Join Rock Light Photo for an exciting and rewarding five day, four night exploration of the unique landscapes of Death Valley National Park, while based in national park lodging at the Stovepipe Wells Village Hotel.

You and fellow photographers will explore the beauty and desolate wonders of Death Valley with ominous but colorful sounding names like Badwater Basin, Dante's View, Furnace Creek and the Devil's Golf Course.   We will explore sand dunes, salt flats, colorful sandstone canyons and historical sites in early morning and late afternoon golden hour and blue hour light, and keep our eyes peeled for Death Valley's famed wildflower blooms.

Subjects will include, but not be limited to: unique salt flats, colorful rock formations, sand dunes, mountain vistas, slot canyons, a ghost town, sunrises, sunsets and astrophotography in an internationally recognized dark skies park.   The park contains incredibly varied topography, with the lowest elevation in North America (282' below sea level) as well as mountains up to 11,000' high!  

We will end the workshop with a group slide show and supportive critique.  You'll be surprised what your fellow photographers come up with at the same locations, and that's part of the fun! 

Colin D. Young is an award-winning photographer who has spent the past decade exploring the red rock Canyonlands of Southern Utah and the mountains of Colorado, after spending 25 year capturing the landscapes of upstate New York.  He has led dozens of workshops in Colorado, Utah and national parks across the U.S. as the founder of Rock Light Photo Tours.   As a lifelong lighting designer for theatre, television and live events, he has a keen sense and deep knowledge about natural light.  He is a certified and insured photography tour guide in Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands & Rocky Mountain national parks.  www.RockLightPhoto.com

Geremy Kornreich is a long-time photographer who began his career in photojournalism. He moved to aviation and motorsports photography, and currently does photography for many music concerts (both classical and rock,) and as much travel photography as possible. He creates fine art images of landscapes, astrophotography, sunrises, sunsets. and abstracts. He's won awards for his photojournalism and images and has exhibited in Colorado and New England. Geremy creates intense photography to share experiences, events, and places, and his work can be seen at www.ShinyMachines.com 

Due to unusually heavy rains in November, there is currently water in Badwater Basin! As the lowest point in the U.S., there is literally nowhere for the water to go. While there is no guarantee there will still be standing water in March, as Death Valley is one of the hottest and driest places on the planet, it bodes well for wildflower blooms, as well as a chance for reflected night skies. Stay tuned!

- Recognizing and capturing the magical natural lighting in Death Valley
- Making your landscape images pop
- Determining proper exposure
- Analyzing a scene for compositional options

- Learning to read and capture the light in challenging environments
- Using filters to improve artistic results
- Capturing the Milky Way with your digital camera

- Making the most of your photo equipment

- Photographic techniques for capturing the unique landscapes of Death Valley
- Shooting and stitching panoramic images
- Adobe Lightroom workflow for getting the most from your images
- Creating great black & white images from digital color captures
- A positive group critique of images to end the workshop - this is a wonderful lesson in composition and seeing the world through other peoples' eyes.

 Skill Levels 

All skill levels are welcome.  Participants who have a good working knowledge of their cameras, a basic understanding of digital workflow, and knowledge or exposure to Adobe Lightroom and/or Photoshop will get the most from this workshop.  

Physical Demands

Though locations visited during this workshop are readily accessible, the hilly terrain requires some moderate hiking (typically 1-3 miles round trip). Participants MUST BE IN GOOD PHYSICAL SHAPE and able to climb and descend moderate to steep inclines. They should wear sturdy boots and use caution on sandy and uneven rocky slopes.

Group Size

Maximum 8 photographers (with 2 instructors)

Registration/Tuition fee: $1800 per person (includes location transportation and shuttle to and from Las Vegas, NV)

Deposit to reserve a date: Varies depending on housing options 

Dates and Times
Workshop begins Wednesday, March 18 at 11am (Meet in Las Vegas, Location TBD), and ends Sunday, March 22 with a late afternoon drop-off in Las Vegas, including the airport (to be safe, please don't book outbound flights earlier than 5:30pm)

Non-photographer/tag-along rate: $750 - for a spouse/partner/friend who wants to come along, eat meals with the group, and travel to some of our shooting locations.  Included r/t transportation to/from Las Vegas.

Booking Deadline: The remaining rooms in our workshop block at Stovepipe Wells Village Hotel automatically get release on Feb 15, so you must book by Feb 14!

Where to Meet:
We will meet at the at the Silverton Casino Lodge in Las Vegas at 10:30am on Wed, Mar 18 - exact location TBD.   Directions and details will be sent well in advance of the workshop.

Rooms are currently sold out. Feel free to join the wait list in case we get a last minute cancellation. Since Death Valley is so large, it only makes sense to stay in the park in national park lodging, so we will be based at the historic Stovepipe Wells Village Hotel, 2 miles from Mesquite Sand Dunes, inside Death Valley national park.  

- Standard patio room (0 avail) with a 2 full/double beds and a private bathroom, A/C, Mini fridge, desk, WiFi in Stovepipe Wells Village Hotel.

- Standard 1 queen room (0 avail) with a queen bed and a private bathroom, A/C, Mini fridge, desk, WiFi in Stovepipe Wells Village Hotel.

- Deluxe 2 queen, non Dune View (0 avail) with two queen beds and a private bathroom, A/C, Mini fridge, desk, WiFi in Stovepipe Wells Village Hotel.

- Deluxe king room (0 avail) with a king bed and a private bathroom, A/C, Mini fridge, desk, WiFi in Stovepipe Wells Village Hotel.

- Deluxe 2 queen Dune View (0 avail) with two queen beds and a private bathroom, A/C, Mini fridge, desk, WiFi in Stovepipe Wells Village Hotel.

There is a package option for 'no accommodations', which is for people  sharing a room with someone who has booked a room already, or for someone who plans to stay in the nearby campground, pr perhaps in Beatty, NV (about 40 min away)

• A digital SLR or mirrorless camera capable of manual exposure settings.  Due to the short time frame of the workshop.

• Plan to bring all of your lenses, from 14mm to 200mm(full frame equiv.), as the variety of daytime locations for sunsets will put all your gear to work!  A wide angle lens (somewhere in the 14mm to 35mm range) capable of an aperture of f/2.8 or lower is best for capturing the Milky Way.  Consider renting a lens if you don’t own one.

• A sturdy tripod (ask me about my disastrous tripod failure 2 years ago in Bryce!)

• A circular polarizer filter, while not required, can be a useful tool for controlling glare and reflections for the daytime shoots. A graduated ND filter can also be of use for shooting sunrises and sunset. NOTE: Colin is a rep for NiSi Filters, which makes an excellent circular polarizer filter, and he can get you a 15% discount off retail prices. https://nisiopticsusa.com/shop/nisi-circular-filters/round-cpl-circular-polarizer-filter/

• Hiking boots or other sturdy shoes: while the hikes to locations we will visit will be fairly short (typically less than 1-3 miles round trip) a good set of sturdy hiking boots is good for protecting the ankles on rocky trails and slippery rocks.

• Lots of clothing layers – Death Valley weather can be finicky, and temps can be very warm during the day and very cold at night in the desert. Most of our locations will be near or below sea level, but we will also hit a couple of locations in the mountains as high as 6,000' above sea level. Make sure you have a good pair of gloves, a warm hat and a puffer jacket in your arsenal!

• Water bottles, a camelback, or other water containers for hiking and carrying at least a couple of liters of water. We will travel with a 2 gallon container of ice water in Colin's vehicle to refill bottles, but Death Valley is a hot, dry place, with very few sources of water, so plan wisely.

• A headlamp, preferably with a red light setting, to participate in optional night photo sessions.  A dimmable headlamp is a bonus.

• A laptop computer (or tablet), ideally loaded with your favorite editing software, to best take advantage of allotted time for image editing, and our daily group image reviews and discussions. Don't forget cables and devices necessary to download your images from camera to laptop.

We will pick you and your luggage up in Las Vegas, NV (somewhere on the NE side of town - exact location TBD) around 11am Pacific Time to begin our trip down to Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley (note - this probably means you need to fly into Las Vegas the night before on 3/17.  Try not to lose it all at the casinos eh?).  We will make a stop for groceries, and then head toward the photogenic Rhyolite Ghost Town near Beatty.  From there we descend into Death Valley, where we get settled into out hotel rooms at Stovepipe Wells, and then head out for sunset on the Mesquite Sand Dunes, before finishing the day with a group dinner at the Toll House Restaurant.

Based inside the park in Stovepipe Wells, CA, we will set out to explore Death Valley National Park, which contains the lowest elevation in North America (282' below sea level) and mountains up to 11,000' high!  With ominous but colorful sounding names like Badwater Basin, Dante's View, Furnace Creek and the Devil's Golf Course, we will explore sand dunes, salt flats, colorful sandstone canyons and historical sites in the early mornings and late afternoons.  Along the will keep an eye out for Death Valley's famous wildflowers, and also take advantage of its Gold Tier rated International Dark Skies to photograph Orion one evening, and the Milky Way in the wee hours on a different night.

Exact schedules will be weather dependent, of course..

On our final day, we will shoot a quick sunrise, then gather for a group image review and some positive feedback on the work we have captured.  Then we load up and head back to Las Vegas, making a stop at the infamous Area 51 Alien Center gift shop for some out-of-this-world kitsch. We should be back in town in time for people to catch an evening flight out of Las Vegas airport. (please don't book a flight before 5pm without getting in touch with us!)