Mountains & meadows

Dates

July 27th-August 2nd, 2024.
During the peak of the Perseid Meteor shower!

Overview

Join Derek Culver for 6 days and 5 nights of guided group astro + photography adventures and hands-on photography instructions in the Cascade Mountains during peak wildflower and Milky Way time. This is a bucket list trip exploring world class alpine scenery with a group of like-minded adventure and photography lovers while learning the advanced techniques and artistic philosophies I us to create my art. All hotel and camping accommodations provided with most food provided as well!

Shooting locations

Mt St Helens, Mt Adams, & Mt Rainier

Group size

This workshop is limited to 4 students to ensure that there will be plenty of individual attention for each guest in the field and in post processing.

Difficulty

This astro + photography workshop is recommended for intermediate to advanced level photographers and adventurers looking to expand their creative arsenal to create ultra high quality, emotion evoking landscape photos and astrophotos. A base level of photography fundamentals is recommended so we can teach you more advanced techniques, but is not required. We simplify our workflow down to 15 tools in Photoshop.

physical difficulty

In order to fully experience and capture the epic alpine wildflower blooms, expansive mountain vistas, and starry night skies we must be willing to hike away from the crowds and deeper into nature. This will be an extremely REWARDING adventure photography experience with a balance of somewhat strenuous hikes and relaxed shooting sessions near our cars/hotels/campgrounds, and can be used as a catalyst to build up your physical health. A decent fitness level is required for inclined hiking at elevation to some of our shooting locations with your camera gear: Our hardest hike is 8 miles roundtrip with 1700 feet of elevation, while some hikes are only .5 miles and 200 feet of elevation gain, with some short walks from the parking lot! We designed the itinerary to alternate between easy/relaxed shooting days with minimal hiking and harder more rewarding hike days, with the idea to give your legs a rest. This is my home state, so I have hiked and backpacked the Cascade Mountains extensively, study annual snowpack reports, consult local biologists, know the landscapes intimately, and can seek out the best wildflower blooms and vistas like a truffle pig for our group to shoot!

What you will learn

Our mission is to guide you on bucket list photography adventures while teaching you tools that will unlock your creative visions, and allow you to further express yourself as an artist and human being. Our workshops provide a safe, accepting, fun, and relaxed learning environment with the proper amount of nature and challenge to stimulate the best version of your creative self to bloom. My goal is to impart upon you my 10 years of photography knowledge and passion, show off the amazing summers in my home state of Washington, and how to expertly plan, shoot, and edit your photography around alpine terrains, dynamic weather conditions, wildflower blooms, and stars. We will build upon shooting and editing fundamentals as we incorporate more advanced photography techniques like focus stacking, tracking, focal length blending, stacking meteors, luminosity panels, HDR exposure blending, color work, and compositing images into our workflow to create stunning and emotion evoking images that capture the scale, colors, and wonder of the wildflowers, volcanoes, and the night sky! This workshop is best suited for intermediate and advanced photographers looking to take their art to the next level with high level shooting and editing techniques (in Lightroom and Photoshop). We will have plenty of 1on1 and group editing sessions during down time throughout the trip. Using the pictures we take during out trip, we also provide 2-3 custom high quality post processing videos to take home with you to learn in perpetuity from, as well as a recorded zoom editing session after the workshop!

logistics & lodging

All lodging and camping accommodations are included in the cost of this workshop! Transportation is not included, however we can possibly arrange carpools between other group members and ourselves. We will caravan to and from our shooting locations together- you do not need any 4x4 or off-roading capabilities. Commuting from hotels some nights is not practical, so in order to effectively chase the best weather and wildflower conditions possible and immerse ourselves in natural beauty, will be doing a mix of hotels, camping, and even sleeping in our cars (1 night) close to our shooting locations in order to catch the best light at sunrises, sunsets, and astro! We will alternate between hotels and camping to balance out our energy (and stinky-ness) levels, see the itinerary below! We will be grabbing supplies before each shooting adventure and I cook for our group most nights while we are in remote areas, there is dining at the hotels. By eschewing some luxuries and embracing a bit of discomfort, we will be generously rewarded with once in a lifetime views of the treasures of the Pacific Northwest and Cascade Mountains!

bring a guest

You are welcome to bring a friend or family member along on the workshop as a non-photographer guest. (Some fees may apply) If you would like to bring a friend or family member who is interested in operating a camera during our workshop lessons, please contact us for a discount! Repeat clients, public servants, and veterans are eligible for a discount as well :)

cost

The tuition for this workshop is $4,500.00 total. A non-refundable deposit of $1,000 is required to reserve your spot and hotel rooms. Alumni price is $3500. Full payment is due June 1st, Alumni apply their whopping discount when the remaining balance is collected.

Feel free to email me with any questions at derek@blazingheavens.com if you would like the detailed itinerary with day to day specifics, shooting and accommodation information, and extra general information.

Itinerary / operating plan & shooting locations:

July 27th - mt st helens

Hotel - Johnson Ridge Observatory, Mt St Helens

We will meet at the entrance of Mt St Helens for our workshop orientation and introduction at 4:00pm! Our meeting location is a 3 hour drive from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Sunset, wildflowers, and Milky Way with an easy .5-2 mile hike 500 feet elevation gain.

july 28th - mt st helens

Camping - Windy Ridge Viewpoint, Mt St Helens

I can’t tell you this hike, because it’s not well known! I can tell you when you once you sign up if you are dying to know, but all you need to know for now that this is one of the most otherworldly, underrated, and remarkable hikes in the state of Washington that no one goes on. It’s insane. You also need to know it’s a gradual 9 miles and 1200 feet elevation gain with remarkable views the whole way and an epic crescendo up top! We will shoot sunset and Milky Way here, then be able to shoot some artistic shots of Mt Adams off in the distance in the morning.

july 29th - mt adams

Camping - TMt Adams

Easy and immersive camping experience. We will probably be tired from our amazing adventure the day before and enjoy a beautiful lakeside camping set up with views of Mt Adams, reflections, and Milky Way! During the day we will stop for food on the way and get an editing session in. We will focus on capturing timelapses of the Milky Way with reflections.

july 30th - Mt Rainier

Paradise, Rainier - Paradise Inn

I honestly don’t know which adventure or shooting location yet, but it depends on snowpack and how much has melted off at this point of the year. This will be a great teaching opportunity for me to walk you through my planning processes! Depending on energy levels, weather, and the aforementioned snowpack we will be hitting a unique backcountry alpine meadow, an easy alpine meadow with reflection lake and the Tatoosh ridge with the Milky Way over it, or an amazing scramble up to a secret glacier overlooking Mt Rainier (facing the Radiant of the Meteor Shower, Perseus + the upper Milky Way and Andromeda) if it has melted enough to provide an amazing reflection shots with meteors. All these options and trailheads are within minutes of our hotels, and we will make a group decision!

July 31st - mt rainier

Camping - Mowich Lake, Mt Rainier

Amazing fire look out tower vista or remarkable alpine meadow from this trailhead. Depends on snow pack, both will blow your mind! If we have the energy we will do sunset at one, and sunrise at the other. Astro at the lookout tower or campground. I don’t like naming the meadows until you are signed up, but it’s LOADED with wildflowers.

august 1st - mt rainier

Stay: Crystal Mountain Resort
Shoot: Sunrise Visitor Center, Mt Rainier

The classic North section of Mt Rainier where we will enjoy easy hikes to alpine meadows overlooking the Milky Way towering over the 14,411 foot glaciated behemoth called Mt Tahoma, Tacoma, or Rainier! We will enjoy an easy hike within ear shot of parking overlooking wildflower meadows and Mt Rainier from Tipsoo Lake. Where we will shoot sunset, then move over to the Sunrise Visitor Center 30min away to shoot late twilight and the Milky Way with the classic vertical alignment. We can still expect some meteors to streak through the sky, and some on our camera sensors if we get lucky.

august 2nd - mt rainier

Finish up after our astro lessons and a sunrise shoot before we say our goodbyes!
We’ll be following up this workshop with a zoom editing session (that can be recorded) as well as several editing videos.