How to Access and Photograph Abandoned Places

Do you have a fascination with abandoned places?

I do.

In fact, I coined a word for this 30-year obsession: “ruinism.” It means the beauty of decay, and it can apply to person, place or thing. It has been an overarching theme that I have tried to incorporate into my photography, both day and night.

Part of this has been exploring abandoned places—buildings, lots, junkyards—that have fallen by the wayside of the human race’s march across the landscape.

I’ve learned a thing or two over the years about getting into and out of these industrial skeletons, and I have been handcuffed only once due to trespassing. For this Halloween special, allow me to share the allure of abandoned places, how to do your research and get permission, and tips on how to best photograph and share your images with the world.

Sloss Furnaces, Alabama. Nikon D750 and Irix 15mm f/2.4 lens. Multiple stacked frames shot at 15 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 100.

Why Ruinism?

In this age of social sharing, the world has become much smaller than it was 10 to 20 years ago. There are very few whispers of secret abandoned places. Some locations have lasted for thousands of years while others are barely standing, helped by the vines and ivy that have replaced the walls.

My favorite class in school was ancient history, so when I had an opportunity to live in Greece for 6 months in the 1990s, it was a dream come true. In fact, that is where the term ruinism was born. I was visiting all the ancient cities: Rome, Delphi, Thebes, Mycenae, Troy, Constantinople. The modern world had grown around and incorporated the remnants of some of these age-old civilizations, while others had been completely forgotten by time.

When I walked through the streets of Pompeii, I imagined what it had looked like before Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79—partly out of intellectual curiosity, and partly for creative purposes. When photographing these abandoned locations, I always try to tap into the history and capture the spirit. Long exposures, ghosts and light painting are wonderful tools to aid in this storytelling.

Getting Access

Besides the legal “pay for access” places, let me share a few examples of how to get in. The overriding theme is:

  • Do your research.

  • Understand the history and importance of this place.

  • Share your respect and passion for memorializing the location before it disappears.

  • Find the organization or person that owns/maintains it.

  • Never steal any artifacts—take only pictures!

Example 1: The Abandoned Village of Kayaköy, Turkey

While staying in the beautiful port city of Fethiye, I was told of the history and modern ruins of Kayaköy. I spent the day wandering around a town where the people had been forced to leave their homes, churches and shops due to protocols written up by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.

On the day I was there, no one else was present except for some sheep herders and their flock. The sheep wandered into roofless homes at will. Time had taken back this town. It felt like I had finally experienced ruinism to the highest degree.

Gateway to Kayaköy. Pentax K1000 with TriX film. Exposure unrecorded.

Church of Kayaköy. Pentax K1000 with TriX film. Exposure unrecorded.

The key to accessing Kayaköy: The village was in a remote area but open to all who were interested and had the money and a means to get there. If you were to visit today, there is an entrance fee of $1, and restoration limits some access to the church and many of the buildings.

Example 2: The Abandoned Apartment

Abandoned places can be huge like Kayaköy or they can be the apartment next door.

I was living in Pátras, Greece, in 1995 when this mystery revealed itself. A 5.1 earthquake in 1993 had seriously damaged the town and the neighbors just up and left. There were plenty of cracks in the walls for us to peep in and most doors weren’t locked in this small community. So I entered with my friend and we used long exposures on film to give voice to the ghosts that remained.

Abandoned Apartment, Pátras. Pentax K1000. Pentax K1000 with TriX film. Exposure unrecorded.

The key to accessing the abandoned apartment: We reached out to the neighbors to learn more, and we ended up being responsible for looking after the place and putting a lock on it. When something like this happens, be smart, safe and respectful. Anything we moved, we put back in place. Like most abandoned buildings, there is a time limit to its existence, unless it is deemed of historic importance.

Example 3: The Abandoned Casino

A real dream-come-true location is the Constanța Casino in Romania. Built in 1910 aside the crashing waves of the Black Sea in the art nouveau style, the casino closed its doors to the world in 1990. However, the symbol of this ancient grandeur was adopted by the city and they struggled for many years to find a way to preserve this masterpiece.

Constanța Casino. Nikon Z 6 with a Nikon 24-120 f/4 lens. 1/500, f/11, ISO 200.

Constanța Casino. Nikon Z 6 and Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. 1/30, f/10, ISO 400

The key to accessing the Constanța Casino: Fortunately I have a friend in Romania who loves ruins and history as much as I. We led an Opulence and Decay workshop with National Parks at Night and Atlas Obscura in 2019, which included access to this location. My contact worked very closely with the town that was restoring the casino. We had to prove our love for preserving this building and of course pay a fee that went to helping stabilize it for future generations. It was an amazing experience and epic workshop. (If you want us to revive this workshop, let us know in the comments!)

Winging It

I understand that access can be the biggest of all hurdles. Sometimes you just stumble upon an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. There aren’t any “No Trespassing” signs or neighbours for miles away. What do you do?

If you enter this property, you will be seen as a trespasser by the law. So it’s best to think of this as the “initial scout” and take pictures safely from a legal and respectful distance.

Then, find any neighbors who may be nearby, or go into town and show these pictures and ask who might own the property. If you are seen as a photographer and documenter first, instead of urban explorer or vandal, good things will happen.

Silver City, California. Nikon D700 with a Zeiss Milvus 21mm f/2.8 ZF.2 lens, lit with a Coast flashlight. 4 minutes, f/5.6, ISO 400.

For example: I was on a road trip with Troy Paiva and Joe Reifer and we used Google Maps to identify what looked like an old, abandoned mine. We drove there only to find a gate and a “No Trespassing” sign. We debated what to do.

During that 5 to 10 minutes, a weathered Jeep with a Willie Nelson character came flying down the road with a barking dog not far behind. He asked us “what the hell” we were doing at the entrance to his property. We explained that we were photographers with a fascination for the past. Troy had a copy of his book and showed it to the man, and that was the key. Having a website, prints or a book that can show your passion for abandoned places can often help break down those barriers.

The end result was that within 5 minutes we were all best friends with Irish (which turned out to be his name), getting a private tour of his silver mine followed by 2 nights of access.

I understand there is a certain excitement in exploring the unknown that is greatly heightened when you don’t have permission. I also know that some places will never grant permission to any visitor because they are deemed too unsafe. If you decide to break into those places, you’d better understand the dangers involved and realize that no insurance will cover you when you trespass. We neither recommend nor condone this course of action.

Doing it the Right Way

A perfect example of doing it the right way has been my experience and relationship with the Bannerman Castle Trust.

I first saw the ruins of Bannerman while riding the Metro-North Railroad up to Rhinecliff, New York, in 2001. You always want to get a “water view” window seat on the train as the tracks hug the Hudson River all the way to Montreal. I was mesmerised by water and landscapes that rushed by—Storm King Mountain, the bridge walkway over the river, and many mansions.

But wait, what is that? A castle-island resting in the middle of the river?

Luckily the previous owner had used a side of the castle as a “billboard,” and I had my first clue: Bannerman Island Arsenal.

Bannerman Arsenal. Nikon D750 and Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. 1/250, f/11, ISO 200.

I had no reception on the train but wrote down the name and pinned the location on Google Maps. I later found a little information about the history, but being an island, the only access was via kayaks.

A few years later, the Bannerman Trust established a website and daytime tours of the castle from May to October. On the boat ride over, I shared my passion for ruinism and my excitement about Bannerman with a member of the trust. That laid the groundwork for later leading overnight photography workshops.

It took a few months to hash out the details, but we both wanted to see the idea succeed. The trust was interested in promoting the location, getting a unique interpretation and getting (of course) additional funding for the restoration.

Since then Matt Hill and I have led 14 Bannerman overnight workshops. I’m leading two more trips next August. (If you are interested, join the waitlist.)

Bannerman. Sony a7S with a Sony 10-18mm f/4 lens. 12 minutes, f/4, ISO 1000.

Bannerman. Nikon Z 6 with a Nikon 14-24mm f2.8 lens. 45 stacked frames shot at 100 seconds, f/5.6, ISO 400.

I’ve seen the once roofless residence become a completely intact museum that shares the history of Bannerman and Pollepel Island. Over time, walls have crumbled and braces have been installed to stabilize what is left.

This has obviously been a best-case scenario, where both Matt and I have become honorary members of the Bannerman Castle Trust. I have also established the same relationships with historic iron furnaces: Sloss in Birmingham and Carrie in Pittsburgh.

In Conclusion

The allure and proper access will hopefully lead you down a path of successfully photographing abandoned places. My main tip on how to best get into and photograph these special spots is to really understand them and try to tell their story.

A few more tips:

  • When sharing locations that are fragile, consider tagging them less (or not at all) on social media and keeping them sacred and preserved places that others can happily stumble upon. Don’t share GPS coordinates of spots that could end up getting overrun and trampled.

  • The world as a whole is trying to preserve its past. There are plenty of organizations you can join that will grant you safe and legal access to many forgotten places.

  • The U.S. National Park Service preserves many wonderful abandoned locations that offer legal and safe access. You can see a list of some of them here.

Night photography can aid your creativity by illuminating the spirit of these places with creative long exposures under the night sky. Light painting can also reveal the story you want to tell as seen by this eerie shot taken by Tim Cooper in Grafton Ghost Town right outside Zion National Park:

Grafton, Utah. Nikon D700 with a Nikon 24mm f/2.8 lens, lit with a Coast HP5R flashlight. 1 minute, f/9, ISO 200.

We’d love to see your favorite night photos of abandoned places, and to hear the stories behind them. Share in the comments below, or on our Facebook page, or on Instagram (tag us @nationalparksatnight #nationalparksatnight #seizethenight).

We hope your journey to abandoned places is a safe, smart and creative one!

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

Super Season 8: Announcing our 2023-24 Night Photography Workshops and Tours

It’s All in the Numbers

Here we are again, another year later, announcing a chock-full itinerary of new workshops. Let’s take a look at some numbers:

8 …

This is Season 8 of National Parks at Night workshops. We can’t fathom how to adequately express how grateful we are to all of you who make this possible. Thank you.

25 …

The number of workshops and tours in our Season 8 itinerary. That comprises 16 based at destinations in the U.S. and 9 based overseas.

12 …

The number of units of the National Park Service we’ll be workshopping in, including:

  • the newest national park (New River Gorge)

  • one of only two U.S. national parks that’s not in a state (Virgin Islands)

  • a national park our alumni voted for us to return to (Olympic)

  • a national historic landmark that’s allowing us exclusive night access to its Industrial Age grounds (Sloss Furnaces)

  • a national seashore that’s home to some of the most photogenic lighthouses in the country (Cape Cod)

  • a national park gem of Utah that will go dark under an annular solar eclipse (Capitol Reef)

  • and more!

6 …

The number of countries we’ll be visiting for adventuring and photographing day and night—the most ever for an itinerary in our 8 years so far.

100 …

Once July rolls around and we sail away from Monhegan Island, the number of workshops and tours that National Parks at Night will have run since our first year. That’s right, we’re hitting triple digits! And we fully intend to throw a party!

A Few Notes

Before we get into the specifics of the workshops, we’d like to share a few ideas.

How are Some Already Sold Out?

As a special thank you to those who attend our workshops, who sign up for our waitlist and who subscribe to our email list, every year we announce our itinerary to those three groups before “going public.”

This year, as usual, our community has committed very strongly to many of the workshops. (Our gratitude is infinite.) Because of that, nine of our new workshops and tours sold out during the past week. Additionally, five other events were announced last year and sold out some time ago.

Still, as of press time, nine of our Season 8 workshops and tours still have seats left, plus Faroe Islands this fall), so it’s easy to join us in amazing places such as Joshua Tree National Park, Cape Cod, the Lofoten Islands, Iceland and more!

If you really want to go to one of those other places with us …

We Can’t say it Enough: Use the Waitlist

Openings happen for almost every workshop, and those spots always get offered to the waitlist first. If you see something you really want to attend and there are no tickets now, we urge you to sign up for the waitlist today.

The Workshops

Below you can read a little bit about each of the workshops we’ll be running in our eight season. Click on the photos or the links to read even more.

If you’d like to see a lineup of all the workshops we have scheduled for 2022-23, including updates on how many tickets are available in each, see our Season 8 Workshops page:


Passport Series

These are our signature event workshops, which we hold in national parks. We teach every day, either in the classroom or on field trips, and we shoot every night in beautiful and inspiring places.

In 2023 we’ll be visiting some amazing and unique parks, both popular and a few of more obscure but incredibly beautiful gems.

Great Basin National Park

Bristlecone pines, mysterious subterranean passages and some of the darkest skies in the United States.

Great Basin lies just off the loneliest road in America. You don’t arrive here by mistake. Want to walk among the 4,000-year-old bristlecone trees that are just a few hundred feet from a spectacular glacier, or around alpine lakes reflecting the snowy mountaintops and the Milky Way? Great Basin reveals its true beauty among its many trails, and we’ll be hiking to experience it.

Great Basin National Park — June 18-24, 2023

New River Gorge National Park

America’s newest national park is ripe with opportunities for photography and outdoor adventures.

Our nation's newest national park, New River Gorge is an adventurer’s paradise. We’ll spend our days whitewater rafting, zip-lining through the treetops, and exploring the area’s natural, railroad and mining history. Then, of course, we'll be shooting in the dark! Timed at the peak of fall foliage, and the tail end of rafting season, this will be a very full week of both day and nighttime activities.

New River Gorge National Park — October 22-27, 2023

Olympic National Park

Majestic mountains, magical rainforests, magnificent coastline. Experience the wonder that is Olympic National Park.

The winner of the National Parks at Night alumni "return to this park" vote! For 6 nights, photograph on the rugged mountains, in the vibrant rainforests and along the pristine coastline of Washington state’s Olympic National Park, one of the most beautiful and diverse national parks in the U.S.

Olympic National Park — September 16-22, 2023

Saguaro National Park

Sonoran nights, desert blossoms and the symbol of the American west.

Deep in the Arizona desert stands a forest of cactus that can reach heights of 60 feet. The distinctive saguaros, silently spreading across the landscape, reach for the stars and the heavens beyond. Barrel, prickly pear and teddybear cholla cactuses also adorn the arid foreground, while foxes and coyotes dart in and out of the moonlight shadows. We'll photograph it all (and more) on 5 spring nights in the Sonoran Desert.

Saguaro National Park — April 4-9, 2023

Virgin Islands National Park

An unparalleled opportunity to explore the beaches, coves, mountains and dark skies of this unique national park in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

A workshop on island time, journeying through and photographing Virgin Islands National Park. Pristine shores, tropical forests, and countless historic and prehistoric archeological sites sit under the night skies of the western Atlantic Ocean.

Virgin Islands National Park — November 27-December 3, 2023

Adventure Series

The U.S. has other amazing places to shoot at night outside of national parks, and we like visiting those too. National monuments, national forests, scenic byways, urban ruins and more.

Coming up, the Adventures will include a lighthouses workshop along a famous stretch of Atlantic shore, an ocean island, some amazing desert landscapes, and a couple of inspiring celestial events.

Bannerman Island

Spend an overnight photographing a historic castle in the middle of the Hudson River.

Just 1.5 hours north of New York City rests one of the most impressive ruins in New York state: Bannerman Castle. Built at the turn of the 20th century, it served as an armory, warehouse and mystery to those passing along the Hudson River. This is a rare opportunity to spend the night on an inspirational island and shoot until the dawn breaks the evening sky.

Bannerman Island — August 4 and 5, 2023

Cape Cod Lighthouses

Half a dozen lighthouses, five summer nights, countless New England villages, one amazing national seashore.

The arm of Cape Cod stretches out and up into the Atlantic Ocean, providing a landscape beautiful to view but hazardous to ships for centuries. The lighthouses stand sentinel, guarding these classic New England shores, ready to be photographed under the summer Milky Way.

Cape Cod Lighthouses — August 10-15, 2023

Capitol Reef & the Solar Eclipse

Capture the dark side of the moon with a ring of fire over one of the most stunning landscapes in the U.S.

Capitol Reef is the least-known of Utah’s “Mighty 5” national parks, yet is stunningly beautiful and aesthetically diverse. And it lies in the path of the 2023 annular solar eclipse! We’ll be there for an opportunity to photograph the eclipse, plus we'll have an entire night photography workshop during a new moon in this International Dark Sky Park.

Capitol Reef Solar Eclipse — October 13-18, 2023

Great Sand Dunes & the Perseids

North America's tallest inland sand dunes and Colorado's dark skies are ideal for experiencing the stunning Perseid Meteor Shower.

Do you dream of creating the holy grail of meteor shower images—a meteor shower radiant composite? Then this is the workshop for you to focus on planning, shooting and editing your own radiant images. Since 2023 should be an amazing year for the Perseids, you’ll likely capture meteors on multiple nights over the largest sand dunes in North America.

Great Sand Dunes & the Perseids — August 10-15, 2023

Monhegan Island

The fishing vessels. The hilltop lighthouse. The clapboard cottages. The spectacular dark skies. All 10 miles from shore on the quaint Monhegan Island.

National Parks at Night returns to Monhegan for a full five-night workshop on one of our favorite Islands. Monhegan is a place that people go back to over and over again. It’s hard to stay away for long. We’ll explore this peaceful oasis entirely on foot, covering subjects such as the local lighthouse, the village, the waterfront cliffs and a nearly century-old shipwreck.

Monhegan Island — July 3-8, 2023

Panorama Intensive: Bryce Canyon

Master night sky panoramas among the hoodoos of the legendary Bryce Canyon.

Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park is pano-licious! We’ll be basing ourselves in this breathtaking landscape, noted for its geologic wonders and wide views, all to focus on learning to create nighttime panoramas. Single-row, multi-row and Milky Way will feel second-nature by the end of 5 nights on the rim and on the floor of the amazing Bryce amphitheater.

Panorama Intensive: Bryce Canyon — May 23-28, 2023

Sloss Furnaces

Step back in time and photograph one of the industrial marvels of the Industrial Age—at night!

The focus of this night photography workshop will be a deep dive into light painting, composition, and black and white photography. Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark is an incredible collection of 20th century metal machinery located on the eastern edge of downtown Birmingham, Alabama. We will use moonlight and light painting to breathe fire back into the furnaces.

Sloss Furnaces — November 16-19, 2023

Voyager Series

As much as the U.S. is beautiful and dynamic, so is the rest of the world. We’re always on the lookout for beautiful landscapes and fascinating cultures to immerse ourselves in, especially in the dark. Over the next two years (we plan these ones a little further out), we’ll be heading to overseas destinations that range from one of the most enigmatic islands in the oceans to a recent mainstay for landscape photographers.

East Greenland Schooner

See icebergs, auroras and arctic wildlife up close on this truly adventurous, sea-based tour.

Experience the extraordinary scenery and Inuit culture of Greenland’s captivating coastline. This trip along the striking and sparsely populated east coast of Greenland will begin and end in the village of Kulusuk, but everything in between will truly be an exploration. Glacier hikes, stand-up paddleboarding, sea kayaking, and of course photography—you’ll have the opportunity to do all of these and more on one of our grandest adventures yet.

East Greenland Schooner — September 4-13, 2023

Easter Island

Enigmatic Easter Island. At night. Need we say more?

Few places on earth are as mysterious or compelling as Easter Island. The giant stone figures known as moai oversee this remote island 2,200 miles off the coast of Chile. Most of Rapa Nui, as it’s known to the locals, is a national park. Not only is it hard to get to Easter Island, it is notoriously difficult to access the park after the sun goes down. But we will be taking a lucky group of fellow night photographers on this rare opportunity of spending an unforgettable week with the moai.

Easter Island — February 12-19 and 21-28, 2023

Iceland North Coast

Come to the more remote coast of the more remote island, to photograph the sea, the culture and the wild landscapes of northern Iceland.

Each area of Iceland has its own unique character and features. In the north, the massive waterfalls are mostly wide rather than tall, contrasting the tall, narrow ones in the south. The north tends to be colder, and snowier. It’s definitely less crowded. This trip comes at the end of winter, with longer days, and hopefully with a good chance of seeing the aurora above the Arctic Henge.

Iceland North Coast — April 7-17, 2023

Iceland: Snaefellsnes

A pointy peninsula featuring a black church and a perfectly pointy mountain, with a bonus retreat on a special island.

This delightful part of Iceland is located between the capital of Reykjavik and the Westfjords. It’s home to Snæfellsjökull National Park, a twin-peaked volcano and a small glacier. We’ll spend 1 night in Reykjavik, 3 nights on the peninsula, and 2 on Flatey Island, reached by ferry, and then on to the Westfjords, where we’ll spend our last night—unless you stick around for our glamping add-on.

Iceland: Snaefellsnes — August 25-September 1, 2024

Iceland South Coast

The South Coast of Iceland was the first area to be ‘discovered.’ And for good reason. It’s extraordinary.

This is the classic Iceland itinerary, in winter. Following the ring road south from Reykjavik, and eastward along the coast, we’ll photograph the famous waterfalls, horses, basalt towers, lava fields, glacial lagoon and ice beach, and we’ll take a private tour into the ice caves under Iceland’s largest glacier. Oh, and we’ll be aurora hunting every night. Even if you have been there before, there is always something new and unexpected in the volcanic wonderland known as Iceland.

Iceland South Coast — March 11-20, 2023

Iceland: Westfjords

Puffins, herring factories and blueberries, oh my!

The northwest corner of Iceland is a dazzling and deeply indented coastline featuring about 30 fjords, each with different surprises awaiting discovery. We’ll visit the best place in Iceland to see puffins, spend 3 nights in a hotel that once housed herring workers, photograph waterfalls, swim in a geothermal swimming pool and wander some of the most magnificent landscapes you’ll ever see.

Iceland: Westfjords — September 7-14, 2024

Ireland: County Mayo

Explore the best of the west of Ireland on this 8-night tour of County Mayo.

This tour is based in Westport, the charming county town of Mayo, in the middle of Ireland's west coast. From there we’ll make daily excursions to far-flung places such as Achill Island in the north and the edge of Connemara in County Galway to the south. Ruined abbeys, the castles of Mayo’s legendary Pirate Queen Grace O’Malley, and deserted-village timescapes all await.

Ireland: County Mayo — June 2-10, 2023

Lofoten Islands

The Lofoten Islands, a majestic mountain archipelago of dramatic landscapes, unspoiled beaches and winter wonderland.

This will be a winter tour focused on photographing the rugged snow-covered mountain islands, dramatic beaches, northern lights, pristine fisherman's huts and untouched beauty of this remote and breathtaking region of the world. March is a perfect time to visit Lofoten—the milder winter temperatures make the overall experience ideal for catching the auroras over a snow-globe winterscape.

Lofoten Islands — March 17-25, 2023

Skills Series

All of the aforementioned workshops and tours focus a lot on exploration. Our Skills Series events focus on learning something specific—still in an inspiring place, but we focus on a precise skill set. Next year in this category we’ll be hosting workshops on shooting with post-production in mind, learning post-production and how to use the best scouting app in the business, PhotoPills.

PhotoPills Bootcamp: Joshua Tree

Star trails. A crescent moonset over the desert. The Milky Way arching across a forest of Joshua trees. Find them all with PhotoPills and create epic photography.

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.

PhotoPills Bootcamp: Joshua Tree — October 10-15, 2023

Post-Processing Intensive: Asheville

Master photography post-production with a week in this artist’s enclave city nestled in North Carolina’s beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains.

You’ve spent a lot of time building your camera skills and honing your photographic vision. Now it’s time to take it to the next level. Over 6 days in the heart of the North Carolina mountains, we'll teach all the skills needed to use modern technology to finish our photos, and even to create images that were impossible only a few short years ago.

Post-Processing Intensive: Asheville — June 19-24, 2023

Shoot for the Edit: Sedona

Photographing and processing in a beautiful place: among the most brilliant sandstone formations in the West.

When it comes to night photography, capturing the right information in the field is crucial. Set among the beautiful red rock buttes of Sedona, Arizona, this workshop is designed to teach you how to not only capture all of the necessary exposures in the field but also the art of processing those images to produce your final piece of night art.

Shoot for the Edit: Sedona — September 10-15, 2023


So … Where Will You Go?

There ya go. We’ve laid out the numbers, we’ve laid out the places. All that’s left to do is decide where you’d like to go with us next year and beyond. Dream big. Travel big. Shoot in the dark.

We’d love to see you at a workshop. If not there, then at the Nightscaper Conference or the Night Photo Summit. Or at a trade show, or at a camera club. Or online, sharing ideas on our blog, or stories on Facebook, or photos in Instagram.

Thank you all for being part of our community of intrepid explorers and lifelong learners, and for continuing to partner with us on these amazing nocturnal adventures. We appreciate every one of you.

Now onward … to another year of seizing the night.

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, and follow him on Instagram (@PhotographingNationalParks.com.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS & Events FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

The Night Photographer's Guide to Star Stacking (Part I)

Note: This is the first in a three-part series about creating star trails with the stacking technique. Part I, below, covers how to shoot the raw materials. Come back soon for Part II, in which Tim goes over the required post-production, followed by Part III, in which he shows how to clean up the artifacts of the technique (such as plane trails).

To learn more about night photography techniques that involve photographing with processing in mind, attend our Shoot for the Edit: Colorado workshop in September 2022!


Night photographers are fortunate to have many ways to interpret a subject. The night sky can be captured with a stunning Milky Way core, or as a deep sea of stars that register as thousands of points of light. We can illuminate the foreground to give the sky a sense of place, use filters to give the stars a fantasy look or use longer exposure times to render the stars as trails across the sky.

Star trail photos are fun to shoot, and they bend reality by dilating time in a way that humans can’t otherwise perceive. Yet, shooting star trails is rife with potential obstacles, from camera limitations to stray light and more.

In a series of blog posts that starts today, I’ll show you how to create star trails by using a special technique that works around those potential problems: star stacking. In this first post I’ll discuss how to shoot for star stacking, in the next post I’ll cover how to process the images, and then in a third post I’ll teach how to rid your stacks of plane trails and other artifacts of the process.

Woodstock, New York. Nikon D850 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. 3 frames shot at 25 seconds, f/4, ISO 100, stacked in Photoshop.

Why to Stack

There are two primary methods of creating star trails: capturing one long exposure or capturing many short exposures and stacking them together in Photoshop or other similar programs. The latter involves more post-production work, so why would we choose that? Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of each method:

One Long Exposure

Advantages:

  • No need for post-processing to create the star trails. All the trails are in the one image.

  • No fussing with a complicated intervalometer. Simply plug in a cable release, set your camera to Bulb, press and lock your cable release, and mark your watch. Turn off the cable release when the time is up. Easy.

Disadvantages:

  • You’ll need to use Long Exposure Noise Reduction (LENR). This is the feature that we turn on when shooting very long exposures (i.e., more than a few minutes). The problem is that this setting renders most cameras unusable for twice the exposure time. Setting your camera to shoot an hourlong exposure renders your camera unusable for anything else for 2 hours!

  • You may not always be able to shoot long exposures when there is a lot of moonlight or artificial illumination, because all that light can blow out your exposure.

  • With one long exposure you risk having your image ruined by any number of lighting mishaps. Someone could walk through your scene with a flashlight. Cars could illuminate parts of the landscape you preferred to be dark. The list goes on and on.

Multiple Shorter Exposures

Advantages:

  • No need for LENR. (In fact, you can’t even use it, because turning on the feature would create gaps in your star trails in the final stacked image.)

  • It’s easier to remove unwanted lights from any individual frame, or to mask in just one clean foreground.

  • It can be easier to incorporate light painting into your image without the worry of ruining your entire shot. In fact, you could even shoot different takes on your light painting and mask in your favorite.

Disadvantages:

  • Slightly harder to set up the exposures. You’ll need to use either your camera’s built-in intervalometer or purchase a separate corded or cordless intervalometer.

  • It requires more time in front of the computer.

Yellowstone National Park. Nikon Z 6 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. 8 frames shot at 5 minutes, f/4, ISO 400, stacked in Photoshop.

The decision to shoot one long exposure or shoot many shorter exposures and stack them together during post-processing is often a matter of circumstances rather than a simple preference. You simply can’t make superlong exposures when there is a lot of moonlight. Also, if a lot of other people are around, you’d be wise to break up the total exposure time into smaller segments just to safeguard against accidents.

All in all, shooting shorter exposures and stacking them is now the more common way of creating star trails.

Shooting Star Stacks Step by Step

Capturing the night sky can be complex, with many different considerations to create the final image, and shooting a star stack certainly doesn’t make it simpler. Here’s a basic outline of necessary steps:

  1. Set White Balance.

  2. Set ISO.

  3. Determine and set aperture and shutter speed.

  4. Turn off noise reduction.

  5. Compose.

  6. Focus.

  7. Run a high ISO test.

  8. Calculate the final exposures.

  9. Program your intervalometer.

  10. Shoot.

Camera Settings

With any type of photography—day or night—we need to adjust our camera’s settings to suit the situation. Figure 1 shows a good general place to start for your nighttime test shots:

Figure 1.

High ISO Test Shots

Once your camera is set, you have a composition and you’ve focused your stars (see Chris Nicholson’s great post “8 Ways to Focus in the Dark”), it’s time to make some test exposures. The test exposures will help you fine-tune your composition and ensure your stars are sharp. We run these tests at high ISOs so that we can run them faster—we don’t want to waste time running tests that are 5 minutes each!

It’s easiest to start with a shutter speed that will render the stars as dots rather than dashes. This will help you determine if the stars are actually sharp. (It will also render a usable star point or Milky Way shot, so you’ll have that in the bag too!)

Calculating the proper shutter speed is best done using the night photographer’s best friend, PhotoPills. Open the Spot Stars pill (Figure 2). First, near the top right, choose the camera you’re using. (You can set the default in Settings, which is a great shortcut if you use PhotoPills a lot.) Then input your focal length and aperture.

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

PhotoPills will make its calculations and supply you with an ideal shutter speed according to the NPF Rule. This will be the maximum time you can open your shutter and still keep your stars as dots rather than dashes. For example, with my Nikon Z 6II and a 14mm lens, the NPF Rule tells me that I shouldn’t shoot any longer than 18.48 seconds (Figure 3). For the purpose of these test shots, I would round up to 20 seconds. (But if I was shooting for the Milky Way, I would round down to 15 seconds.)

At this point, you can fire a test shot. Zoom in on your LCD to ensure your stars are sharp.

Once your test exposures have determined that you have good focus, you no longer have to adhere to the NPF rule—after all, our eventual goal is to get those stars to trail. If test shots reveal sharp stars but an underexposed image, then increase your shutter speed since, again, trailing stars are your goal anyway.

Calculating Shutter Speed

Our aim is to star-stack, but we need to know how long in total we want to shoot. It’s best to start by figuring what one long exposure would be, and then work back to break it up into individual exposures.

Let’s assume the camera is now set to 30 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 6400. Let’s turn those points into some trails. To do that we’ll need to increase the shutter speed, and to compensate we’ll lower the ISO.

The Six-Stop Rule (Figure 4) is an easy way to make these changes. This rule states that for a given exposure, the amount of time in seconds at ISO 6400 equals that amount of time in minutes at ISO 100. (The difference between ISO 6400 and 100 is six stops, thus the name of the rule.) In our example exposure from above, 30 seconds at ISO 6400 translates into 30 minutes at ISO 100.

Figure 4.

Of course, maybe we don’t want to keep the shutter open for 30 minutes. That’s OK. The Six-Stop Rule has given us our base long exposure, and we can work our way up from there. Again sticking with our same example exposure from above, other usable equivalent exposures can be seen in Figure 5.

So if you wanted one long exposure to capture star trails you could use 30 minutes at ISO 100. If you wanted a longer exposure, you could stop down your aperture one stop and keep your shutter open for an hour. But for this tutorial on star stacking, we want more, shorter exposures.

Figure 5.

Calculating Shutter Speed for Stacking

You’ll use the same test shot data to calculate exposures for stacking.

Our initial test exposure of was 30 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 6400. This means we could shoot any of the following combinations and get the same overall brightness:

  • 30 minutes at ISO 100

  • 15 minutes at ISO 200

  • 8 minutes at ISO 400

  • 4 minutes at ISO 800

  • 2 minutes at ISO 1600

  • 1 minute at ISO 3200

The shorter of those combinations by themselves would not produce very long star trails. But when we shoot a lot of frames and stack them together later, these combinations will create trails as long as we want them to be. For example, to make an hourlong trail, you could:

  • shoot 15 4-minute exposures at ISO 800

  • shoot 30 2-minute exposures at ISO 1600

  • shoot 60 1-minute exposure at ISO 3200

You’re really free to choose whatever combination works best to achieve your vision.

Just keep one thing in mind: Because you can’t use LENR with this technique, you’ll want to keep your shutter speed short enough to avoid long exposure noise. This limit is different for different cameras in different conditions, so it’s a good idea to test your camera to learn how it behaves. But as a benchmark, a 2-minute shutter speed is safe for many cameras in most situations. If you don’t know for sure that your shutter can stay open longer without resulting in long exposure noise, then just stick with that 2-minute limit and you should be OK.

Death Valley National Park. Nikon Z 6 with a Nikon Z 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. 53 frames shot at 30 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 160, stacked in Photoshop.

Shooting the Raw Materials

We’re finally ready to make pictures!

When shooting the series of shorter exposures, you’ll want to shoot them consecutively with as little time in between each shot as possible. To achieve this you’ll take two steps:

  1. Turn off Long Exposure Noise Reduction. Again, LENR takes time after each exposure, which would create gaps in your stacked trails.

  2. Program your intervalometer. (Matt Hill has an excellent video on setting up an intervalometer.) If your camera has a built-in intervalometer and you’re comfortable using it, then of course you may do that. But we find that external intervalometers are usually a little easier to use, and they don’t have the shutter-speed limitations that the internal ones do. A key is to set the interval between your frames to as short as possible in order to minimize those gaps. For most intervalometers, the minimum interval is 1 second, which is short enough to get the job done.

In terms of how many frames to shoot, that depends on how long you want your trails to be. If you want an hour and you’re shooting 5-minute exposures, then you’ll need 12 frames. In that case, you can program your intervalometer to fire 12 times. Or you can set your intervalometer’s number of shots to infinity, and just stop it manually when you feel like you have enough to work with.

Once the intervalometer is set, click the start button, sit back and enjoy the night sky.

And while you’re at it, be sure not to touch your tripod! If your tripod moves even a smidge, your frames won’t align in Photoshop later. That can be fixed, but it’s best not to cause the problem to begin with.

Sedona. Nikon D4s with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. 8 frames shot at 8 minutes, f/4, ISO 200, stacked in Photoshop.

Putting it All Together in Post-Production

Once your images are made, you’ll want to get to the computer to stack them into star trails. That’s the next step in your process, and it’s the next blog post we’ll publish. Stay tuned for Part II, coming soon.

Want to learn more about shooting for star tracking and then editing those images into trails? Join us for our Shoot for the Edit workshop in Colorado next month!

Tim Cooper is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. Learn more techniques from his book The Magic of Light Painting, available from Peachpit.

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Coming to Kanab? — Announcing the 2023 Nightscaper Photo Conference!

Back in February we announced that we acquired the Nightscaper Photo Conference. We were beyond excited, but a few months later we were beyond disappointed to have to postpone the 2022 event.

Now, however, we are back to the positive end of that excitement spectrum, as we get to announce the 2023 Nightscaper Photo Conference!

If you’re making plans for your 2023 spring Milky Way season, then include our conference in your schedule and level up your astro-landscape night photography skills. The 2023 conference will be held in the heart of the new moon week, May 18-21.

You’ll join other passionate photographers, scientists and inspirational speakers in Kanab, Utah. The daytime conference leaves plenty of room for going out at night with speakers, as well as with friends new and old. Several speakers will also be offering local workshops before and after the conference, so you can put together a pretty awesome night photography experience in one of the best places in the world for doing so.

The Nightscaper conference goes on for 4 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.

Kanab, Utah. © 2022 Lance Keimig. Nikon D780 with a with a Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 lens at 24mm. Stiched pano, frames shot at 15 seconds, f/3.2, ISO 12800.

Tickets

Tickets are on sale now. We are offering Conference (in-person) + Replays tickets for those who can travel or Replays-only for those who cannot travel but still want all that education and inspiration. Right now both are offered as limited-time Early Bird tickets, so grab yours at a discounted rate while you can!

Speakers

The current speaker lineup includes:

  • Mike Shaw

  • Jess Santos

  • Joshua Snow

  • Bettymaya Foott

  • Dr. Kah-Wai Lin

  • MaryBeth Niczenski

  • Forest Chaput de Sanintonge

  • Aaron King

  • Dr. Bryony Richards

  • Dan Zafra

  • Kristine Richer

  • Erik Kuna

  • Paul Zizka

  • Adam Woodworth

  • our team from National Parks at Night

  • and more speakers to be announced in the coming months

Over the 4 days the speakers will present more than 40 1-hour classes and four discussion panels. There will be plenty of time and space to network with the speakers and other attendees.

Follow Us for News

More information is coming, so stay tuned by following us on the Nightscaper Conference social media accounts:

Also, be sure to sign up for the email list to receive all conference updates right in your inbox.

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

Action Time

Now is the perfect time to register for the Nightscaper Conference. Save money by signing up for an Early Bird ticket.

We look forward to seeing you in Kanab next year!

Register today at nightscaper.com.

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

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Returning to Scotland to Revisit Night Photographs of Yesteryear

In 2019 the five National Parks at Night instructors posted stories and images of places we had gone back to in order to re-photograph scenes.

For Matt Hill and Tim Cooper, conditions on a first visit prevented them from creating the images they’d had in mind. Chris Nicholson had a vision of what he wanted to do, but couldn’t quite make it work the first time. Gabe Biderman struck gold with a team collaboration on his first visit, and then different conditions provided an opportunity for an equally stunning but completely different image upon his return. I also experienced different conditions that allowed me to make a more compelling image when I revisited a lighthouse on the coast of Maine.

Usually it’s external circumstances that impact our images the most when we return to photograph a location, but sometimes the way we see or the way we remember a scene can influence how we respond to it.

This past spring Tim and I finally led a twice-postponed trip to the Orkney Islands after 2 years of Covid-related delays. It was worth the wait. This was my fifth visit to this special place, but I hadn’t been there since 2010. So obviously I was overdue to return.

The Orkney Islands. (Satellite imagery courtesy of Google Earth.)

I first went to Orkney in 1995 while traveling around Scotland on a jump-on-jump-off minibus tour. I had no idea what to expect, and had done no research before taking a ferry across the Pentland Firth and stepping back 5,000 years into the Neolithic landscape that exists simultaneously with a very modern culture.

That experience was life-changing. My memories of that first visit have always stayed with me, and Orkney is a place I feel permanently connected to.

I can’t really say what it was that made such an impression on my younger, impressionable self, but something sure did. In my mind, Orkney has become like Atlantis or Shangri-La over the years, taking on outsized, mythical proportions for a place where I’ve spent a total of about a month. Orkney is a special place to be, for sure––but try as I might, I cannot explain why I feel so drawn to these islands. I just know that I am.

Moreover, each time I visit, I find a new way to photograph it.

A younger me and group I took to Orkney in 2010.

Stromness, 2007.

Kirkwall, 2007.

In this post I’m sharing three pairs of images, the first made years ago on earlier visits and the second made on our tour in May 2022. Each of the original photographs is one that I’ve always loved, in part for the image itself, and in part for the memories it invokes.

The new images have their own stories and memories, built upon the earlier ones. They too have become part of my saga, interwoven with recollections of places, times and people. I don’t know that anyone will see the images after I’m gone, and that isn’t particularly important to me. For now, they serve as reminders of my past, just like those neolithic standing stones that dot the Orkney landscape reminding those who live there where they came from.

Our memories make us who we are and shape our world view. Our collective experiences of the past inform the way we interpret the present and think about the future.

I was almost as excited to return to the site of some of these photographs as I was to return to Orkney itself. I came with expectations, knowing that I was likely to be disappointed. Twelve years is a long time to expect that nothing will have changed. As I retraced my steps of previous visits, wondering what would be the same and what would be different, I thought about how I had changed in all those years, how the world had changed, and I thought of that old proverb: “We see the world not as it is, but as we are.”

Our memories make us who we are and shape our world view. Our collective experiences of the past inform the way we interpret the present and think about the future. No one can say with certainty why some memories are more poignant than others. Just as traumatic events might be forefront in our minds, or may be repressed into our subconscious, ordinary experiences can have similar dominant or subtle influences on our thoughts and behaviors.

In the end, travel photography is less about the images than the experiences. The images serve as reminders to take me back to places and times that are important to me. I hope that the viewer will enjoy and appreciate what I saw in these places, but I know that no one but me will feel what I do when I see them. That’s OK; I photograph for myself. It’s a thing that I do just for me, and that is a luxury that I truly appreciate. I feel very fortunate to be able to travel and see such remarkable places, and to be able to do what I love for a living.

Now let’s look at the photographs.

Revisit 1

The House of the Orcadian Poet George Mackay Brown in Stromness

2008. Ebony SW23 view camera with a Nikon 65mm f/4 lens, shot on Fuji Neopan Acros film. Exposure unrecorded.

2022. Nikon D780 with a Nikon 28 mm f/3.5 PC lens. Three blended exposures shot at 15, 30 and 60 seconds, f/11, ISO 100.

The earlier black and white image of George McKay Brown’s house in Stromness is one of my all time favorites, and appears on the cover of my first book. It was the last time I took my view camera on an international trip, and the last time I futilely pleaded with security at Heathrow to spare my film from their damaging X-rays.

I made the color image this past May on my first visit to the site since then. I was full of anticipation as I walked the mile or so along the main road through town to get to the house. There is a row of houses in between the street and the bay, and peering between the houses out to the water is irresistible.

As I looked between two of these structures about 100 yards from Brown’s house, I noticed an upturned and familiar dinghy with the faded and peeling name “MOLLYMAWK” staring back at me. This was the dinghy in the foreground of my original picture! It was still in town, apparently passed on to a neighbor, and now, by the looks of it, neglected. Oh, the changes!

I couldn’t make the same image, so I had to make a new one. I did, and it doesn’t compare to the aura of the original, and that’s OK. It was cathartic nonetheless.

Revisit 2

The Stones of Stenness

2007. Canon 5D with a Nikon 28 mm f/3.5 PC lens, lit with a Surefire G2 flashlight. 15 seconds, f/8, ISO 100.

2022. Nikon D780 with a Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 lens, lit with three Luxli Fiddle and one Luxli Viola LED panels. 2 minutes, f/4, ISO 160.

The older image of the standing stones was made with a small group that I took to Orkney on one of my early tours before National Parks at Night was born.

More than the night it was made, the image reminds me of my first experience at the stones. I’d ventured out alone at night from the youth hostel where I was staying. I rode on a rented bicycle and wandered amongst the stones, both awed and somewhat uneasy.

When Tim and I were there this spring, I had this image in mind, but wanted to improve on the lighting. Luckily for me, I had Tim Cooper, master light painter, in tow. We worked together for about an hour to craft this image, using four Luxli panel lights on stands. It was a memorable night—one I’ll remember more for the experience shared with Tim than for the image.

Revisit 3

The Bluebell Woodland at Woodwick House, Evie

2010. Canon 5D Mark II with a Canon 24-105mm f/4 lens, lit with a Surefire G2 flashlight. 5 minutes, f/5.6, ISO 100.

2022. Nikon D780 with a Nikon 28 mm f/3.5 PC lens, lit with two Luxli Fiddle LED panels. Two sets of three exposures shot at 10, 30 and 90 seconds, f/11, ISO 100, blended and stitched.

Of all the places I’ve been in Orkney, perhaps nowhere is as dear to me as Woodwick. It’s a spectacular Victorian hunting lodge, on a gorgeous property secluded on its own private bay, with gardens and a wooded burn that flows out to the sea. And thousands of bluebells.

My first Orkney photo tour stayed at Woodwick House, which was at the time owned and managed by a non-profit trust with the best intentions and not nearly enough resources. The resident manager James served as host and chef and no doubt many other roles. He helped make our visit extraordinary in so many ways, but it was clear that he was understaffed and overwhelmed.

I had tried to bring other groups in years since, but James left long ago, and the place went from a 4-star bed-and-breakfast to rundown self-catering accommodations with a miserable reputation.

This year I tried in vain to reach my contact at the trust to see if I might be able to bring the group to photograph the grounds. Undeterred, but with serious trepidation, Tim and I went to check it out before the group arrived, and I was stunned to find it empty, neglected and for sale.

I showed Tim the grounds, the woodland, the burn with its many small cascades, and the bluebells, which have managed quite well on their own. They were, as I had hoped, in full bloom.

Tim and I photographed together, I with my old image in mind, Tim never having seen it. We came up with a composition that was different, but reminiscent, and worked together to light it. We wondered if we could get away with bringing the group later in the week. We did. I fantasized about buying and renovating Woodwick House as National Parks at Night’s European headquarters, which several of our group thought was a brilliant idea.

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 at www.thenightskye.com.

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