May 2025 (One Month - One Picture)
Explore Landscapes #89
May was a busy month for photography workshops. Not that I’m complaining. I love leading workshops and always find them hugely enjoyable. Plus a quick family trip to Sequoia.
JTNPA Desert Institute Stargazing Through the Lens: Dark Sky Photography Techniques | © 2025 Riley Vallo
May 2025 | Joshua Tree (CA) | Sequoia (CA)
I started off the month leading a hike to Arch Rock as part of a National Parks after Dark Podcast weekend retreat in Joshua Tree - which was a blast. Later that day I got to attend a live recording of a NPAD episode with Cassie and Danielle (the podcast hosts) at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center. National Parks after Dark is an interesting blend of the great outdoors and true crime stories. And they have quite the following. Listeners had travelled from all over the US to attend the weekend campout, which I believe had 60+ people sleeping out under the stars.
Mid-month we (my wife, eldest daughter and dog) had a quick family trip to Sequoia National Park. Lots of hiking, photography, and campsite cooking - most of it edible. We won’t talk about the dutch oven nachos which were an unmitigated disaster.
May was a busy month for photography workshops. Not that I’m complaining. I love leading workshops and always find them hugely enjoyable. Firstly I led the JTNPA Desert Institute Stargazing Through the Lens: Dark Sky Photography field class.
The photo shows the seven participants and myself getting ready to shoot a star trails time lapse - immediately prior to the ‘lights out - we’re shooting’ command. There’s nothing like a completely dark night to test out how well you know where your camera controls are. We had every kind of camera on this workshop. DSLRs, mirrorless (crop, full-frame and medium format) and even a Nikon FE2 35mm film camera. Huge thanks to our participants, Cheryl, Jeremy, Cindy, Steve, Jean, Victor, and Robert, plus the DI team, Riley, Lindsey and Ryan, for making it such a fun event.
Then the next two nights I led one-to-one Dark Sky workshops with Jim and then with Dan. We were lucky with the weather the first two nights, and had clear skies, but sadly Dan and I weren’t so lucky on the Monday night. We’re going to need to come back and put the learning into practice.
Finally, I rounded out the month leading a day-to-sunset workshop with Melissa. We covered a lot of ground doing a photo hike and then ended our day together at my favorite sunset spot.
Onwards to June!
