Derek Culver

Hi my name is Derek Culver, I am a professional photographer specializing primarily in the art of night photography! I am from Issaquah, Washington; a town 30 minutes from the city of Seattle, on the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. Between my parents lovingly making me read too much, 8 hour shifts playing with legos while watching star wars, and having a forest for a backyard as a kid: my interest in stories, creating, outdoor adventures, and astronomy was planted early, but did not bloom until later in life after a season of adversity in my life. When I was 20 years old, I suffered heart attack condition called myocarditis and grappled with suicide and depression.

A devastating and unexpected chain of events at the time, in retrospect, going through adversity was “one of the best things that ever happened to me, it was a catalyst for a major paradigm shift in how I went about my life on a core level”, stated Derek in a 2018 interview. In 2015, inspired by an Anne Frank quote about nature being “good for healing the soul”, cheesy, as well as seeing amazing images of the night sky by artists like Dan Greenwood and Jaxson Pohlman through Instagram, Derek bought his first camera and set off on a road trip to see the stars, found God, and healed through the peripheral pursuits of photography like hiking, camping, crying in the fetal position deep in the woods where no one could hear him, and introspection under the night sky while doing astrophotography.

Although relatively new to the field of astronomy and photography, Derek is a self taught astrophotographer who has since been a innovator in the landscape astrophotography imaging community- well known for his high image quality, mixing deep space and landscape techniques, and pioneering the dreamscape genre. By drawing from the complex science of deep space astrophotography imaging and photometry after working at a telescope store, Derek helped pioneer and popularize the incorporation of German Equatorial Mounts (a machine that aligns with Polaris and tracks the sky which can produce drastically higher quality night images), or tracker, into landscape astrophotography. Derek owes a great deal of his astrophotography success to the support of his Father’s unconditional love and support, his good friend Daniel Greenwood’s creative genius, Dimitri “Dimbo” Natsis, Andy Peraza, Jeffry Freeman, The Wipf Family,. Beau Tabakci, Anna Eason, and the great folks of the Seattle Astronomical Society.

Derek has an immense passion for using his artwork and platform to promote the perspectives he has cultivated and refined during the peripheral time surrounding the thousands of hours he pours into astrophotography craft. Using his imagery to capture his audience’s attention and his extremely candid writing style to share personal life experiences, tribulations, and thoughts; one of Derek's paramount purposes with his life and art is to inspire introspective reflection in others, passion for finding one’s life purpose, positive perspectives, and appreciation for God's beautiful creations- including ourselves. You can get to know Derek more intimately through his art and writing by checking out the “PURPOSE” tab on his website or keeping up with his instagram. (coming back soon)

When not pulling multiple all nighters out under the night sky or going on 8 hour photo editing binges, Derek can be found reading (George R. R. Martin, Leo Tolstoy, & Malcom Gladwell are some favs), working out, and playing Rocket League (Season 3 All-Star), and kicking footballs pursuing a career as an NFL kicker.