Talks & Walks: Visit us at two great NYC conferences this October!

In October, we have two events in NYC where you can come meet us in person, chat and see some lectures:

Out of New York 2016

When: Friday, October 14, 2016 - Sunday, October 16, 2016

We're very excited to be a part of this conference that has been operating in Chicago for a few very successful years, and is now offering a weekend of spectacular educational opportunities in New York City.

National Parks at Night will have a booth on the vendor floor, where you can come chat with us in-person about all the adventures we're planning for 2017 and beyond. It's also an opportunity to pick up any or all of the several books published by our team, on topics such as night photography, HDR and photographing the national parks.

Additionally, our instructors Gabriel Biderman and Chris Nicholson will be presenting talks ("Night Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots" and "Photographing National Parks," respectively) and offering two night-photography walks in New York City.

More information: ny.outofchicago.com.

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Photo Plus Expo 2016

When: Saturday October 22 from 10:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.

We are also very excited to be back at PhotoPlus, where we officially went public with the National Parks at Night program last year. (1st birthday! Yay!) Four of the five of us will be present and on stage for "Night Photography—Master the Night," a panel presentation about our favorite subject!

Gabe, Chris, Lance Keimig and I will share a ton of tips on shooting under the stars in beautiful places. We'd love to see you there, at one of the industry's premier events! 

Bring a friend—or two!

Register: www.photoplusexpo.com

More info / add to your expo planner: n2b.goexposoftware.com/events/ppe16/goExpo/user/listSeminars.php?ci=91

See more about Matt's photography, art, workshops and writing at MattHillArt.com. Follow Matt on Twitter Instagram Facebook.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Finding Your Focal Length: Use Metadata To Divulge Your Tendencies

How do you see the world?

Is your view wide, expansive and open, or do you like getting right into the action? Do you often look up or down on your subjects? Are you a people person or do you prefer collaborating with the trees?

The better you understand who you are and how you communicate with the world, the stronger your photographic vision will become.

When I have clear night skies and lots of stars, like on this night at Crater Lake National Park, I try to shoot as wide as possible to include as many stars as I can—in this case with a 15mm.

I’m a Pisces, a dreamer, I love to see the unseen—it excites me. Night photography is a natural fit—I can start with an idea—experiment with time and create something that makes people react. I prefer bold compositions, I often combine the night sky against man-made objects, and something that has changed from my darkroom days is that I love the many colors of the night.

But the most important thing in recent years that has helped me hone my night vision has been finding and focusing on my focal length.

We all make folders on our computers with our favorite images. If you take a little time and really study why these images resonate with you, then you’ll keep fueling the fire.

This can be done easily in the Library module of Lightroom. First, if you haven’t already, create a collection of your favorite photographs. In my example (below) I have my 5-star night shots in a collection called “Best of the Night.”

With a few keystrokes, you can easily see the data of all the images in your collection. First, press the backslash key (or select View-Show Filter Bar) to unveil the Library Filter options at the top of the Grid View.

In that bar, click “Metadata” and you’ll be able to see the dates, cameras and lenses used for the photos in that collection. Click on the upper-right hand corner to open the Library Filter presets, and select “Camera Info”—now you can see camera, lenses and exact focal lengths. This is especially helpful with zoom lenses, because Lightroom will show you the exact focal length you were zoomed to when you shot the photo.

Often the first lens new photographers choose is an all-in-one, such as a 28-200mm or 16-300mm. These are great travel lenses, as they give you a wide variety of focal lengths to choose from without the worry of changing lenses or weighing your bag down with multiple lenses. But pay attention to any trends in regards to where you might be frequently stopping with these zoom lenses. If, for example, you are always shooting your 14-24mm lens at 21mm—that is your focal length! And perhaps you should invest in a 21mm prime lens.

One of my go-to daytime/travel lens combinations is the Nikon 28-200mm lens and a Nikon 35mm f/1.4 lens. This gives me zoom versatility as well as a fast, low-light lens in one of my favorite focal lengths.

Finding a fast prime lens is very important for night photographers who want to shoot the Milky Way or dark sky, or under little to no moon. The f/2.8 zooms are nice, but gaining at least 1 stop with an f/2 lens or 2 stops with an f/1.4 lens will let you use cleaner ISOs such as 3200 or 1600. On our recent workshop in Acadia, I was able to try out the Nikon 20mm f/1.8 lens, which is a very nice, compact and fast lens that I’ll be adding to my arsenal.

Once you find your focal length—own it. I used to be a 50mm guy but over the last two years I’ve found myself reaching for the 35mm more and more. When you become comfortable with how you see the world—challenge it. I often default to shooting super-wide at night, but I’m trying to look for more detail images that a 35mm, 50mm or even a 100mm will help me achieve.

I was scouting with my 28-200mm lens during the day in Crater Lake National Park and zoomed in to 100mm to frame this shot.

So take some time, really get to know your work, find your focal length, and most of all—keep on clicking!

For more information about the equipment mentioned in this post, see the Our Gear page and the following links:

Gabriel Biderman 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

How to Get Creative in National Parks without Being an Asshat

Header photo credit: Night sky at Owachomo Bridge (NPS/Jacob W. Frank)
 

THE PROBLEM

I am horrified by mentions of how careless individuals mistreat natural features in national parks. I want to draw attention to this, plus provide some helpful tips on how we can all honor our muse while also avoiding destructive actions. 

And it's also a warning to the careless punks that if I ever see you defacing or endangering something beautiful, I will find a ranger and get your butt arrested and hopefully fined out the wazoo.

SOME EXAMPLES

Let's review some examples of misbehavior in national parks. 

Recently a young artist with the internet moniker Creepytings2014 chose to leave some graffiti behind in seven national parks while hiking. Her choice to post photos of it on her Instagram was hard evidence. Fortunately, some popular hiking sites started discussions about it, and formed a petition to the Obama administration asking for action. She was banned from 524 million acres of public lands during two years of probation, plus 200 hours of community service.

#NatureIsGay #creepytings #caseynocketart

A photo posted by Casey Nocket (@theofficialcreepytings) on Oct 24, 2014 at 12:58pm PDT

Another from this year: The Canadian group High on Life SundayFundayz got lambasted by the internet for their jaunt onto Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone. They attempted amends, and many didn't believe it sufficed, calling for prosecution. Wyoming issued warrants for their arrest.

And this came not a year after some poor fellow crashed his drone into that same hot spring, despite the aerial devices being banned from all U.S. national parks just two months before. The Dutch tourist had to pay $3,200 in fines and restitution, amid continued fears that the sunken drone could still degrade or even destroy the colorful spring.

Those are new examples, but the problem is certainly not new. In 2001, a Utah photographer plead guilty to seven federal misdemeanors for damaging Canyonlands and Arches national parks. Simply put, he had built fires with Duraflame logs to create dramatic lighting effects, scorching and discoloring iconic rock formations. He paid $10,900 in restitution.

I provide these examples not to single out anyone, but examples are needed. I want to illustrate that if you choose to deface or damage national parks, you can (and should, IMO) pay a steep price. Not only that, but let's imagine what you are taking away from every other person and generation that visits that spot ever after. It's selfish, and short-sighted.

Here is a very simple list of destructive ways I've seen others apply their creativity that could cause negative impact within a national park:

1. Using steel wool to make fire, especially during dry or forest-fire season (as happened in an incident in Big Cypress National Preserve just a couple of months ago, burning down a historic structure)

2. Fireworks: sparklers, rockets, firecrackers, etc.

3. Climbing on delicate features (they took millions of years to become that way, you can destroy it in a moment!)

HOW TO PREPARE AND ACT

Now that I've gotten the emotions out of the way, let's approach this with a little empathy. 

I believe it's first a matter of awareness. Not everyone thinks to read all the literature you get while on vacation or especially adventures. I mean, you're outdoors to have some time away from the hustle and bustle, right? Frankly, it doesn't mean you are off the hook of being responsible for your actions. By entering National Park lands, you are agreeing to leave it as you found it. Or perhaps you'll leave it in a better state and pick up someone else's litter.

Read the map and newsletter you are handed by the friendly rangers on the way in. You will get a great overview of all that is precious, plus the ground rules.

Let's take a look at the benchmark rule-book for how to treat the wilderness—the Center for Outdoor Ethics's simple “Leave No Trace Seven Principles.”

1. Plan Ahead and Prepare

2. Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces

3. Dispose of Waste Properly

4. Leave What You Find

5. Minimize Campfire Impacts

6. Respect Wildlife

7. Be Considerate of Other Visitors

© 1999 by the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics: www.LNT.org

It's not so hard so minimize your impact on a natural environment. Print out their principles. Memorize them. Apply them. Get a tattoo. It's good karma. At National Parks at Night, we spend time on these ideals during every workshop. It's in everyone's best interest.

View fullsize

Delicate Arch at Night with Headlamp. NPS Photo.

HOW TO ACT 

If you are in a national park and are tempted to do something to leave your mark or do something you know is risky, ask yourself, "Who is this for? Me? Why am I doing it? What is the benefit of completing this idea?"

If you don't have an answer that rings true with your moral compass, give it a pass. Find another way to express yourself.

Another approach is to be deliberate. Make your own personal plan about what you want from your photo adventure.

We all have a mission, even if we've never written it down or spoken it aloud. I suggest before heading out into the wild, work on your artistic mission statement.

We were inspired by the mission statement (which you can read in its original form at the bottom of this page) of Thomas Mark Szelog, a photographer who is documenting the proposed new national park in the North Maine Woods. His statement describes exactly the sort of sentiment we should all have when we step anywhere into the great outdoors.

When I venture into the northern Maine forest I am fully aware that I am a guest in a house and home. And as any visitor into a home should, I behave properly. The denizens of the forest are no different than the human denizens of a city. The wildlife must seek food, water, and shelter. They use their home, the forest, to sleep, eat, rest, and reproduce and raise their families. I would not deny the right of a person to thrive in their home, nor would I deny the same for the wild creatures of the woods. ...

Mankind will never improve upon the beauty of Mother Nature. No manipulation of my photographs, or any use of computer or digital technology will make my images better. What nature allows me to see through my camera viewfinder is already outstanding. Mother Nature deserves all of the credit for the beauty in my photographs.

Wildlife photography is more than creating art, it is capturing an experience. — Thomas Mark Szelog

There is a power in writing down (and sharing!) a commitment. Try it. Write five sentences detailing who, what, where, when and how you will seek and apply your photographic vision.  Here is my first crack at it:

I, Matt Hill, choose to make art in the wilds of America's National Parks. I choose this because the natural beauty invokes awe and creative energy in me. I harness and focus this energy by applying the non-destructive media of light and time to make long-exposure photographs of night scenes. I adhere to the Leave No Trace Principles and share my photography so that it may inspire others to enjoy these spaces firsthand.

I challenge you to leave your personal version in the comments if you will. If you want to use mine and adjust it slightly, no worries! I would be honored.

Please choose to honor the natural beauty instead of modifying it. As Chris Nicholson has said to me in conversation, "The parks are our subject and inspiration, not our canvas." Well put, Chris.

See more about Matt's photography, art, workshops and writing at MattHillArt.com. Follow Matt on Twitter Instagram Facebook.

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Upcoming workshops from National Parks at Night

Holiday Special: Tips for Getting the Most Explosive Fireworks Photos

Unless you live in the upper or lower latitudes, you can do night photography pretty much any day of the year. But opportunities for fireworks photography arise only every now and then—particularly, in the U.S., on and around Independence Day.

With that in mind, National Parks at Night wanted to offer some tips for those of you who might be heading out this weekend with cameras and tripods and perhaps some trepidation.

One thing to note: You’re in luck! This year Independence Day is falling right smack in the middle of a full moon, affording you skies as dark as local conditions allow.

Another note: Fireworks are prohibited in national parks. However, many other National Park Service units (especially national historic sites and national battlefields) hold special events over this holiday. You can photograph flag displays, battle reenactments, parades, etc. For more information about what’s going on near you or near where you’re traveling, a great resource is the National Park Service Event Calendar.

NPS Photo

Perhaps the best-known of those celebrations, of course, is the fireworks display at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The show is launched from the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Various vantage points in the area allow you to frame the fireworks along with the U.S. Capitol, Washington Monument, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, and so on.

Also, just because you can’t see fireworks in a national park doesn’t mean you can’t see them from a national park. For example, Bar Harbor, Maine, hosts a popular show over Frenchman Bay, which can be seen from many spots in Acadia. One of the hippest viewpoints? On top of Cadillac Mountain!

Now, from the NPAN crew, a few tips for getting some explosive images, no matter where you decide to photograph them.

Lance Keimig:

I want to start this off by pointing out that fireworks as a subject has been done extensively. So do a lot of thinking and a lot of experimenting to find a new way to approach the subject. I always advise to move beyond the clichés, and with fireworks, you have your work cut out for you.

That said, I have found that the most interesting photos include the spectators, illuminated by the glow of the fireworks. Also, be judicious with long exposures—it is easy to overdo it and include too many bursts in one shot, which can be overkill.

Gabriel Biderman:

Arrive early to stake out a good vantage point. This is especially important for fireworks shows in major cities, where photographers show up early in the morning to plant their tripods in the perfect spot. It’s like being first in line to a popular concert.

Scout the location and look for landmarks, bridges or other interesting foreground elements to give the image scale and drama. Often fireworks are shot over water—include the water and get fantastic reflections.

© Gabriel Biderman

You will be surrounded by people, which I do like to include in the image, but watch out and make sure they don’t bump into you and knock your tripod over. Also, use a lens shade to prevent flare from street lights.

Lastly, be aware of any downward smoke, because it can obscure fireworks or—if you are too close to the show—can just smoke you out! So strategically, try to avoid it physically and in your shots. As the show goes on, the smoke tends to linger and gather lower to ground (launch location). To compensate, I might shoot very wide and include the crowd or subject matter at the beginning of the show, but then shoot higher and tighter in the sky the more the smoke accumulates.
 

Tim Cooper:

Use a lens that will allow a composition wide enough to encompass enough of the sky to capture different bursts at different heights. Either focus it to infinity (unless you have a foreground reason not to) or, better yet, use hyperfocal distance to maximize depth of field.

Use a slow ISO (such as 100) and a medium aperture (such as f/8, or even smaller). Experiment. Set your camera to bulb and use a cable release to control the shutter.

© Tim Cooper

When ready to shoot, open the shutter and cover your lens with a black card to keep out any extraneous light. When you hear the sound of a firework exploding, remove the card from the lens and let the fireworks fly through your frame. When the bursts subside, cover the lens again and wait for the next explosion. Repeat several times, covering your lens in between bursts, so that you can “stack” multiple patterns onto one frame.

Matt Hill:

If you want to shoot and enjoy the show, then your intervalometer is your best friend. Or maybe your wing-man. (Pick whichever analogy works better for you.)

First, test for the right exposure. You can choose a fast shutter speed to capture many frames with a few explosions in each, or you can choose a long shutter speed to capture fewer frames with more explosions in each. Then find the right aperture and ISO (using Tim's advice above), and you have your exposure. You can do this pretty quickly, within the first minute or two of the fireworks display.

© Chris Nicholson

Once that's done, get the intervalometer configured. Set your interval to 1 second, and the number of photos to infinite or a couple hundred. (You can do the math to figure out exactly how many frames to shoot, but why bother? Just set it to keep firing.) Finally, simply start the sequence, walk away and enjoy the show! When the fireworks are over, stop the sequence.

Voila! You've shot a whole fireworks display while sitting down and feeling like a kid.

Chris Nicholson:

If the fireworks start before the sky is dark and the sky is too light for a long exposure, it's a perfect time to get a neutral density filter out of the bag. A 3-stop filter (or even less) should do the trick. It will allow you to shoot longer, catching more bursts (and complete bursts), which is kind of key in the sparser, early moments of a pyrotechnics show.

Also, if you know the display is beginning in twilight, try to get an east-facing position, which will give you a darker-sky background than if you were facing west.

Framing can be tricky, because it's nearly impossible to precisely predict where the blasts will occur and how large they'll be. So frame loosely to get everything, then crop to taste in post-production.

© Chris Nicholson

Finally... please, please, please keep safety in mind. I’ve been to all sorts of fireworks shows, and one of the most impressive I’ve ever seen and photographed (a few times) was a local “passionate amateurs” display put on in a beachfront neighborhood of my old hometown. Everything is exploding right over you or the nearby water, making it at once spectacular and terrifying. In the few years I attended, I saw a few firework-human near collisions.

Should you shoot this type of event, be sure not to keep your eye stuck to your viewfinder—frame your photograph, then stick your eyes to what’s happening around you. Also, consider wearing eye and ear protection if you’re close to the launch area.
 

From All of Us:

All the best for doing some great work, and have a very Happy 4th of July!

Chris Nicholson is the 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