talked to several times while strolling the streets, and with memories of my dad, who passed in 2006, and with memories of who I was 42 years ago as a little boy in a faraway land.

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Moonlight in Santa Elena Canyon, Big Bend National Park. Nikon D850, Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens at 17mm. 20 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 5000.

If you’ve ever been to Big Bend National Park and photographed Santa Elena Canyon, you know that the light at this amazing location can work well at both ends of the day. You can shoot in the morning when the sunrise light hits the face of the canyon, or you can shoot at the end of the day when the setting sun bounces into the canyon and reflects off the walls. The latter is a more challenging exposure, but often results in more satisfying creative options.

So when I saw in PhotoPills that the moon would be setting behind the canyon during my winter 2018 trip to the park, I had the idea to use that same late-day strategy for shooting there at night—having no idea if it would work well or not.

Well, it worked splendidly. The night was perfectly clear, which allowed for a spectacularly starry sky, and the setting moon did exactly what I was hoping: It bounced into the canyon, lighting up the 1,500-foot cliff face that flanks the Rio Grande.

Shooting from a low angle with a wide lens portrayed the magnitude of Santa Elena’s size. It also—for me, anyway—inspired another adventure. Looking at the moonlight spilling into the canyon, I could imagine the thrill of canoeing the river at night. Next time, perhaps?

Matt Hill

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Zig When They Zag. Nikon D500, Nikon 50mm f/1.4G lens. 30 seconds, f/2, ISO 125.

My two favorite images of 2018 reflect my developing tastes in composition and motion. And they both happened at Rocky Mountain National Park.

After hiking up the Tundra Communities Trail, I faced west (to catch my breath). Whilst helping workshop attendees, I saw the switchback leading toward the visitor center in the distance, and my eyes were drawn to the car traffic there.

I popped on my Nikon 50mm f/1.4G lens for a nice composition of thirds that allowed me to pit the energy of the cars passing to and fro against the stars angled almost perpendicular against this zigzag of light. After shooting four frames at 30 seconds each, I knew I had enough car trails to make the stack and moved on to another breathless scene. You know, the air is really thin up there. ;-)

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Moonset Over Tyndall Gorge. Nikon D850, Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art lens. Ten frames at 10 seconds, f/5, ISO 6400.

The second Rocky Mountain image was from the hike down from Emerald Lake during our add-on adventure a few nights later. We got to this spot just in time to see the setting moon scraping across this vast valley and mountain range.

After fiddling with my circular polarizer experiment for a bit, I saw that the moon would soon set in the trees to my right, so I hustled to swap in my Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art lens, go vertical, level out the Acratech GP-ss head on the leveling base and throw on the nodal rail.

This is a 10-frame pano stitch, with each frame shot at 10 seconds, f/5, ISO 6400, then assembled in Lightroom Classic CC. At the time, I did not see the crazy cool things the clouds were doing. I was, after all, a bit exhausted from the 650-foot-in-1.5-mile ascent at altitude while wearing “the kitchen sink” (my Shimoda 60L backpack full o’ gear). During the edit, I was simply astounded by the soft yet kinetic cloud movements and so darn happy that I’d timed it just right to get the moonset in the tree line.

Your Turn!

Now that you’ve seen our favorite photos from 2018, we’d like to see yours! Join us in the fun and post your favorite night photography image from the past year in the comments section below or on our Facebook page, and tell us a little about it. And if you’re on Instagram, give us a follow. We will soon be announcing a contest of your best night shots of 2018!

Next, start 2019 strong. Put on your mittens (or shorts if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere) and get shooting. Let’s make 2019 the biggest year for night photography yet.

With stars in our eyes and gratitude in our hearts, thank you from the entire National Parks at Night team. Hugs.

Matt Hill is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. See more about his photography, art, workshops and writing at MattHillArt.com. Follow Matt on Twitter Instagram Facebook.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

So Far, So Awesome! Recapping Our First Workshops of 2018

It’s hard to believe that the year is almost half over. Our workshop season, however, is just kicking into high gear. Matt and Gabe are leading a group in Capitol Reef National Park, and Chris and I are about to do the same in Redwood National and State Parks. But this week’s post is about celebrating the amazing experiences we had with the attendees of our first six workshops and tours of 2018.

We started the year by visiting one of the lesser-known national parks, Biscayne in Florida, and in the spring we offered our very first night portraiture workshop, in Catskill, New York. For 2018 we added a second international tour, and notched both Iceland and Scotland in our passports before the end of spring. We also partnered with two of our favorite institutions—Rocky Mountain School of Photography and Atlas Obscura—to create two opportunities to seize the night in California.

We’re also working hard on a new series of workshops and programs for 2019, to be announced later this summer. (Want to be among the first to know about them? Be sure you’re on our email list!)

It may sound like we’re tooting our own horn, but what all of this really means is that (as Matt proclaimed in a lecture earlier this year) this is the golden age of night photography. It is not because we are teaching a lot of workshops, but because so many of you are out there photographing at night and continuing to produce so many amazing images.

As we move on with the second half of 2018, let’s see where the first half brought us …

Biscayne National Park

January 29-February 3
By Gabriel Biderman

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They said it couldn’t be done—a night photography workshop was impossible at a location that’s 90 percent water. Well, here at National Parks at Night, we love a good challenge and we made the most of the 10 percent of land in Biscayne National Park!

The first night of the workshop was the day before the second blue supermoon of 2018, and we came prepared. Our friends at Nikon shipped us an 800mm lens with a 1.25X teleconverter, which we matched to the D500 with its 1.5X-crop APS-C sensor. With that, we practically lassoed the moon. That “kit” was set up on a Gitzo tripod and students could stick their memory card in the camera and track and capture the moon. The rest of the first night was spent getting our night feet wet with the many subjects to photograph around the Dante Fascall Visitor Center, the only mainland section of the park.

The next two nights we were transported by charter boat to Elliot and Boca Chita keys. Elliott provided a supermoon moonrise, mangroves, dock and other subjects. But Boca Chita is definitely the crown jewel of the location. We literally “lit up” the ornamental Honeywell lighthouse, photographed the Miami skyline, light painted the cutest little chapel, and explored the many views along this picturesque curved key.

We also got to spend an evening at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park, which offered spectacular views of off-shore Stilstsville at sunset, which is in the northernmost part of Biscayne National Park. Baggs is also home of the oldest standing structure in greater Miami—the Cape Florida Light, which we were able to wrap lots of star trails around as well as climb up and sing an opera song or two!

Our last night was even more special, as we were able to gain access to Stiltsville, a grouping of wooden stilt houses that are 1 mile from Miami.  The structures are still recovering/rebuilding from Hurricane Irma, but we were able to watch a spectacular moonrise over Leshaw House as well as shoot a few other unique “floating" houses from the dreamlike location of the Baldwin-Sessions house.

Tim and I have taught many workshops, but this was definitely one to remember—from being transported to and from the islands by boat at night, to just the amazing camaraderie that we had with all the students and people who helped make this adventure happen. We want to give a big thank you to Biscayne National Park, Biscayne National Park Institute, Stiltsville Trust and Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park for helping us put together this amazing experience.

Iceland South Coast

March 12-20
By Lance Keimig

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Our first international tour of 2018 was remarkable for two things: some really bad weather, and a truly extraordinary group of travelers.

After an outstanding exploration of the remote Westfjords of Iceland in the late summer of 2017, we scheduled our second Iceland adventure to the more frequently visited south coast. This is where most visitors to Iceland end up, and for good reason. Some of the most spectacular waterfalls, along with the famous glacial lagoons and the ice beach can be found there.

We arrived and spent our first day and night in Reykjavik, and had an amazing meal at the Fish Market with many courses of truly delicious and innovatively prepared seafood dishes. The next day we headed south under sunny skies and spent some time with a friendly herd of Icelandic horses before making our way to Vik.

Alas, then the weather took a turn for the worse, with rain and ferocious winds. Our intrepid group made the best of it and we photographed when and where we could, and we even had an impromptu light painting lesson in the hotel meeting room when it was too wet to go out and photograph.

The nasty weather continued the next day, and the forecast was only getting worse––100 percent chance of nothing but cold, wind and rain for the entire remainder of our trip. Iceland can be like that sometimes, and you do what you can to make the best of it.

I’d never seen it quite that bad before, but we had a hardy group of outside-the-box thinkers who found a solution and presented it to Chris and I. The next thing we knew, we had changed our entire itinerary and were headed to the north coast, where the forecast was not only for clear skies, but also for lots of aurora borealis. Yup, we did it! The entire group agreed, and we changed our plans and our fortunes, and we found some great new locations and made a lot of great photographs.

I won’t ever forget how this group collectively transformed a gloomy experience into a very memorable trip. Don’t be surprised if you see a National Parks at Night trip to North Iceland show up on our website in the next few years. Maybe the weather on that one will lead us back to the south, and we can finish what we started.

Joshua Tree at Night

April 15-20
By Lance Keimig

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Our friends at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography invited us to lead another workshop for them in 2018, and Gabe and I did that at Joshua Tree National Park in mid-April.

This was our first chance at the Milky Way for the year, and we planned the workshop to begin at the new moon and progress to nearly the first quarter. Conditions were perfect––cool nights, clear skies and a largely novice group of night photography converts. We had a few welcome NPAN alumni from Zion, Great Sand Dunes and Cape Cod to help lead the newbies on our dessert adventure.

Arch Rock, Hidden Valley and of course Key’s Ranch were highlight locations again this year, and we were happy to be working with the Desert Institute again as our park liaison. After our RMSP workshop, we led a second, one-night outing for the Desert Institute.

In addition to some truly stellar images, one of the memorable aspects of this workshop is that our group was not hesitant to stay out late and wait for the Milky Way to rise over the horizon—which, depending on the location, was not until 1 a.m. or later. Way to go, gang!

Catskills Night Portraiture

April 27-29 (Spring Session)
By Matt Hill

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Students, model, Matt and Mabel in our headquarters backyard shortly after a massive thunderstorm.

In April, I hosted our very first night portraiture workshop. It was also the inaugural workshop in the newly renovated teaching space at our headquarters in the village of Catskill, New York.

This workshop was very intimate, catered farm-to-table by a local chef and designed for advanced students who want to make long exposure portraits of people at night.

From Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon, we worked on lighting, posing and storytelling. Our wonderful local model, Galaexius Quasar, worked with us in studio and on location in the area to bring to life fantastic ideas.

We had challenging weather, but on the first night, that was a real boon. The clouds and misty rain added a moodiness that complemented the scene.

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Nikon D750 with a Nikon 105mm f/1.4 lens. 15 seconds, f/4, ISO 200.

The second night brought a very energetic thunderstorm. We decided to stay dry and warm and proceeded to build long exposure portraits in the studio until the weather cleared. After that, we went in the backyard, popped a couple of smoke grenades and made some more magic.

By spending time working on individual skills, both students really leveled up. I’m so happy we did it, and I’m looking forward to the six-person workshop in the fall that I am co-teaching with Tim Cooper.

Dark Skies, Desert Beasts: Borrego Springs, California

May 10-13
By Gabriel Biderman

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Dark Skies and Desert Beasts was the official title of our first Ambassador Series workshop with Atlas Obscura. It was held in the dark sky community of Borrego Springs, California, and our focus was the 130-plus surreal sculptures of Ricardo Breceda that created an amazing “Night Sky Museum” with the Milky Way as our backdrop.

For those who are unfamiliar with Atlas Obscura, they have been the go-to online guide to the strange and unusual all over the world for the last 10 years. It was an honor to work with their team, to introduce them to the beauty of the night and to create a unique experience.

Borrego Springs is part of the Sonoran Desert and has been an oasis in the valley for many years—though now more people seek its dark skies than ever before. We enhanced the California vibes even more by staying at an Old West and vintage trailer themed resort!

We spent our afternoons in class, reviewing students’ work and going over the many techniques of night photography. We explored a different section of the Galleta Meadows each night. The variety of sculptures—from the iconic “dragon” serpent that cuts through the main road to the spectacular standoff between the grasshopper and scorpion—were just amazing to aim our lenses toward. But there were so many other beasts to play with too, from dinosaurs and wild horses, to sabertooth tigers, camels, sloths and jeeps driving into the stars!

We scouted each area during the day, and we dropped Google pins and took test shots for sculptures that inspired us so that we could be more productive once the sun set.

Our group of students were amazing and worked so well together, each taking a crack at light painting to reinterpret these pieces of art into something they could call their own.

It was definitely a challenging workshop, operating under little to no moon and maintaining focus on some fairly close subject matter while keeping those background stars sharp!

However, both Tim and I were incredibly impressed with the work that was created and the camaraderie that was forged with all! We had so much fun that we are already planning on a return to Borrego and more collaborations with Atlas. Stay tuned!

Scotland: The Hebrides

May 13-23
By Lance Keimig

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Our second international trip of 2018 was to the Isle of Skye, and the Hebridean Isles of Lewis and Harris.

Skye has some of the best landscapes in Europe, and Lewis and Harris are rich in Neolithic archeology. I had been there the year before in March, and things were pretty quiet as you might expect at that time of year. It was immediately apparent that like Iceland, Scotland has seen a major increase in tourism in the last couple of years, and no place in Scotland more than Skye. It was interesting to note that unlike in Iceland, where it seems that much if not most of the tourism centers around photography, that wasn’t the case in Scotland. Some of the locations I’d been visiting for years, often having them to myself, were now absolutely swarming with tourists (and the busy season was only just beginning).

Fortunately, there are still plenty of places to appreciate the spectacular landscapes and appreciate the culture and history of Scotland if you’re willing to come back after dark! That’s what we did!

We had five full days and nights at the wonderful Uig Lodge on the Isle of Lewis. We had some good weather, some mediocre weather, a smashed iPhone (mine) and a real beater of a minibus (thanks, Sixt, but we’ll look elsewhere next time). Again NPAN travelers showed their mettle and faced every challenge head-on to come home with new friends, good memories and great images.

Chris and I took a couple of days before the tour to explore an area in the southwest of Scotland, and he even found the exact apartment in Campbeltown where he had lived for six months as a child while his dad was stationed at the U.S. naval station nearby. National Parks at Night will be leading more tours to some of the other Scottish islands in the future, so stay tuned!

Partner Participation

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 and Luxli all offered loaner gear, discounts, gifts and other perks at various locations. As always, our gratitude is unending.

Looking Forward

As you can see, it’s been a pretty exciting year so far, with more to come. As of June 22, all of our remaining 2018 workshops are full with the exception of our second week at Glacier National Park led by Tim and myself. 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.

We’ll be announcing our 2019 workshops and tours in August, first to our esteemed alumni, then to our email subscribers, and then to the general public. We hope to see you out there under the Milky Way!

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