Fantastic Four Corners: Announcing the 2026 Nightscaper Conference

As promised at the end of the most recent Nightscaper Photo Conference, we’re moving! Kanab, Utahβ€”home to the last three conferencesβ€”is a wonderful place to gather for night photography, but so are a hundred other locations. So we’re hitting the road, ready to explore our next great location for shooting and celebrating dark skies, as we bring the Nightscaper Conference to … Four Corners!

Today we officially launch the 2026 Nightscaper Photo Conference, and we invite you to come shoot for the stars with us in Farmington, New Mexico, and the amazing dark-sky landscapes that surround it. The event will run May 14-17, 2026.

About Nightscaper

If you’re making plans for your 2026 spring Milky Way season, then include Nightscaper Four Corners in your schedule and level up your astro-landscape night photography skills. This conference will be held during the height of the new moon, providing perfect darkness to photograph the Milky Way arching over the beauty of the high Colorado Plateau.

You’ll join other passionate photographers, scientists and inspirational speakers for daytime sessions about night photography, astronomy, dark sky preservation and more. Then after hours you’ll head out with speakers, sponsors and/or other attendees to enjoy the night with friends new and old. Speakers will also be offering local workshops before and after the conference, so you can put together a pretty awesome night photography excursion in one of the best places in the world for doing so.

The conference goes on for four days, starting each day in late morning to accommodate those who were out shooting the night before. Daily lunches are included, as well as one dinner.

Speakers

We are very excited to announce many of the speakers for the 2026 conference right now. We will be welcoming:

  • returning speakers Bryony Richards, Jess Santos, Joshua Snow and Katrina Brown

  • Jaya Bajpayee, deputy director at NASA

  • Derek Culver, aka Clanger McBanger

  • Forest Chaput de Saintonge, founder of Rocky Mountain School of Photography and Everlight Education

  • Ian Lauer, astrophotographer and YouTuber

  • Ken Lee, night photographer, master light painter and author of four photography books

  • Cathrin Machin, an astro artist who will teach you how to paint the stars

  • Royce Bair, the original β€œnightscaper” and founder of the conference

  • Gabriel Biderman, Tim Cooper, Matt Hill, Lance Keimig, and Chris Nicholsonβ€”the team at National Parks at Night

For more information, visit our About the Speakers page.

And keep checking back, because that won't be the last of the names you’ll see. We'll be adding a few more speakers, and we’ll keep you posted.

Tickets

Tickets for the 2026 conference are on sale now. We are offering Conference + Replays tickets for those who can travel or Replays Only tickets for those who cannot travel but still want all the education and inspiration.

  • $599 ($200 off full price) for Conference + Replays tickets: use code β€œEarlyBird”

  • $375 ($50 off full price) for Replays Only tickets: use code β€œEarlyBirdReplay”

Additionally, if you buy your in-person (Conference + Replays) ticket before July 15, you will receive a free gift. Your choice of either a Nightscaper hat or padded tote bag!

These Early Birds deal will last until July 15, 2025, so grab your ticket at a discounted rate while you can!

Scholarship: Send a Kid to Nightscaper

The Nightscaper Youth Scholarship supports aspiring astrophotographers ages 13 to 20 by providing lodging and full conference registration to attend Nightscaper. This opportunity is designed to inspire and empower the next generation of night sky storytellers.

Applicants will be selected based on a submitted nightscape photo and a brief written photo story that showcases their passion for capturing the beauty of the night sky and the creativity behind their image.

Awardees will have the chance to learn from industry professionals, engage with and shoot alongside the Nightscaper community, and grow their artistic and technical skills in a supportive and inspiring environment.

Conference attendees have the chance to contribute to the scholarship fund while purchasing their ticket. (For anyone not attending who would like to contribute, please see the Nightscaper Youth Scholarship webpage.)

Follow Us for News

We’ll be rolling out more Nightscaper Conference information throughout the next year, including:

  • sponsor and speaker announcements

  • morning add-on classes

  • speaker workshops

  • lodging info

  • and more!

Be sure to sign up for the Nightscaper email list to receive conference news and updates right in your inbox.

Also, stay tuned in to our day-to-day conference announcements by following the Nightscaper social media accounts:

Finally, join the Facebook group to share your night photos and to chat about all things night photography.

Chris Nicholson is a partner and director of content with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015) and Photographing Lighthouses (Sidelight Books, 2024). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

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From Plane to Rain to Desert Moon: The Great Lunar Eclipse Chase of 2025

It had been a while since we were last able to photograph a total lunar eclipse in the Americasβ€”November 2022, to be exact. I missed shooting them, because I love shooting them.

I started chasing lunar eclipses in 2014 when I took a Dusk to Dawn workshop group to Las Vegas for the second in the tetrad of lunar eclipses that were happening over a one-year period. The next time was 2019, when I was in Atlanta and found a view of downtown with car trails and a big super blood moon.

High Roller & Lunar Moon Trail, 2014. 55mm focal length, 15 minutes f/8, ISO 400.

The 2019 super blood wolf moon (aka the lunar eclipse) over Atlanta. Foreground: 35mm lens, 25 seconds, f/16, ISO 200; background (moon): 600mm lens, 1/2 second, f/5.6, ISO 3200.

Lunar eclipses are relatively easy to shoot, compared to solar eclipsesβ€”you don’t need special filters and you typically have an hour of totality instead of mere minutes. Looking back recently, a common theme I noticed was that I had shot all my lunar eclipses in urban locations. So for the March 2025 eclipse last week, I wanted to travel someplace dark. Given that I would be in Vegas again right before this eclipse, I set my eyes on experiencing the event in the gold-tier dark skies of nearby Death Valley National Park.

The Players

As always is the case with night photography, I wanted to enjoy this experience with others. I was heading to Vegas for the WPPI conference, so it wasn’t hard to find friends who were willing to adventure together. The team comprised:

  • Susan Magnano, night photographer, luminescent portrait expert, Night Photo Summit speaker and birthday girl!

  • Clifford Pickett, post-processing wizard and educator in all things photography

  • JC Carey, master of bringing light and drama to any scene with his Westcott strobes always at the ready

The Plan

Death Valley is a vast national park with lots of scenery options. The idea I proposed was to photograph the hexagonal patterns of salt flats with mountains in the distance (like in the photo below) and the moon high in the sky.

Salt flat formations, Death Valley National Park. Β© Chris Nicholson. Nikon D5 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. 1/320, f/8, ISO 100.

JC and I planned to fly in early on the 13th and head right to Death Valley. Susan and Cliff were already there and were able to do some key scouting for locations.

When JC and I landed, the weather was horrible. It was raining, totally overcast, windy and cold. But the forecast for Death Valley was that things would clear up about an hour before totality. That being said, Death Valley has different weather all over the massive park, so we kept our fingers crossed.

Another not-so-fun fact about Death Valley (depending on your priorities) is that it has very limited cell reception. Fortunately we got just enough of a sliver of service to learn that when Susan and Cliff scouted Badwater Basinβ€”the usual spot for shooting salt patternsβ€”they found nothing. Hurricane Hillary in 2023 and heavy rains in 2024 wiped out the formations (which is part of the normal cycle of nature there), and new ones had not completely reformed yet. So Susan and Cliff found another location with more defined patterns, and they sent us a pin.

The Shoot

Dropped pins work OK in Death Valley, as long as you have downloaded an offline map in Google Mapsβ€”which fortunately I had. We found Susan and Cliff after only one turnaround, when we spotted a lone car parked on the side of the road and a few tripods out in the darkness. We pulled over and called out β€œSusan, is that you?” A familiar voice called back, β€œYou made it!” Finding your friends in the dark can be a very comforting feeling.

The sky was looking pretty good. There were still some big patchy clouds, but to the west were lots of stars. The air was a little chilly with winds approximately 10 mph, which was down significantly from the 50 mph winds earlier.

We started looking for primo honeycomb patterns that we could frame in front of the moon. By the time the clouds cleared, the eclipse was halfway toward totality. It looked very cool.

I had two setups going, but the main one was my Nikon Z 8 with a 14-24mm f/2.8 lens low to the ground to emphasize the raised lines of salt. I focused on the hyperfocal distance and was able to achieve sharp focus from 3 feet away to the stars at infinity.

Once totality kicked in and the moon turned dark red, I needed to home in on the proper exposure for the moon with detail. The correct foreground shot (Figure 1) was 8 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 6400. The properly exposed wide moon shot (Figure 2) was 1/2, f/4, ISO 1250. That is a five-plus-stop difference in exposure.

Figure 1. The foreground exposure. Nikon Z 8 with a Nikon Z 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. 8 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 6400.

Figure 2. The moon exposure. 1/2, f/4, ISO 1250.

I shot both frames at 18mm and later blended the properly exposed lunar eclipse with the foreground in Photoshop (Figure 3).

I shot a few different takes of this with different salt patterns, and I also used a Luxli Fiddle at .1 percent power to sidelight the scene and bring out the texture of the ground. However, for this foreground shot a car was driving down the road and the sidelight from the headlights provided the perfect visual punch to the salt flats.

Figure 3. The final blended image.

I also had my Nikon ZF camera mounted with a 100-400mm lens to get some close-up views of the eclipse during totality. I was inspired by Chris Nicholson’s bright star field capture of the lunar eclipse in 2022 and wanted to create something similar that as well.

The stars were really sparkling during totality and my proper lunar eclipse exposure (Figure 4) was 1/15, f/5.6, ISO 6400 shooting with the lens at 185mm. The sharp star field shot (Figure 5) was 1/2, f/5.6, ISO 25,600 also at 185mm.

Figure 4. Nikon ZF with a Nikon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens at 185mm. 1/15, f/5.6, ISO 6400.

Figure 5. 1/2, f/5.6, ISO 25,600.

What made blending these images together (Figure 6) easier than typical moon-swapping blends is that the glow around the moon was minimal because the moon was so dim.

Figure 6. The final blended image.

The Group Experience

It was very cool to experience the lunar eclipse in a dark location such as Death Valley. We were able to experience a variety of night photography opportunities due to the full-moon transition from a bright sky and landscape to an incredibly dark sky with stars aplenty, then back again, all within a few hours.

What I also found to be fun was that each of us were trying different interpretations of the lunar eclipse. JC’s favorite was a timelapse he set up that really shows the transition of the eclipse into totality.

Β© 2025 JC Carey.

Of course it wouldn’t be a night shoot with Susan if she didn’t bring out her light tubes and start taking luminescent portraits! That was super fun and a wonderful way to forever commemorate the Great Lunar Eclipse Chase of 2025.

Β© 2025 Susan Magnano.

Β© 2025 Susan Magnano.

Your Turn

We’d love to see your eclipse images and hear your eclipse stories! Share in the comments below, or on our Facebook page, or on Instagram (tag us @nationalparksatnight #nationalparksatnight #seizethenight).

If you didn’t get to shoot this lunar eclipse, another will hit the Americas on March 3, 2026. You’ll need to go west to see totalityβ€”in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California and Canada. Bring friends. It’s the best way to enjoy and remember the experience!

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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Are You Ready for the Total Lunar Eclipse of 2025?

If total lunar eclipses seem like a thing of the past, there’s a good reason for that: The world hasn’t seen one since 2022. But have no fearβ€”the disappearing act is back!

This week the moon will cross completely into Earth’s shadow, providing an opportunity for most of the photographers in the Western Hemisphere to get out and shoot this uncommon celestial event.

This eclipse will happen on the overnight of March 13 to 14, 2025β€”in other words, you want to be out tomorrow night. We’re offering this blog post to help you get prepared.

Info About the Eclipse

To learn more about this eclipse, we recommend checking out these excellent resources:

Where to See the Eclipse

A good portion of the Western Hemisphere will witness the total eclipse, including all of the contiguous United States and the eastern half of Alaska, plus all of Canada, all of Central America and half of South America.

Courtesy of NASA.

How to Shoot the Eclipse

Gear

You don’t need any special equipment beyond what you’d use to photograph any moon at night: camera, lens, tripod. You can add a cable remote, an intervalometer, a star tracker, etc., but you won’t need any special light filters or anything of that nature.

Consider using both long and wide lenses to create different types of compositions. The former will give you great moon portraits, while the latter will allow you to portray the moon as an element of a wider night scene (see below). The visible eclipse will last 3.5 hours from beginning to end, and totality will last about an hour. You can work through a lot of scenarios and ideas in that much time, and you can even wait out clouds that might be blocking the moon for a bit.

Lunar eclipse over Price Lake, Blue Ridge Parkway. Nikon D5 with a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. Three blended frames shot at 30 seconds (foreground), 15 seconds (stars) and 1/4 second (moon), f/2.8, ISO 6400.

Scouting

Use PhotoPills to see ahead of time where the moon will be in the sky during the eclipse. You can do this with the Eclipse panel in the Planner, or if you’re already on location just use Night AR in the Moon pill to visualize where the moon will move during the times mentioned above.

Exposure

Pay attention to shutter speed. The moon moves faster than it appearsβ€”a little less than 2,300 miles per hour. The moon moves the length of its diameter every 2 minutes.

This means that if your shutter speed is too long, the moon will blur. The wider your lens, the longer shutter speed you can get away withβ€”even as long as 10 seconds or so. But with longer lenses, you’ll be limited to much shorter speeds.

Be ready to change exposure. The moon will get darker closer to the middle of the eclipse, so an exposure that looks good at 1:30 a.m. EDT will appear dark at 3 a.m., and your good 3 a.m. exposure will blow out the moon at 5:00 a.m. But you have to be careful about compensating for that loss of illumination by changing your shutter speed too much, lest your moon go soft from motion (see above). Therefore, during totality you’ll probably want to increase your ISO instead.

More Info

In the past we’ve written a few blog posts about lunar eclipse photography. Reading through them will offer a little more context about how to work this week.

When to Shoot the Eclipse

All phases of the eclipse will happen simultaneously for viewers across time zones. However, because your watches will be different, the times will be different. To that end, we offer the following guides for when to be out shooting, and for when to expect what. (Click to open, right-click to download.)

Atlantic Daylight Time (GMT -3)

Eastern Daylight Time (GMT -4)

Central Daylight Time (GMT -5)

Mountain Daylight Time (GMT -6)

Pacific Daylight Time (GMT -7)

Alaska Daylight Time (GMT -8)

Wrapping Up

We wish all of you great success in shooting for the moon this week! Please come back and share your photos with us. Share in the comments below, or on our Facebook page, or on Instagram (tag us @nationalparksatnight #nationalparksatnight #seizethenight). Be sure to tell a story tooβ€”the technical aspects, the challenge overcome, or a tale of the experience.

Chris Nicholson is a partner and director of content with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015) and Photographing Lighthouses (Sidelight Books, 2025). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

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Dark Matters: Our Favorite Photos of 2024

Was 2024 the best year ever for night photography? It sure seemed like it!

In April millions of people prepared and traveled for the Great American Eclipse, which did not disappoint. Over the course of 2024 the sun released more than 50 X-class solar flares, resulting in solar-maximum aurora displays worldwide, some of which dipped well below the Mason-Dixon Line. And Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) delighted many of us in early autumn.

The year 2025 will also be big for us, not only with more stellar celestial events, but also because it marks our 10th year of sharing and celebrating and educating about night photography and all the adventures that go with it. We’re looking forward to a full schedule of both new and favorite destinations to keep us all seizing the night.

Until then, we reflect on 2024. We were fortunate to lead 21 workshops and tours, for which we visited nine national parks, seven islands and five international destinations. Now, in these last few days of this year, we honor the tradition of sharing our ten favorite night images with you. Will comets, eclipses and auroras be included in our top 10? Will they make yours?

Chris Nicholson

Yellowstone National Park. Nikon D5 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. 15 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 12,800.

In September I photographed in Yellowstone National Park’s Norris Geyser Basin at night for the third time ever. The first time was way back, at a point in my career when I wasn’t yet good enough at night photography to create an image I’d care to show anyone. The second time, clouds rolled in and obscured every star in the sky. This third time, however, was … wow!

The atmosphere was dry and the sky was clear, revealing countless stars twinkling overhead. The air was a perfect temperatureβ€”cool enough so that the steam from fumaroles and hot springs was apparent yet not overwhelming. The lack of any breeze kept the steam from blowing away and prevented ripples from disrupting the perfect star reflections in the water.

Beautiful random patterns of runoff offered plenty of possible compositions, but I waited most of the night for the Milky Way to drift over this spot, aligned with this little pond and little stream. I loved how all the elements of this inspiring landscape came together into exactly how I wanted to remember the moment.

Martha’s Vineyard. Nikon D5 with a Laowa 20mm f/4 shift lens. 15 seconds, f/11, ISO 6400.

In spring we brought a workshop group out to Martha’s Vineyard to photograph lighthouses. On the first night we visited Gay Head Lighthouse, and fogged rolled in. Not a problem! Lighthouses were built for weather, so weathery nights can be a great time to photograph them.

After the group left for the hotel, Gabe and I stayed out to shoot more. Gabe in particular had an idea he was chasing, and he needed some time to execute it. That left me wandering around looking for images to create. While lighthouses are fun to photograph, after working a few angles, finding more compositions can become challenging. In those moments I search for anything in the area that I can juxtapose with the towerβ€”a rocky shoreline, the keeper’s quarters, an oil house, etc. Here, I found these wonderful branches.

The way the bare branches crept into the scene, combined with the fog and the moody light bouncing around in it, made for a palpably eerie aesthetic. After one look at the LCD, I knew this would be one of my favorite lighthouse photographs.

Gabriel Biderman

Chicago, Chicago. Nikon Z 8 with a Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. 2.5 seconds, f/18, ISO 64.

There were plenty of images that I worked really hard to create this year. I used specialized gear, plotted exposures, and figured out where the sun and moon would be, but it was this accident of a shot that skyrocketed to the top.

Our Gateway Arch & Northern Route 66 workshop was probably the most underrated trip we offered this year. It was full of architecture tours, boat rides, skyscrapers, arches and plenty of Roadside Americana.

We always try to creatively capture the iconic symbols of the city or park we visit, and this Chicago Theater sign is definitely one. First I set up in the median strip of the street and composed several images capturing car trails. Then I accidentally triggered a 2.5-second exposure while I picked up the camera and tripod to adjust the composition. My finger went to the delete button but the image that appeared on the rear LCD gave me pause. Wow. That was a happy accident indeed.

I went on to try eight more intentional camera movement (ICM) shots but it was the β€œunintentional camera movement” that proved to be the most unique interpretation of the Chicago Theater for me that night.

Three Hours Outside the Ohio State Reformatory. Nikon Z f with a Nikon 19mm f/4 tilt-shift lens. Foreground: Four blended frames shot at 30, 15, 8 and 4 seconds, f/5.6, ISO 400. Background: 348 stacked exposures shot at 30 seconds, f/5.6, ISO 400.

Looks like it was urban night photography for the win for me in 2024! Our Rust & Ruinism tour was a dream come true, as we got night access to the Ohio State Reformatory (ORS), the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum and Carrie Furnaces. ORS is the famous Shawshank Redemption prison, and while most of us spent the night ghost hunting and lighting the peeling-paint-walled cells, a few of us adventured outside to create a star-trail establishing shot of the front of this 138-year-old edifice.

This was a tricky shot, but my trusty Nikon 19mm tilt-shift lens was huge in helping me keep all the lines straight. I first exposed the highlights in a controlled manner so that nothing would be blown out. Then I figured out the proper sky exposure and let it rip for 3 hours while I went back inside the prison. I was absolutely thrilled with the blend and stack, and then I finished it with a black and white conversion in Nik Silver Efex.

Lance Keimig

Near the Wreck of the Steel Ship Gardar BA 64, Paterksfjordur, Iceland. Nikon D780 with a Tamron VR 15-30mm f/2.8G lens at 20mm. 13 seconds, f/4, ISO 6400.

Despite 2024 being an amazing year for viewing and photographing auroras, it was a frustrating one for me. During the massive G5 storm in May, I was leading a tour in the Faroe Islands, a place that could have been an incredible location to experience the northern lights. Unfortunately the sky was completely cloudy during the entirety of the auroral activity. Then, during the coronal mass ejection of October 10-11, I was home in Northern Vermont, which had 100 percent cloud cover. Again, nothing, nada, not one trace of green or pink. Just gray.

However, I finally received my just desserts with a couple of β€œfull spectrum” aurora experiences in Iceland in September.

One night our group was photographing the wreck of an old steel ship, which has long been grounded at the end of a fjord outside the town of Paterksfjordur, when a pretty decent aurora developed. With a good-sized crowd working three sides of the ship, it was becoming difficult to make an image without other photographers in the shot. If you know Matt, you know that wouldn’t bother him, but I decided to wander off.

I walked about 100 yards away from the boat where I found a little spit of land that made for a great foreground, with the town in the background. It made for a strong composition with a great mix of green, blotchy clouds, and a vibrant splash of magenta thrown in for good measure.

Lawrence the Sheep, Djupavik. Nikon D780 with a Tamron VR 15-30mm f/2.8G lens at 15mm. 30 seconds, f/3.5, ISO 3200.

I don’t think this is one of the best images I made this year, but it certainly is one of my favorites, and for a very funny reason.

During the same Westfjords trip we were all busily photographing auroras outside the old herring factory at Djupavik. I was up on the hill behind the hotel, and one photographer in our group was in the small field below me, wearing a very bright orange puffy coat. I wasn’t about to ask him to move, so I figured I’d just clone him out later if he lingered in the spot. (He did.)

When I was processing the image in Lightroom, I selected Lawrence in his orange coat and used the Generative Remove tool, did not enter any AI prompts, and hit return, expecting Lawrence to be replaced with grass. Nope. Lightroom took it upon itself to replace him with a beautifully rendered sheep, complete with backlighting and a shadow, which was totally appropriate to the scene.

I still laugh every time I look at this image. What a happy accident.

Matt Hill

Ibex Dunes in Death Valley National Park. Nikon Z 8 with a Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 lens at 67mm. Six stacked exposures shot at 5 minutes, f/5.6, ISO 800.

In December 2024 we brought a workshop group to Ibex Dunes in Death Valley National Park. This was my second time to this off-the-beaten-tracks location, and I had a dream of photographing a moonset over the dunes with star trails and a long lens.

The weather was perfectβ€”mild enough so the flat-ish hike across the valley floor from the parking area was uneventfulβ€”and when I approached the north end of the dunes, I spotted the mini dune I wanted to ascend to get some elevation for the foreground of the composition.

Using a 24-70mm zoom lens, I carefully chimped my way to the right balance of rippled dunes and starry skies. I made six 5-minute exposures to combine into a massive star trail image. In post, I chose the one foreground frame with the shadow lines that best revealed the sharp edges of the dunes. I then layered and blended in Photoshop and finished in Silver Efex.

Hands down my favorite image from 2025.

Great Basin National Park. Nikon Z 8 with a Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 lens at 24mm. Foreground: 4 minutes, f/2.8, ISO 800. Sky/meteors: 8 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 6400.

I am a sucker for meteor showers. And no meteor shower thrills me more than a no-moon scenario with a dark sky for the Perseids. Add to that a G3 magnetic storm with massive auroras, and you have an incredible night for everyone and memories to last a lifetime.

Working on meteor shower composites with the camera not facing toward the radiantβ€”in this case the constellation Perseusβ€”allows for capturing much longer meteor streaks. And when aligned properly, they all point back to Perseus (which in this case was very, very out of frame).

But wow, don’t they look pretty? This composite includes one base image shot at a lower ISO for better image fidelity (mainly shadow details and lower noise). I ran all the images through Lightroom’s AI-based Denoise. Finally, I layered the 66 frames that I identified with meteors (out of hundreds) in Photoshop and then aligned the layers.

You cannot see auroras in this photo, but the gentle red on the clouds is from an aurora reflected from the opposite sky. It was a magical, breathtaking night.

Tim Cooper

Moyne Abbey, Courtyard Perimeter. Nikon Z 6II with a Laowa 9mm f/5.6 lens. 4 minutes, f/5.6, ISO 800.

This year two of my favorite images are black and white, and both came from our time in Ireland.

Western Ireland is such a great place for castles, friaries, abbeys and all sorts of old stone structures that lie about in various stages of decay. I’ve always been fascinated with these types of structures, and I can spend hours in them while imagining my past life of 1,000 years ago.

Like many of my images, I light painted this with a mix of stationary low-level LCD lights (Luxli Fiddles, in particular) and my Coast flashlights. The symmetry of this area captivates me, and I made a similar image 2 years ago without the lighting. I knew then that when I came back that I wanted another shot at this location.

While waiting to return, I imagined how I would create the lighting. I placed the Fiddles on stands behind the front-most pillar, each tuned away from the center of the courtyard. This supplied the main light. During the exposure I walked around with flashlights, filling in shadows and creating highlights on the back walls, to accentuate the difference between the two sides.

Entrance, Rosserk Friary. Z 6II with a Nikon 14mm f/2.8 lens. 60 seconds, f/4, ISO 200.

Sometimes the idea behind an image comes to me very slowly. Other times it hits like a lightning bolt. The idea for light painting the entrance at Rosserk Friary hit me immediately. On this trip, anyway. During my first visit I hadn’t even noticed this lovely architectural detail.

That is the main reason I love revisiting locations that really resonate with meβ€”I always see the scene differently and often find something more interesting the second or third time around. I think the first time we visit a location, we can be overwhelmed by the obvious. We become engrossed in those images and find it difficult to think past them. Subsequent visits allow us to relax, to see past the obvious and to perhaps take more chances.

This image of the entrance was a bit risky. I could see in my mind’s eye what I wanted, but I didn’t know if I had enough time to complete all of the lighting. I shot multiple frames lit with a Coast HP7 flashlight, as well as one frame that I underexposed at blue hour to ensure that any areas I couldn’t light wouldn’t be featureless black. I light painted the remaining six images from different angles and with different brightness levels to move the viewer through the frame while highlighting the varied details seen from this viewpoint.

Your Turn

What was your favorite night photograph of 2024? We’d love to see it! Share in the comments below, or on our Facebook page, or on Instagram (tag us @nationalparksatnight #nationalparksatnight #seizethenight). Be sure to tell a story tooβ€”the technical aspects, the challenge overcome, or a tale of the experience.

Then … enjoy the final nights of 2024 and all the nights of 2025. There are a lot more favorite photos waiting to be made.

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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Chicago Post-Processing Intensive 2025
Oct 26
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Take Five: Announcing the Fifth Annual Night Photo Summit

We are β€œover the Frost Moon” to announce the event you have all been waiting for: the 2025 Night Photo Summit!

We’ll be kicking off our fifth annual virtual conference this January 24-26, 2025.

We have gathered many of the top night photographers and creators from all over the worldβ€”some familiar faces and some newβ€”to inspire you for three days and nights.

All in all, we’ll have over 35 speakers and 45 hours of education for you to β€œseize”—not only for the weekend of January 24th, because your ticket will also get you unlimited access to recordings of all the classes for a full year after the conference!

Beyond the education there will be virtual breakout rooms to confab with speakers after their classes, or to just meet up with like-minded folks. We also have some pretty fun virtual parties as well as many as 75 giveaways that could total over $15,000!

So join the inspiration and education, the camaraderie and fun, known to the universe as the Night Photo Summit. If you love the night, you’ll want to be here!

The Amazing Speakers

We have felt immensely blessed to be able to work with so many top-notch speakers for the summit, and this year is no different. In addition to a several returning presenters, attendees will get to learn from and interact with at least 13 inspiring new voices.

The 2025 speakers include Autumn Schrock, Brennen Nichole, Cathrin Machin, Chris Nicholson, Cody S. York, Dan Zafra, Forest Chaput de Saintonge, Gabriel Biderman, Glenn Randall, Isabella Tabacchi, Jason Weingart, Jaymes Dempsey, Jennifer B. Bodine, Jessica Rojas, Joshua Snow, JΓΌrgen Lobert, Katrina Brown, Ken Lee, Kevin Adams, Lance Keimig, Marybeth Kiczenski, Monika Deviat, Matt Hill, Nate Luebbe, Patrick Joust, Peter Mauney, Prince Berkoh, Sadeq Hayati, Sarah Mathews, Susan Magnano, Tim Cooper, Tim Little, Tyler Nordgren and Vincent Ledvina, with more to be announced in the next couple of weeks.

Sessions

Astronomers, artists, authors and photographers will all share their night visions on astro-modification, astrophysics, auroras, backcountry, drone lightning, light painting, lunar eclipses, lunar streaks, Milky Way, mobile night, maps, night portraits, panos, PixInsight, PTGui, stars, trackers, selling your art, weather apps, timelapses, and plenty of processing classes to help you level up your learning!

How to Join Us

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

Tickets are $399, and include:

  • three days, more than 35 instructors, over 45 hours of inspiration, instruction and fun

  • a Fundamentals series of video classes for newbies or anyone who wants a refresher

  • one year of access to re-watch all of the courses

  • live image reviews

  • exclusive glow-in-the-dark summit T-shirt

  • personal access to product experts from manufacturers and developers sponsoring the event

  • giveaways throughout the duration of the summit

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

Moreover, if you purchase your ticket by January 1 at 2 p.m. EST, you’ll get your shirt and a swag bag before the summit!

(Note: Shirts and swag bags will be mailed only to attendees with U.S. addresses, but we may be able to help those from other countries too. We’ll be in touch with more info after you register.)

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

JOIN US ON SOCIAL MEDIA

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

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

Seize the night … online!

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.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

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