big bend
Stellar view from the Lost Mine trail in the Chisos Mountains. One of our favorite hikes to do for astro and sunrise!
when & where?
Big Bend National Park, Texas!
March 24 - 28, 2026
We begin Tuesday February 17th in Terlingua at 4pm and finish Terlingua at 10am on Sunday February 22nd.
shooting locations:
Chisos Mountains
Santa Elena Canyon
Balanced Rock
Abandoned Homesteads
Right from our accommodations at The Summit, Big Bend
More to list but people keep comp stomping me!
acommodations
We will be staying at our “Billion Star” glamping accommodations, The Summit at Big Bend, right outside the town of Terlingua under Bortle 1 dark skies! Single occupancy rooms/domes. This will be headquarters for the week, Terlingua has amazing food which is surprising for such a remote town!
logistics
You are responsible for getting to and from Terlingua/Big Bend National Park. Once at the workshop it’s easy to arrange carpools to all our shooting adventures. Midland/Odessa is the closest airport, El Paso has more flights and rentals and is a 4 hour drive.
workshop cost & payment terms
The tuition for this workshop is $4,200 with a non-refundable deposit of $1,000 to secure one of the limited spots on this small group photo adventure tour. The remaining total balance of the workshop is due 60 days before the workshop begins but you can pay the remaining balance any time. Alumni, veterans, and public servants (police & fire) please reach out for discount.
The Milky Way steps from our Glamping Domes at the Summit Big Bend! We definitely love adventuring and exploring, but it is nice to have Bortle 1 skies right outside the door!
difficulty
This astro + photography workshop is great for all levels of photographers and adventurers; it is great for both beginners and more advanced photographers looking to learn night photography. We will be covering all the fundamentals of night photography; planning your shot, single exposure settings, light painting, etc. as we build into more advanced concepts like tracking, timelapses, and combining images. This workshop requires decent mobility and at times requires under a mile of hiking with your camera gear on uneven surfaces.
what you will learn
Everything photography! We specialize in long exposure night photography shooting and editing techniques, however we have tons of opportunities to do landscape photography. We teach blue hour blending, star tracking, panoramas, timelapses, color theory, advanced noise and star reduction, and much more. We do edit sessions at our hotels/in restaurants and follow up the workshop with a custom editing video using the images we took.
Emerald Sanctuary in the Back Country of Lake Powell. My favorite place to hang out during the day, eat lunch, and enjoy the emerald water and lurid orange sandstone canyon light up with warm light!
group size
This workshop is limited to 6 participants with 2 instructor guides. We like to keep our group sizes small (some workshops say 10:2 student to teacher ratio is “small”, which is ridiculous!) so we can give you lots of one-on-one instruction and tailor our lessons to your individual goals and needs. These trips are astro + photography learning based but we keep our learning environment relaxed, jovial, and full of personable people ready to make awesome memories together!
overview
Join several world class astro + photographers as we tour and teach you the art of night photography at some of the most stunning canyon vistas and darkest skies in the world! Big Bend is an astrophotography paradise with the darkest skies in the US, clear desert climate, and lower latitude allowing for fantastic views and photo opportunities of the night sky. February you can shoot the Winter Milky Way and early Spring Milky Way at the beginning and end of the night allowing for shots of Orion and the Milky Way core, and more opportunities for unique compositions. Even our glamping accommodations are perfectly situated under Bortle 1 dark skies surrounded by fun astro-photography shooting locations and the amazing town of Terlingua.
Navajo Nights Gallery
