difficulty and group size

This astrophotography trip is great for all level of astrophotographers and adventurers. Because of our truly small group size, we can handle all level of photographers with plenty of 1on1 hands on instruction. We also excel at teaching intermediate photographers and adventurers who are looking to take their photography and adventures to the next level as we love teaching tracking, blending images, and advanced astro techniques.

You will need to be free of mobility issues, comfortable traversing some uneven terrain at night with your camera gear, and okay with being near large canyons and heights. You will have the opportunity to walk about a mile or much less at most of our locations, they are mostly just drive up (4×4) but be prepared to a mile of walking at each location.

Our small group size, 4 students to 1 teacher (some workshops have 12 students and only 2 teachers and call that small… crazy!) allows us to tailor lessons individually and give lots of 1on1 hands on instruction under the stars to each participant.
We provide in depth instruction both in the field hands on with your camera as well as in the classroom reviewing your images and teaching you how to post-process to maximize RAW image potential!

what will you learn?

• We teach you our full workflow, from planning a shot with locations and astronomy fundamentals, creative pre-visualizing, aligning compositions with stars and the seasons, camera settings in dynamic environments, all the way to editing to maximizing the potential in your RAW photos and image blending!

• We cover all the phone apps like Photopills, Skyguide, and Astrospheric we use to plan our shoots.

• We will cover astrophotography basics like focusing at night, optimal camera settings, composition, and light painting.

• We build upon photography fundamentals to teach more advanced techniques like panoramas, using a star tracker, blue hour foregrounds, and blending multiple long exposure images to create details, colorful, and compelling night photos.

• You will learn a fair bit about the local geology, history, and astronomy fundamentals of the region.

• We do several editing sessions throughout the trip and follow up the workshop with custom editing video tutorials.

• This workshop has a good balance of epic adventures and solid post processing sessions to take your images to the next level, we rely on recorded video editing tutorials so you can continue learning post processing from home after the trip.

• We take pride in providing fun, safe, relaxed, and immersive astrophotography adventures! We strive to create unforgettable memories together with our group, unique inside jokes, and amazing photos.

itinerary

START: we meet between 3-5pm on October 7th at our hotel in Monument Valley Tribal Park, Arizona for a group intro and orientation

FINISH: on October 10th at 8am in Monument Valley Tribal Park, Arizona

October 7th

If you are flying into Page, we can assist with transportation through carpooling out to Monument Valley (90 minute drive).

Most folks make our astro workshops part of a larger road trip in the region, and having your own car does give you more flexibility to explore the area during the day. We will meet at the View Hotel between 3-5pm for our group introduction, orientation, and check in to your rooms or campsites.
Tonight we will be heading out to Totem Poles and Big Hogan for sunset! We will saddle up right from the parking lot of our hotel with our Navajo guides who will 4×4 us out to our spots. We will shoot sunset and twilight at several locations ultimately landing at an arch that faces towards the Milky Way Galaxy, which will be in the sky early in the night right after sunset. Once we’ve had our fill of blunders, successful photos, and adventure under the night sky we will head back to the hotel to sleep!

October 8th

We will sleep in and reconvene at 10am for a group breakfast and first image review! We will head out to John Ford Point around 1pm to capture and experience an iconic Monument Valley location used in Western Films!
After our afternoon adventure you will have time to rest, relax, and enjoy the views from our hotel, as we don’t meet up until 4pm for our next epic adventure- HUNT’S MESA! We will drive you down to our local Navajo family and guides who will the 4×4 us up to the top of Hunt’s Mesa for sunset- this isn’t an idea spot for astrophotography as it faces North, so we will head back down at twilight and then shoot the rest of the night in another mesa/canyon area that’s quite epic!

We reserve our full itinerary for privacy. If you would like to see the full itinerary, packing list, or have any other questions, please reach out to us with the contact form below!