Beginning in late February and continuing until early October in the Northern Hemisphere, the Milky Way’s visibility means a celestial show available to photographers willing to brave the darkness to photograph the stars. May is the perfect time for getting outdoors in the warm and clear evenings to make images of the heavens above.
The night sky has fascinated people for centuries, serving as both an object of wonder, as a navigational aid, a means of telling time and date, and a source of inspiration. There is evidence that early man depicted the night skies in drawings on cave walls. And over the centuries, artists have used the night sky as a subject of their creations, such as Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.”
Today’s technology has allowed photographers to capture the night sky in all its glory. Digital sensors with a greater sensitivity to light than film, and even the human eye, allow us to capture night landscapes depicting the Milky Way arched overhead, or star trails showing their movement through the sky over the course of hours.
Join landscape photographer and technical guru, Rick Berk, for an online workshop exploring the fascinating night sky with our cameras. In this four-session program, Rick explains his process for planning, composing, capturing, and processing night landscape images. Session One features the capture process, including determining where elements in the night sky will be in relation to the foreground and then properly exposing the scene for both foreground and night sky. After this session, each participant is given an assignment to experiment and create their own nighttime images.
To start the second session, Rick reviews these assignment images for the technical aspects of the photographs as well as their composition and overall image quality. Then he presents an illustrated lecture on advanced nighttime exposure techniques and dynamic compositions that lead to more creative nighttime images.
In Session Three, after reviewing new participant images, Rick demonstrates the proper processing of night landscapes to minimize noise and bring out certain details. Using various software including Photoshop, Lightroom, Starry Landscape Stacker, and Sequator—Rick shows how to take night sky images and elevate them to unforgettable landscape photographs. The assignment between sessions is to experiment with these software techniques.
Session Four brings everything together with an image review and then final tips, tricks, and troubleshooting from Rick’s vast experience photographing the night sky.
Working knowledge of digital workflow and manual mode on your digital SLR or mirrorless camera. Participants must be able to download and select images using image editing software for class sessions.
Class will meet 9:30 – 11:30 am (Mountain Time) on Thursdays and Mondays starting May 9 and ending May 20 (four online group sessions). Enrollment is limited to 12 participants.
Zoom Video Conferencing software (available for no charge from Zoom.com) will be used to facilitate the class sessions. Further details will be emailed to registrants.
Santa Fe Workshops always aims to produce a high-quality experience for our online attendees. That said, variables including regional and local internet provider speeds, traffic on Zoom's servers, and your own computing hardware can contribute to a less than ideal streaming event. While we do our best to minimize the impact of these variables, they are outside the control of Santa Fe Workshops.
View Withdrawal and Transfer Policies for online programs.
For the convenience of participants, recordings of each class session are posted privately for one month after the end of each session. Santa Fe Workshops takes the recordings down after one month to protect the intellectual property of our instructors.
Rick Berk is a fine-art nature and landscape photographer based on Maine’s midcoast. After beginning college as a graphic design major, he took photography as a requirement and was immediately enamored with the photographic process.
Rick has spent nearly 30 years in photography, beginning as a sports photographer covering professional sports, before transitioning to working as a technical specialist for camera companies. His responsibilities included training photographers, consumers, and photo specialty retail staff on photographic technology and its real-world application. In the past several years Rick has transitioned back to being behind the camera full-time, traveling extensively to produce eye-catching landscapes.
Website: rickberk.com
Instagram: @rickberkphoto
