Words, Words and More Words: Announcing the Night Photography Glossary

Jargon. Lingo. Parlance. Vernacular. At the bottom line, they’re all just words. But words are important. Words help us understand each other, they help us understand concepts, they help us learn new ideas. And the words that have nuanced definitions for a particular field are critical to understanding that field well.

Auto mechanics have their own vocabulary. For example, to them “dipstick” means something entirely different. Software engineers have their own terminology. For example, “incremental development.” Sailors have theirs. “Argh!”

And night photographers? Heck yeah, we have our own language too. Heaven help the stranger who walks into a night shoot and tries to make sense of, “Hey, I set the LENR when using my intervalometer, and now I have gaps in my star-stacked Silky Way, not to mention moire. And don’t even get me started on my lighting ratio and ambient exposure. Hot pixels! Bortle!!!”

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Yeah, we have a lot of words.

At National Parks at Night, as photography instructors we spend a fair amount of time talking about those words and terms—words and terms from A to Z, such as “azimuth” and “zodiacal light.”

Now we’ve put those words together into a glossary. Over 250 terms about night photography, along with over 80 images to illustrate. The vocabulary of this fun and wonderful thing we do.

We’re making The Night Photography Glossary available to all, to read over your morning coffee. You can do so two ways:

1. We have added a Night Photography Glossary page to this website.

2. We have published a Night Photography Glossary e-book, with a fun, illustrative layout. For this we are charging—well, whatever you’d like to pay us. You may enter $0 and download for free, or you may send us some funds in exchange for our educational offering. Whatever it feels worth to you, is fine with us.

Either way, these are living documents. We will make updates to the Night Photography Glossary over time, adding terms and updating definitions. The webpage will always be kept current, and occasional updated versions of the e-book will be available as well (if you download, you’ll receive an email whenever we post a new version).

OK, enough words from us—in this announcement, at least. Move on over to all the words in our glossary. Soon you’ll be able to tell all your friends about how you bulb-ramped that time-lapse and then used your colorimeter to ensure accurate K and dark-frame-subtracted the hot pixels. Bortle!

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

Diggin' Gear: Announcing a Brand New Blog to Help Solve Your Night Photography Problems

Photographers love gear, and many photographers love talking gear. The reason isn’t a mystery. What’s in our bag are the tools we use to pursue our passion, and they are an integral component of our ability to create the work we envision.

Of course, not all gear is “necessary.” If you have a camera, a lens and a medium, then you can make photographs. And if you can make photographs, then creativity is really the only additional speed bump on the road to photographs that are fulfilling to craft.

Still, many other pieces of gear ease the process in different ways, and that’s advantageous. It’s not because we’re lazy and need the process to be faster—it’s because easing some of the challenging aspects of photography frees up time and energy that can be better used on expanding that creativity.

In short, good gear solves problems.

Between the five of us here at National Parks at Night, we’ve found a lot of gear to solve a lot of night photography problems. Every now and then we write a blog post when something disruptive comes along, such as the Nikon Z 6, or the Luxli Viola, or the Phottix Aion. But we haven’t had a space for sharing the nearly endless stream of other products we experience and adopt into our kits and workflows.

Until now!

Today we are announcing the National Parks at Night Gear Blog.

This blog will feature short posts about tools that solve night photography problems. We’ll post not on a predetermined schedule as we do with our main blog (where you are reading this), but rather whenever some cool product piques our interest. That might be once per month, or could be several times in a week.

We’re starting today, with reviews on five pieces of gear, a few of which we’ve loved for a while and a few of which we’ve discovered recently:

1. the Coast HP7R flashlight

2. the Focus on Stars focusing tool

3. the Gitzo GIGT2545T Traveler Series 2 tripod

4. the Ledlenser P6R Work flashlight

5. the PhotoPills app

You can find them all on our:

Over the next few months we’ll give you tastes of other equipment we believe in: bags, lights, software, lenses and whatever. We’ll let you know on our social media channels every time we post something new. Then once we’ve shown you enough of what this will all be about, we’ll give you a way to opt in to subscribe to these posts too.

In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the beginning of this practically endless exploration of the gear we love to work with.

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

Seize the Night, Online! — Announcing the Second Annual Night Photo Summit

We are delighted to announce the second annual Night Photo Summit!

Last winter, we hosted and produced the first Night Photo Summit, a 3-day virtual conference to celebrate everything we love about night photography. It was intense. It was educational. It was fun!

We created the summit as a way to share our passion with you, the community of like-minded photographers who love the night.

Over 350 people joined together for a long weekend of inspiration and camaraderie, and it was such a blast that we knew, even before it was over, that we would do it again in 2022.

Join us from February 4-6, 2022, to experience 3 days of dynamic presentations from 30-plus world class photographers, authors, artists, rangers, an astronomer, and even a meteorologist.

Sessions and Speakers

There are sessions about creativity, dark skies and weather, and of course night photo techniques––image capture, lighting, time-lapse, post-processing and more.

There are classes for all levels, including a Night Photography Fundamentals track, as well as intermediate and advanced level courses, all totaling for over 45 hours of learning and virtual adventure. And we are thrilled to have our friend and world-renowned nature and cultural photographer Art Wolfe share his World at Night project turned book.

There will be panel discussions (including “Women in Night Photography—Challenges and Achievements Under the Stars”), a group image review with the National Parks at Night instructors, 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:

• Adam Woodworth: “Milky Way Crash Course”

• Amir Shahcheraghian: “10 Years of Night Sky Photography in the Desert National Parks of Iran”

• Art Wolfe: “Art Wolfe Presents: Night on Earth”

• Autumn Schrock: “Process to Print: Making Your Night Photos Shine on the Wall”

• Chris Nicholson: “Oceans, Lakes, Rivers and Ponds: Working with Water at Night”

• Colleen Miniuk: “Finding Your Creative Voice”

• Erik Kuna: “Planning a Milky Way Adventure with PhotoPills”

• Forest Chaput de Saintonge: “Deep-Sky Astrophotography with a Telephoto Lens”

• Gabriel Biderman: “Out of this World: Beyond the Basics of Star Trail Photography”

• Gunther Wegner: “Day to Night Transitions: The Holy Grail of Time-lapse Photography”

• Hannu Huhtamo: “Drawing with Light”

• Imma Barrera: “Under the Night Sky as a National Park Artist in Residence”

• Jess Santos: “Building Your Instagram Presence”

• Kah-Wai Lin: “Photographing Auroras and Winter Landscapes”

• Ken Lee: “How to Use Light Painting Angles to Create Detail, Texture and Drama”

• Kevin Adams: “Fantastical Fireflies”

• Lance Keimig: “8 Lessons from Early Night Photographers That Will Make You Better Tonight”

• Matt Hill: “How to Capture and Edit Multirow Night Panoramas”

• Michael DeYoung: “Using the Best Weather Forecasts to Find Clear Skies and Perfect Clouds, Day or Night”

• Michael Frye: “Expressive Night Photography”

• Mike Mezeul II: “Extreme Nature in the Night”

• Nicole Mortillaro: “What to Look Forward to in the Night Skies of 2022”

• Ranger Rader Lane: “Night Skies in our National Parks”

• Rafael Pons: “How to Plan Your Night Sky Photos (Milky Way, Star Trails and Meteor Showers)”

• Royce Bair: “Low-Level Lighting: How to Create Stunning Nightscapes”

• Susan Magnano: “Luminescent Portraits: A Live Demo with Light Writing”

• Tim Cooper: “Creating Realistic Landscape/Milky Way Blends”

• … and more to be announced!

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 speakers. Prizes include a Gitzo tripod, Vallerett photography gloves, a KelbyOne membership, a book and print from Art Wolfe, light painting tools, an Irix lens, a Move-Shoot-Move star tracker and more.

The Night Photo Summit is sponsored by Chimani, Coast Portland, Irix, Ledlenser, Manfrotto/Gitzo, Move-Shoot-Move, the NightScaper Conference, PhotoPills and Vallerret, with additional sponsors to be named soon.

How to Join Us

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

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Tickets are $399, and include:

• 3 days, more than 25 instructors, over 45 hours of inspiration, instruction and fun

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

• a live image review session

• three panel discussions

• exclusive glow-in-the-dark 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 manufacturers and developers sponsoring the event

• giveaways throughout the duration of the summit

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

Moreover, if you purchase your ticket before noon EST on January 14, you’ll get your shirt and a swag bag (USA only) before the summit!

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