Three Days of Night: A Wrap-Up of the Very First Night Photo Summit

Note: Missed the Night Photo Summit but want to catch up? For access to videos of all the presentations until February 2022, buy a Replays ticket!

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Some honesty: In the weeks leading up to our Night Photo Summit, we sounded confident in our marketing. But behind the scenes, we had no idea how this would go.

We knew the speakers would be amazing—we know almost all of them personally, know they’re good people, know they always bring their best (which is among the very best in the business).

We knew that night photography is exciting to learn about, exciting to do—and that it’s hard to go outside and do it right now, at least the way we used to at this time last year.

We knew that even in the best of years, mid-winter is a time when people are looking for something new to do inside, and a weekend of e-palling around with other night photographers could more than satisfy that need.

However, that’s about all we knew. All five of us at National Parks have spoken at conferences, summits, exhibitions, trade shows, photo festivals, etc., and two of us have extensive experience on the industry side of these events. But we had never built our own event of this size, on our own, from bottom to top. Doing so felt like we were standing at one edge of a canyon wondering how to get to the other. While in some ways we were crossing a familiar bridge, in many other ways we were leaping with hesitant faith.

Now that the Summit is over, we can look back and see the results. It was an experience. It was hard work, but enjoyable work. And in the end? We feel it went great.

When we say we’re happy, that can mean different things, and it does mean different things. We were happy with a lot: the quality of the programs, the vitality of the speakers, the enthusiasm of the attendees, the participation of the sponsors. But the biggest metric of success? The number of smiles at the end.

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The group shot from the “Under the Stars” closing session party.

The People

We’re happy to report that about 350 people, representing six continents, attended the first Night Photo Summit—which, as far as we know, was the first online night photography conference ever. To see 350 people there? At the very first event of its kind? Wow.

Each of you made the effort worthwhile, because each of you brought a unique energy, each of you contributed a bit of what made this collective experience special. Many have reached out in the past week to express thanks, but the gratitude genuinely goes both ways.

We couldn’t have done this without you. We started building this Summit, but you finished it. All 350 of you helped, all 350 of you brought your passion and curiosity, all 350 of you coalesced to make this conference what it really was: a community that grew closer over an extraordinary long weekend, together sharing the joy of something we all love.

The Speakers

Again: Wow.

Thirty speakers joined us to help lead this adventure, and all of them delivered some of the best educational and inspirational content we’ve ever seen concentrated into one conference. Of course, we’re not surprised—we know these people, and we knew they’d be good. Still, our lack of surprise doesn’t hinder us from being amazed.

The speakers spanned all sorts of disciplines. They brought expertise in night photography, obviously, but also in travel, astronomy, preservation, activism, environmentalism, technology, creativity, outdoors skills and more. The tapestry of knowledge and wisdom they wove was nothing short of uplifting and exhilarating, and it was beyond everything we and the attendees could wish for.

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The 35 speakers of the 2021 Night Photo Summit.

The Sponsors

Don’t let any skepticism of commercialism fool you—the sponsors weren’t there just to sell to an audience. Their support made the Summit more viable, but more importantly, their contributions made it an even better experience.

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The Night Photo Summit sponsors offered 33 giveaways valued at over $5,000.

Every sponsor provided giveaways for attendees, from lenses to monitors to software to books and more—33 giveaways worth over $5,000. Many sponsors also offered show specials on their services and gear, most of which attendees still have access to (some of the deals don’t expire for months!). And many of the sponsors also provided programs for the attendees: talks on calibration, light painting, star trackers, night photography filters, and so on.

Clearly, the sponsors weren’t just advertisers—they were a critical part of the team.

What’s Next?

If you weren’t able to join us, we have great news: You still can!

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Replays of more than 45 sessions are available for 24/7 streaming until February 2022.

The Night Photo Summit Course Catalog of video replays.

The Night Photo Summit registration fee covered not just the three days last weekend, but also streaming access to videos of all of the sessions for one year. Anyone can still buy a ticket to watch and learn from and be inspired by all of that content. Just visit nightphotosummit.com or click the button below to join the fun.

As for what happens in the future, beyond the replays? Well, we maybe need to rest a bit, and think a bit, and plan a bit. But we promise that we have no intention of being done with the Night Photo Summit. It will be back.

Until then, know that we are filled with gratitude for everyone who was involved—those who worked behind the scenes, those who encouraged us, those who supported us, those who joined us on stage, and especially those who joined us from the comfort of their homes and coffee shops around the world. We hope that the education we provided helps bring your night photography to new heights, and that the inspiration we offered helps you shine even brighter among the stars.

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

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Yesterday's News, Today's Muse: Shooting Night Photography on Film

News flash!

There is a little bit of a film renaissance going on, right now!

I can tell you that I’ve been enjoying loading up my classic cameras again and taking them out for more day and night adventures.

I learned night photography on film in the 1990s, back when it was seen as a very difficult and archaic process that yielded more misses than hits. However, when you succeeded, it felt like a majestic home run! Without the instant feedback and resources on the internet, night photographers in the film days would write copious amounts of notes from all their trials and errors, and they would use specific films that played better to longer exposures.

Digital certainly made night photography easier and more accessible for people to master. On the other hand, there’s a series of benefits to photographing night with film: the exciting uncertainty of shooting on analog can push you to pre-visualize, challenge yourself and add a dash of nostalgia to your photographic experience.

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Sutro Baths. Mamiya 7 with a 43mm lens, shot on Fujifilm Acros 100 under a full moon. 8 minutes, f/8.

Why Shoot Film for the Night?

Night photography is a fairly slow and laborious process. Digital technology has sped up that process and given us immediate feedback to adjust our decisions on exposure and light painting in the field. But have those advantages made you more complacent as well?

Film definitely pushes you to pre-visualize and to slow down even more. You’ll think about every decision before clicking the shutter, and that isn’t a bad thing.

With digital, there are relatively few limits to the night sky—either in the field or later in post-processing. You have the tools to switch from color to black and white, and to stack images so that everything from 6 inches to the infinite stars is in focus.

With film, your options are limited—but that can force you to be more creative. There is something to be said for heading into the field with a very specific vision, and film locks you into one palette for the night. (Or at least for 10 to 36 frames.)

Speaking of vision, I also love the variety of film cameras that are geared to let you to see in a different way, whether it is a true panorama camera, the square frames of a twin lens reflex, or even a pinhole camera.

You can embrace these limitations, and just “roll” with film!

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Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel. This is a rare night photograph taken with a zone plate (pinhole type). Shot on Polaroid Type 59 4x5 color film that has notoriously bad reciprocity failure. Note how the direct light sources from the church reflect the zone plate lens. 4x5 Zero Image Pinhole camera with an f/45 zone plate. Approximately 4 minutes, f/45, ISO 100.

Logistics of Shooting Film

There are some specific logistics to shooting film that we need to get an initial grasp of.

Reciprocity Failure

The main logistical obstacle is reciprocity failure. A digital sensor’s ISO can be adjusted from 50 to 51,200 and beyond. The ISO of film is less pliable. Film is optimized for the ISO it is rated for and can suffer from reciprocity failure during long exposures at very low light levels.

A film’s emulsion is made up of a layer of silver halide chemicals that “react” to light and etch the image onto the film. Common chemistry tells us that a chemical reaction is most potent at the beginning and loses its potency over the course of the reaction. Ergo, the longer an exposure, the less sensitive the film’s silver halide layer becomes to light. The breakdown can start in as soon as 1 second, and it accelerates as the exposure gets longer. Each type of film is made up of different chemistry and therefore reacts differently, so each has a reciprocity failure chart that is often printed inside the box or found on the manufacture’s website.

Developing Time

Another issue is controlling the highlights of night images on film. Because we are inherently overexposing most scenes to get more detail in the dark shadows, we need to be careful not to blow out our highlights. In digital we can take multiple shots and use HDR techniques and blend them together. That would be more laborious with film.

A better option to control the contrast of the scene is by altering the way we expose and develop the film. The old adage of exposing for the shadows and developing for the highlights is the key to success.

There are different strategies depending on how much contrast is in the scene. In moonlight, the best technique is to reduce the development time by about 10 percent. The extreme contrast found in artificially lit locations can be even more problematic. In these situations, an extended development time with reduced agitation in a diluted developer will yield the best results. Experimentation combined with accurate notes will allow you to develop a personalized system to both get consistent results and to customize your look.

(Of course, not everyone who shoots film also develops it. If someone else is doing the darkroom work, discuss all these options with them to achieve the best end results.)

I also recommend dedicating a roll of film to only night photography, as opposed to mixing night and day exposures. Brightly lit daytime frames and dimly lit nighttime frames require different development times for the best image quality, so if you were to shoot them both on the same roll, then one or the other would suffer from incorrect processing.

Film Choice

Two of my favorite films are Fujifilm Acros 100 and Kodak Tri-X 400. The reciprocity failure compensation for each is drastically different, and the slower speed of the Acros handles longer exposures much better than Tri-X. When I meter and add reciprocity compensation on a moonless night, I’m looking at a 4- to 6-hour exposure with Acros—but any decent exposure under those conditions is impossible with Kodak Tri-X!

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Reciprocity Failure Chart. A comparison of reciprocity compensation for two of my favorite films, Fuji Acros 100 and Kodak Tri-X 400.

If you have a favorite film, research the technical data prior and do your own exposure tests to figure out how much you need to adjust your initial evaluation of a scene.

For example, most films start to suffer reciprocity failure between 1 and 10 seconds. But with Acros (as well as with most of Fuji’s color slide films), reciprocity failure doesn’t begin until after 2 or 3 minutes.

Another choice is whether to work with color. When working with film, I shoot pretty much exclusively with black and white. I love bringing the monochromatic look wherever I go. When we shoot digital, we often default to color and forget about the strong lines and compositions that black and white can emphasize even more—but with analog that’s a more conscious decision, because the whole process starts with choosing which film to use.

Metering

This leads up another important question: How do you meter for night exposures?

This was the biggest frustration pre-digital. Most internal meters in film cameras can’t accurately gauge dim scenes at 3 EV or lower. Handheld meters perform a little better, with the best ones working well at as low as -3 EV. (For reference, 0 EV would be the equivalent of a subject lit by dim ambient artificial light, and -3 EV would be a subject under full moonlight.)

Today’s digital meters are way more sensitive, especially considering that we can raise the sensitively of a camera to ISO 6400 and beyond and still get a very accurate reading. Because of this, when I’m shooting film at night, I often shoot with a second setup that’s digital. I meter with the digital and then apply those settings and add the required reciprocity factor for the film, and that gives me an excellent starting point. Even with this relatively accurate approach, I definitely advise bracketing your exposure to be sure you get an exposure you like and can work with.

My go-to full-moon exposure with Fujifilm Acros 100 is 8 minutes at f/8. One day after the full moon, I add one stop of light—i.e., 16 minutes at f/8 or 8 minutes at f/5.6. For me, a productive night is to finish a roll of film, but honestly I often have time for only 8 to 10 frames.

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Cannon Beach. Wisner 4x5 Technical Field Camera, shot under a full moon on Fujifilm Acros 100. 30 minutes, f/11. Acros is a fine-grain film that allows short exposures in dimly lit scenes, and it lets you extend exposures in dark, moonlit scenes without much loss in reciprocity.

Which Film Camera is Best for You?

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The Mamiya C220.

I like to recommend cameras that are not battery dependent, or ones for which the battery is solely for powering the meter. I also, for night work, highly recommend medium format cameras over 35mm. If you are averaging only 8 to 12 framers per night, it could take three nights to finish a roll of 35mm film, whereas you could finish one roll of medium format’s larger film in one night, and you’ll also get better image quality.

Both Matt Hill and I shot many nights with our beloved Mamiya 7, which yields a large negative and has a bright rangefinder that makes it easy to compose in dark environments. However, the battery in the Mamiya 7 is notorious for draining quickly with long exposures. And that battery also controls the shutter, so if it drains in the middle of your exposure, you’re not only done for the night, but you’ve also ruined your last shot. I always kept a spare battery in my bag for one-night shoots, and brought several extra on longer road trips.

The Mamiya 7 is still expensive even on the used market, so if you are new to this and don’t have an old film camera on hand, I recommend the Mamiya C220 twin lens camera. No batteries, no meter needed. It produces a nice square negative, and it’s one of the few twin lens cameras that had interchangeable lenses. These can often be found for under $400 in good condition and with a lens.

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Thomaston, Maine. Mamiya C220 with an 80mm lens, shot on Fujifilm Acros film. 8 minutes, f/5.6.

The Urban Night on Film

So far this film thing probably seems like it’s loaded with a lot of factors that need to be juggled. But most of the considerations I’ve mentioned so far have been for dimly lit scenes, or moonlight—and those are the most challenging night conditions for film. On the flip side, you can shoot film with fewer concerns in brighter lit urban scenes:

• Color shifts and reciprocity failure don’t come into play much under streetlights.

• The shorter exposures are easier to meter.

• The brighter scenery is easier to see through your viewfinder.

All of this means you can be more productive, because you can shoot more frames!

In the urban environment, color film can be fun to experiment with, or you can see your city in a black and white noir look.

Red Hook. Rollei Rolleiflex 2.8E TLR, shot on Fujifilm Acros 100. This was shot at probably 1/2 second or less. The well-illuminated crooked street light provided ample light for even a slow 100-speed film.

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Olympic Stadium, Montreal. Voigtlander Bessa R, shot on slide film that was then cross-processed to get even more grain and some trippy colors.

Final Thoughts

Film can be fun. It can push you out of your comfort zone and make you study the night light and the view in front of you in a way that digital probably won’t. You can also embrace the reciprocity failure and shoot for very long, continuous star trails without the need to do any stacking in post.

I’ve also been very impressed with what Jason Defreitas is doing with film and star trackers. The Milky Way was impossible to shoot on film because of the low light levels and reciprocity failure, but Jason has done some beautiful astrophotography on film.

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Bannerman Armory, Pollepel Island, New York. Mamiya 7 with a 43mm lens, shot on Fujifilm Acros 100 film. 90 minutes, f/11.

I will say that digital has made me a better film shooter. As I mentioned earlier, when I go out with my combined digital and film setup, I can use the former to quickly find the right exposure for the latter. And because the film exposure tends to be so long, I then use the digital camera to keep shooting, which keeps my overall productivity up.

I hope I’ve inspired you to dust off a film camera you might have sitting on the shelf and to seize the night— with film!

Note: Want to learn more about classic cameras and film photography? Our friends at B&H Photo are celebrating Classic Camera Week from February 8 to 12. Gabe will be hosting several online events where he talks to camera collectors and pros who shoot film, discussing best camera choices. A there will be a happy hour on Thursday to raise a toast to everyone’s favorite film cameras! To learn more about B&H’s week of programming, click the link above.

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

Muses From The Past: Train Photographers

Analyzing classic photographs can be an effective way to progress in one’s own work. The key is not to simply mimic someone else’s great ideas, but to use the knowledge that comes with reproducing the work of masters and move on to create something new. With this in mind, National Parks at Night's Lance Keimig offers this ongoing series highlighting some of the early masters of night photography. We'd love to see any photographs you create after learning more about the pioneers of this niche—please share in the comments section!

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I photographed these three rail cars on a productive evening with Tom Paiva at the Southern Pacific rail yard in Oakland, California, in 1995. Pentax 6x7 with a 55mm lens, shot on Fuji color negative film.

Most anyone with more than a passing interest in night photography has seen images by O. Winston Link, the best known of a generation of train photographers who lovingly documented the last days of the steam locomotive in the U.S. The rise of the automobile and the construction of the interstate highway system led to the demise of passenger rail travel in the years between World War II and the mid-1960s. Concurrently, that and the development of more powerful and efficient diesel engines were responsible for the end of steam railroading.

Nostalgia for a dying way of life led to a renewed interest in trains. Photographers––a notoriously romantic lot—were inspired to document the end of this quintessentially American way of life.

“Call it our myth of mobility. We believe that going somewhere else, down a distant track, away from present situations, can only mean broader fulfillment: a remedy for what ails us. It’s our restlessness that best understands and appreciates the symbolism trains and railroads play in our lives.”

— Richard Steinheimer

It was the rise of the railroads in the 19th century that led to American expansion across the continent and the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny. Small towns had sprung up along the railroad, which was a lifeline to their prosperity, and in some cases, their very survival.

Later, interstate highways were built without regard for these towns, and designed to allow people to quickly and efficiently move between major cities or to go from state to state rather than from one town to the next. As the trains faded toward history, they became a popular theme for nostalgic photographers.

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Richard Steinheimer, “Southern Pacific #4194 ‘Tehachapi’ Night Train 55 at Glendale Station,” Glendale, California, 1950. Steinheimer was one of a number of highly dedicated train photographers who often shot at night from the 1950s through the 1980s, but who were all generally less well known than O. Winston Link.

The most challenging images these train photographers made were the night photographs, which were technically complex, and often required considerable equipment and planning. Link’s heroic work is well documented; there is even a museum dedicated to his train photographs in Roanoke, Virginia (which we will visit during our Blue Ridge Parkway workshop this coming July).

Sadly, Link did not receive much recognition until very late in his life and his last years were truly tragic. Today, his original prints are highly sought after and command thousands of dollars. Many of Link’s contemporaries also never received the recognition they deserved. Many of those photographers saw and were inspired by Link’s images in early issues of Trains magazine. This post, in keeping with the theme of the “Muses From The Past” series, concentrates on some of those lesser-known but equally talented train photographers.

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Rails After Dark was a group of photographers—Howard Pincus, Bob Hart and Al Papp—who collaborated to make ambitious O. Winston Link homages from 1983 to ’87. The symbolism is obvious as this Delaware, Lackawanna and Western commuter train coasts past a cemetery in Basking Ridge on its way to Summit, New Jersey, in 1984, a month before the elderly fleet shut down for good.

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Another Rails After Dark image from the 1980s that’s reminiscent of Link’s style. A 1930 Ford Model A awaits the passage of the Valley railroad 2-8-2 #40 in Centerbrook, Connecticut. Rails After Dark used the same type of lighting as O. Winston Link used––4x5 view cameras, a large battery-capacitor sync flash system with hundreds of feet of wire, and hours of setup time.

Nighttime train photography is not a walk in the park. Massive black objects against a black sky, often moving at 50 miles per hour, make for intimidating subject matter. Safety and access were major concerns, and these photographers had to coordinate with the railroads to gain both permission and access, and hopefully cooperation. It’s likely that the engineers might not have appreciated being blasted unexpectedly by thousands of lumens from a string of 30 or so flashbulbs.

Most of these photographers worked with large format cameras and significant amounts of supplemental lighting, which were in the form of either flashbulbs or strobes. Flashbulbs were more powerful, making it easier to light a large scene, but were more difficult to work with. They became increasingly scarce and expensive as the strobe became more popular due to its shorter flash duration and reusability.

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Jack Delano made some of the earliest color night photographs while shooting for the Farm Security Administration in 1942 to ’43. Here, the night is lit by a giant Pabst Blue Ribbon sign above Chicago's South Water Street freight terminal in April 1943.

Even if a photographer managed to coordinate for a train to stop in a photogenic location, most times there was only a single opportunity to make an image. Swapping out dozens of white hot flashbulbs strung along the tracks or under a trestle was time-consuming, and time was money for the struggling railroads. One solution was for a photographer to set up multiple cameras. One of Link’s great behind-the-scenes shots (below) illustrates the technique.

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O. Winston Link using multiple cameras for a night-train photograph.

Exposures and development had to be precisely orchestrated, for with only one or two sheets of film, everything had to be perfect. Many of these scenes were extremely high in contrast, and if the train was moving, exposure times had to be quick. There were many uncontrollable variables and usually a short window of opportunity to get the shot.

Link may be the most famous, but he wasn’t the first night-train photographer. The first night-train photograph was probably the one made by H.L. Arey in Tillamook, Oregon, in 1914. (You can see it in Lucius Beebe’s book Great Railroad Photographs). Philip Hastings began photographing trains at night beginning in the early 1940s, and Jack Delano was commissioned by the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information to document the nation’s railroads in 1942 and ’43. He made some of the first color night photographs for this project.

Many of the photographers inspired by Link’s work would continue to photograph trains well into the diesel age. For an excellent overview of the best of train night photography, check out the book Starlight on the Rails by Jeff Brouws. Of the books on Link’s work, A Life Along the Line and Steam, Steel, and Stars are the best.

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Jack Delano’s stated mission was “introducing America to Americans.” In 1942 and ’43, Delano spent time in the rail yards of Chicago documenting the busy freight hub and the workers who kept the trains running 24 hours per day. He made most of these images on 4x5 Kodachrome transparency film, and many of them showed light trails from the yardmen’s lanterns.

These days, passenger train travel is an afterthought for most people, except for those in the suburbs who have access to commuter lines. Millions of tons of freight is shipped across the country on trains every day, but unless you live within earshot of the tracks you could be forgiven for being oblivious.

Regardless, there is an undeniable romanticism associated with trains in America, making them ripe subject matter for night photographers even today. If you find yourself in need of inspiration, make your way down to the train tracks, set up your tripod and listen for that lonesome whistle.

“I was riding number nine

Heading south from Caroline

I heard that lonesome whistle blow

Got in trouble had to roam

Left my gal and left my home

I heard that lonesome whistle blow”

— Hank Williams

Lance Keimig will be presenting a talk on “An Abbreviated History of Night Photography” during National Parks at Night’s Night Photo Summit, February 12-14. He might just sneak a few train images into the presentation.

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

Banding Together: The Tradition of Community Spirit in Night Photography

The Oxford English Dictionary defines community as: “a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests and goals.”

“Tribe,” “family,” “cohort,” “sisterhood,” “brotherhood,” “collective,” “fellowship” and even “gang” are all words that describe community in one sense or another. A group of people who collectively support each other for a common purpose.

There are communities dedicated to protecting the climate or endangered species, to fighting diseases, or to rallying around a politician or other public figure. There are communities of flat-earthers, bubble tea drinkers, those who like to explore abandoned mental hospitals, and even for people obsessed with identifying animal scat. If you can imagine it, there probably is a community for it.

Never has there been more need for community than in the last year. Our physical isolation—and the limited circles of people we spend time with face to face—has increased the need to connect with our communities. It’s something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit recently: the different communities I belong to, have connected with, and have drifted away from.

Anyone who is even an occasional reader of this blog, or who has attended a National Parks at Night event, will know that we place a lot of emphasis on community. Heck, unless you randomly stumbled upon this article, you are probably already a part of our community. (And to you random stumbler, come join the party!)

That said, National Parks at Night is certainly not the first community of night photographers. We’re only 6 years old, but there have been communities of night photographers dating as far back as the beginning of the 20th century.

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Some years ago while researching the early history of night photography, I came across an article in the February 1910 issue of American Photographer by Alfred H. Blake, who identified himself as the founder of the Society of Night Photographers of England. In the article, Blake was sharing the findings of his organization’s members on how to deal with some of the many technical challenges faced by early night photographers. He wrote that a key tenant of the society was to “pursue the subject as far as possible apart from all faking and double-exposing.”

It seems that because night photographs were so difficult to create successfully, there were all manner of techniques––day for night, double exposing, hand retouching—that were commonly employed to achieve the look of night photographs without actually doing the work at night. The society was formed in part to promote true night images above the fakes, but more importantly to share information and discoveries that led to better night photographs for anyone interested in the pursuit.

Despite the reputation of night photographers being solitary, introverted loners, we’ve always shared a communal camaraderie that has offered support, encouragement and appreciation of one another’s craft. My own first forays were solo ventures, but at that time, night photography was far more obscure, and there was no internet to exchange images and information. I thought that I was the only one photographing after dark, and that notion was regularly reinforced by the late night security guards and dog walkers who would question my intentions whenever I was discovered in the field.

When I found a class offered on night photography in San Francisco in 1988, I enrolled in the school and moved across the country, as it appeared to be the only class of its kind at that time. It was a fortuitous decision as it set the course of my career, and became the model for my own classes and workshops when I began teaching night photography a decade later.

The course was taught by Steve Harper, who became my mentor––as he was also to a generation of Bay Area photographers in the 1980s and 90s. In all of my other classes we were given assignments, and we went off to complete them independently. Steve’s night photography courses were different. The students went out together to shoot on location, and in between classes smaller groups would connect and go out shooting together.

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Steve Harper’s students shooting together in Yosemite National Park in 1984.

Many of us became obsessed with shooting at night, some to the point of not wanting to do anything but night work. Students would enroll in Steve’s class repeatedly, even though credit could be earned only once, until Steve eventually developed an advanced course.

The critiques were different from other classes as well. Students quickly overcame any shyness or concerns that their images might not be good enough, and we worked together to improve our techniques, watched each other’s backs in dodgy areas of South San Francisco, and celebrated one another’s images when they magically appeared in the darkroom tray.

Steve soon introduced me to Tim Baskerville, who had studied with him some years earlier, and who had caught the night photography bug himself. Tim was curating an exhibit of night photographs, and he generously included my images and those of my classmate Tom Paiva. The show was held at The Gallery Sanchez in San Francisco’s Noe Valley neighborhood, and was titled “The Nocturnes.”

A few years later that exhibit morphed into a website and became what we believe to be the world’s first online night photography community. Tim began to get emails from around the world from excited people who had previously believed that they were the only ones crazy enough to stand out in the cold and darkness with their cameras night after night. That was 30 years ago, and Tim still hosts semi-annual gatherings of honorary Nocturnes for image-sharing and -making at his studio in Mare Island, California.

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Our group from the Night Photography Conference, presented by the Nocturnes and Mono Lake Workshops in August 2006.

Today, with the proliferation of the internet and social media, there are so many opportunities for sharing images and ideas that were completely unfathomable just a few short years ago. Sites like Flickr and 500px have long since yielded in popularity to Instagram and Facebook, and the next generation has moved on to TikTok and Twitch, but all are ways to connect and share. I for one long for a time when we can reconnect with our communities face to face, to hug and to shake hands, and to look over a friend’s shoulder at her or his laptop without a care other than whether or not I have garlic breath.

Still, we are truly fortunate to live in a time with so many ways to connect and to relate to our fellow humans, whichever tribe or tribes we belong to––be it bubble tea aficionados or night photographers. It’s easy to hibernate in our home-cocoons, and to attempt to ride out the storm alone, but even in quarantine, or semi-quarantine, remember that there is a thriving community of night photographers at the ready to encourage, inspire or nudge you along, and others who may need the same from you.

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Just a few of the National Parks at Night workshop groups—a great community of night photographers 6 years and 500-plus members strong. Many stay in touch (and share photos, arrange night photography shoots, etc.) via a private group on Facebook.

It seems fitting that National Parks at Night is holding our first Night Photography Summit in the year that marks the 30th anniversary of the Nocturnes. That show was a seminal moment for me, and I know that it was for Tom and especially Tim as well.

For me personally it is a confirmation, a justification, an assertion that what we do is important, has meaning, and brings people together to share a common love of the magic that happens when a shutter clicks in the dark.

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

Announcing the First-Ever Online Night Photo Summit

We are so pleased to announce the first-of-its-kind dedicated Night Photo Summit, to be held February 12-14, 2021.

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One of the things we love best about National Parks at Night is the amazing community that’s grown around our mutual love of night photography since we began this project back in 2015. We’ve been talking about a way to celebrate that for a long time.

Last year, we held our first all-alumni workshop in Death Valley, and the energy and camaraderie we all experienced was cathartic. (It seems like a decade ago now!) We’ve long wanted to do a larger-scale event to bring the entire community together, and to introduce more people to the magic we experience under the stars in our amazing national parks.

Rather than wait until we can all gather together in one of those parks, we decided to produce a virtual event now that will enable even more people to gather to share and learn from an extraordinary group of speakers and educators.

We are over the moon to present the first Night Photo Summit! 

Join us this February for three days of presentations from 28 dynamic speakers discussing a wide range of topics on all things nocturnal, and all things national parks, and a little more.

You’ll learn from photographers, astrophysicists, writers, artists and rangers about astronomy, dark skies, creativity, and of course photo techniques––both in the field and post-processing. 

There will be panel discussions (including one on “Women in Night Photography”), image reviews with the National Parks at Night instructors, a screening of the amazing aurora film Light Side Up, and opportunities to connect with the wider community of creative professionals who share a love of night photography.

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Our incredible lineup of speakers and talks includes:

• Kevin Adams: “Photographing Waterfalls between Sunset and Sunrise”

• Gabriel Biderman: “Urban Nightscapes: Creating Magical Long Exposures Under Streetlight”

• Paul Bogard: “Is This the End of Night?”

• Gary Bremen and Grant Livingston: “Songs and Stories of our National Parks”

• Russell Preston Brown: “Creative Night Photography with a Mobile Phone”

• Forest Chaput de Saintonge: “Getting Started With Deep Sky Astrophotography”

• Michael Frye: “Noise Reduction Strategies for Night Photography”

• Matt Hill: “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark: Fostering a Creative Night Photography Habit”

• Rachel Jones Ross: “Winter Nights: Capturing Night Sky Magic Without Freezing Your Bits”

• Lance Keimig: “Abbreviated History of Night Photography”

• Jennifer Khordi: “Shooting the Moon and New York City”

• Erik Kuna: “Ignite Your Nighttime Rocket Photography”

• Nate Luebbe and Autumn Schrock: “Chasing the Aurora Borealis”

• Susan Magnano: “Chasing Moonlight”

• David Marx: “Creating a Basic Time-Lapse Video Clip”

• Harun Mehmedinovic: “Skyglow”

• Dr. Tyler Nordgren: “Astrophysics for Better Astro-Landscape Photography”

• Troy Paiva: “Night Photography and Light Painting: the Lost America Style”

• Eric Paré: “Getting Started With Outdoors Tube Light Painting”

• Sherry Pincus: “Backpacking: the Key to Amazing Dark Skies and Unique Photo Opportunities”

• Rafael Pons: “How to Plan any Sun, Moon and Milky Way Photo You Imagine with PhotoPills”

• Sandra Ramos: “Planning the Perfect National Park Adventure”

• Jess Santos: “Blending Magic: Blue Hour Blends and Composites”

• Adam Woodworth: “Milky Way Panoramas”

• … and more to be announced!

The Basics

There will also be something very special to this summit: a Night Photography Fundamentals track that will allow a newcomer to this genre to learn the necessary skills, or the photographer with know-how to brush up their skills.

Sponsors & Giveaways

Every attendee will be automatically entered into drawings for a large number of giveaways from our generous sponsors, as well as amazing session-specific giveaways from some speakers. Prizes include a one-year Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, a night photo walk in New York City, B&H Photo gift cards, an Irix lens, books and video classes by our speakers, and more.

The Night Photo Summit is sponsored by B&H Photo, Adobe, Tether Tools, X-Rite, Coast Portland, Acratech, PhotoPills, Vallerret, Bay Photo and Irix, with additional sponsors to be named soon.

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How to Join Us

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

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Tickets are $399, and include:

• three days, 28 instructors, nearly 40 hours of inspirations and instruction

• 1 year access to re-watch any of the courses

• three live image review sessions

• three panel discussions

• Friday-night film screening with filmmaker Q&A

• exclusive summit T-shirt (mailed to attendees with U.S. addresses, and we may be able to help those from other countries too!)

• personal access to product experts from brand sponsors

• lots of giveaways throughout the duration of the summit

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

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

Join Us on Social Media

As if that isn’t all 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:

• Instagram @nightphotosummit

• Facebook @nightphotosummit

• Twitter @nightsummit

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 Summit webpage.

Seize the night … online!

Lance Keimig is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He has been photographing at night for 35 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