Death Valley National Park Night Workshop

Tuition 1595 USD

Death Valley is an amazing national park full of color and surreal landscapes that photographers clamor to shoot every year. Our journey will take us to the lowest elevation in the United States, Badwater Basin, where the salt flats provide an incredible foreground to Artiste Palette in the winding mountains surrounding the valley. Later, we will venture all the way to a pre-historic crater that’s surrounded by volcanic rock and the sand dunes and hoodoos in between! The numerous possibilities in this national park will give our party near limitless opportunities to create wonderful works of art. 

Included:

• 4 days and 3 nights of photography instruction for landscapes, nightscapes, and astrophotography.

• Instruction will cover the planning of coveted night time landscapes. and astrophotography.

• Learning what to look for and how to make sure you have the best opportunity to capture beautiful night time photography!

• Learn the fundamentals to capture the cleanest imagery quickly and easily with added post processing that makes your images stand out from everyone else!

• Small workshop size capped at 10 participants.

• Getting Ready Guide prior to the workshop.

What you will learn:

• Correctly exposing for star light, light pollution, and dark foregrounds.

• Learn new techniques that reduce noise without the loss of detail.

• Understand what is correct exposure and reading your histogram.

• Explaining filters and when to use and not use them in your kit.

• Create easy to do star trails.

• How dynamic range effects your final image for digital and print.

Equipment to bring:

• DSLR capable of 3200 ISO

• Fast lenses with an aperture of f/2.8 or faster (f/2, f/1.4) and 24mm or wider focal length for night imagery

• Lens lengths between 14mm - 200mm are great to bring for the workshop

• Tripod with a ball head

• Headlamp with a red "night vision" light

• Warm clothing and bug repellent

• I ask each participant to be very familiar with your camera and its settings prior to taking this workshop, as we will be working with little to no light most of the evenings

• Intervalometer

• L bracket

• Laptop with Creative Cloud (Lightroom and Photoshop)

Not included:

• Airfare

• Travel to, from, and within Death Valley National Park

• Lodging

• Meals

• Incidentals

• National Park Admission

Optional Race Track Playa Night: Limited to Five (5) Attendees

Take a trip to one of the most remote areas of Death Valley and experience the Sailing Stones of the Race Track Playa! This micro, one night workshop, is only available to attendees who have signed up for Session #1 or Session #2 and adds an additional night of instruction to the end of the workshop. This is a fantastic opportunity to photograph the Sailing Stones  and Grand Stand in a small, like minded group, of new friends and put to work your new skills from the previous three nights of instruction. Photograph a winter Milky Way Arch over the Grand Stand, experience zodiacal light washing over the Sailing Stones, and have a unique and incredible opportunity to create beautiful nightscape photography.