PhotoPills Bootcamp: Joshua Tree
With PhotoPills, your ideas have no bounds. During 5 days and nights of learning, scouting and shooting in California’s Joshua Tree National Park, we’ll explore the ins and outs of one of the most powerful tools a photographer can keep in their pocket. Learn to plan for and capture the Milky Way, sunsets, moonsets, star points, star trails and more in this desert jewel of the park system.
Workshop Details
October 10-15, 2023 — Completed
This is a 5-night, 6-day workshop. Your adventure begins on the morning of October 10, and ends after a final slide show on the afternoon of October 15.
$2,195 + applicable taxes. Register below.
Skill level
Intermediate and above. Participants should have a firm grasp of the basic principles of photography and of their cameras, and have a comfortable understanding of night photography fundamentals.
Group size
14, with 2 instructors — 7:1 ratio
Info websites
Joshua Tree National Park
PhotoPills
Workshop Leaders
Registration
This event has passed. Thanks for your interest!
| • Deposit of $600 is required to reserve your spot at the workshop. |
| • Balance of $1,595 is due on July 12, 2023. —> Pay balance here. |
| • You may choose the “Pay in Full” ticket if you desire to pay all at once. |
| • Last day for a cancellation request is July 11, 2023 (see cancellation and refund policy). |
| • The workshop fee does not include lodging, food, airfare, entrance fees, or transportation to the lodging or to our nightly shoot locations. |
The Joshua Tree Experience
This workshop is all about learning how to master PhotoPills in the best place to do so: in the field. And not just any field—we’ll be learning, scouting and shooting in one of the U.S.’s premier places for day and night photography, California’s Joshua Tree National Park.
Each day we’ll learn more about PhotoPills and how to use it to plan epic photographs. We’ll go over everything from how to configure the settings so the app works better for you, to how to use the Planner and other features to find and photograph the sun, moon, stars, Milky Way, etc.
Then we’ll venture into the park and use what we learned in the classroom to scout photos for sunset, moonset and nighttime. Then we’ll just spend the evening shooting. Sound like fun? Yeah, we think so too!
Joshua Tree is a photographer’s dream. The yucca that the park is named for are a dynamic foreground subject, as are other desert flora, such as the ocotillo and cholla—not to mention the distinctive rounded rock formations that define the landscape and the mountains that adorn the backgrounds. At night the clear high-desert air reveals crisp starry skies that, at this particular time of year, may reveal a few Orionids meteors.
What You Should Know
This workshop caters to knowledgeable photographers with an intermediate skill set. Participants should have a firm grasp of the basic principles of photography and of their cameras, and have a comfortable understanding of night photography fundamentals.
Note that the focus of the education on this workshop is not night photography. If you are not already comfortable with the fundamentals of night photography, we recommend taking a Beginner or All Levels workshop with us before taking our PhotoPills course. We will be happy to offer advice and answer questions about both day and night photography, but the focus of the formal education will be on using PhotoPills to level up the photography skills you have already developed.
You do not need to know anything about how to use PhotoPills before attending this workshop, but you should bring a device that is capable of running it—either a smartphone or a tablet, if not both.
If you would like to attend this workshop but are unsure whether you have adequate night photography skills, we can offer pre-workshop tutoring to get you ready for your adventure with us. Alternatively or additionally, a few of us have written books that may be productive pre-workshop reads.
What You Will Learn
We will cover all of the features of PhotoPills that a landscape photographer might want to use in a natural environment. We will teach these features in a classroom setting, then we’ll venture into the field to reinforce your new skills and put them to use to plan and shoot epic photographs in the national park.
While in the field, the instructors will reinforce the classroom learning by demonstrating how they would use PhotoPills in that particular location, and then will work with participants one-on-one to make sure everyone masters the app and executes photos they have individually planned. Our locations have generous room to explore, so everyone will be able to spread out and use PhotoPills to plan and capture their own unique visions.
Our aim is to send you home after the workshop comfortable with using this powerful photo-planning tool, as well as with some amazing photos of this inspiring place.
TOPICS COVERED WILL INCLUDE how to use PhotoPills to:
plan for specific photo locations while on or off site
locate where and when the sun and moon will rise and set
find where the Milky Way will be in the sky at different times of night
pinpoint the North Star and strategize star circles
determine exposures for the sharpest star points
calculate long exposures for star trails or light painting
figure degrees of overlap between pano frames
and more …
Hyperfocal Distance
Of particular note, the workshop will feature a full day of learning how to use hyperfocal distance to maximize depth of field, allowing you to photograph scenes with sharp foreground subjects and sharp background skies with the large apertures necessary for night photography. PhotoPills offers several features that help calculate and visualize the hyperfocal concept.
Night Conditions
Logistics & General Info
Travel
Joshua Tree is very accessible—45 minutes from Palm Springs and 3 to 4 hours from either Los Angeles or Las Vegas.
Rental Car
You will need a rental car.
There is no need for four-wheel-drive.
If you are interested in carpooling or sharing a rental car, let us know and we will try to connect you with another attendee looking for the same.
Nearby Airports:
Palm Springs (PSP) — 45 minutes to Twentynine Palms
Los Angeles (LAX) — 3 hours
Las Vegas (LAS) — 3 to 4 hours
Lodging & Food
You are responsible for arranging and paying for your own accommodations and meals.
Lodging
The workshop base camp will be in Twentynine Palms, California. Info and group code will be sent when our lodging partner is ready to begin taking reservations.
You are not required to stay at the official workshop lodging, though doing so does make it easier to meet with the group each morning. There are other lodging options in Twentynine Palms, or camping in the park if you prefer, but there are no showers in any of the park’s campgrounds.
If you are interested in sharing a room, let us know and we will try to connect you with someone like-minded in the group.
Food
Twentynine Palms has a handful of food options, including groceries.
We encourage eating two meals per day—a good breakfast and a great late lunch.
When on the night shoots, you may wish to bring snack food or a sandwich and plenty of water.
Weather
The temperature should be moderate, with daytime temperatures in the upper 70s F, and nighttime lows in the lower 50s.
Recommended Attire
Shorts and short-sleeve shirts for daytime, light pants and long-sleeve shirts for night.
A sweatshirt and medium-weight jacket will likely be useful, and a base layer might not be a waste of packing space.
Comfortable and protective shoes are recommended for getting around—quality trail shoes or hiking boots would be optimal.
Exertion Level
The exertion level of this workshop is Easy. (See more about our classifications.)
No vigorous activity will be required during the workshop, but please consider your physical abilities prior to registering. There won’t be any long hikes, but there will be trails, and there will be cacti to avoid, and you should be comfortable carrying your own equipment over uneven ground in the dark.
Considerations
Please read our FAQs section for more information about skill and gear requirements, and other information that pertains to all our workshops.
If you have questions, please contact us—we're happy to talk it over with you.
Loving my Job in a Park I Love …
“I was surrounded by cactuses, wildly beautiful rock formations, and distant snowcapped mountains on all sides.”
I wasn’t originally supposed to be in Joshua Tree.
In 2017, National Parks at Night was running a spring workshop in the park, and it proved wildly popular. It sold out almost immediately, and generated a waitlist long enough to fill two more cohorts of attendees. So Lance had the idea of staying for an extra week to run a second consecutive workshop. The only problem was that Gabe, who was teaching the first one, couldn’t stay. So Lance called me in to take Gabe’s place. … Gosh, I love my job.
I’d been to Joshua Tree National Park once before, solo in 2004, while on a magazine assignment to Palm Springs, California. I loved the park. One of my most distinct memories was how much it was about more than just the namesake trees. Previously, I guess I’d imagined it was just a vast forest of tall, tangly yucca. But there I was surrounded by cactuses, wildly beautiful rock formations, and distant snowcapped mountains on all sides. I also, in one day, saw a coyote, a roadrunner and a rabbit. I was in my own real-life Looney Tunes adventure.
My time with Lance was a different experience. I had a partner to explore with—at night, no less. We had several days in the park, just the two of us. One of my favorite parts about night photography is the opportunity it affords to just slow down, not just photographically, but with life too. Such was the case on those evenings with Lance.
We spent hours upon hours enjoying the dark skies, the stars, the Milky Way. We photographed, yes—but we also just walked a lot, and talked a lot. The Milky Way was rising pretty late, or early, depending on your point of view. We had to wait until after 1 a.m. for it to appear. So we had a fair amount of time to shoot the landscape, while shooting the breeze, meandering about in a cool desert breeze.
Quiet nights in a beautiful landscape with a good friend. Yeah. I love my job.
