September 2025 (One Month - One Picture)
Explore Landscapes #96
I skipped posting for August - as I didn't shoot anything with my 'big' camera. I took a break and just used my iPhone for the month. Wasn't planned - just happened that way.
Milky Way Joshua Tree Silhouette | © 2025 Jon Norris
September 2025 | Joshua Tree (CA)
Each month, during Milky Way season (March to October in the Northern hemisphere) I hold two Astrophotography workshops in Joshua Tree National Park.
This month’s picture was taken on my September Milky Way and Star Trails Weekend Workshop and is the result of editing a stack of Milky Way images to minimize the amount of digital noise.
While I really enjoy the process of shooting Milky Way images and the subsequent editing, what gives me more satisfaction is teaching others the basics of astrophotography - so that they can then go out and shoot themselves.
My approach minimizes the equipment required down to: a DSLR (or mirrorless) camera, a wide-angle ‘fast’ lens (typically f/2.8), and a tripod. As the equipment is minimized it opens up astrophotography to far more people. It doesn’t require the latest-and-greatest camera. It doesn’t require a star-tracker.
If you come on a Milky Way and Star Trails Weekend Workshop you’ll learn some multi-exposure techniques to reduce digital noise, and also how to edit your Milky Way and Star Trail images.
Whenever I teach a workshop I always learn something from my clients. Without fail. They say that the best way to learn something is to teach it, and that’s very true. In explaining (and if you do it well, simplifying) a photographic technique, your own understanding is deepened.
Even better than that learning is seeing my clients reaction as they start to capture their own astrophotography images. The smile spreads across their face as they see the captured image on the camera back screen.
I warn them that astrophotography can get addictive (‘is addictive’). I’ve had a couple of clients (hat tip to Melissa and Ian) recently who’ve already returned 2 or more times to Joshua Tree, in quick succession, to shoot more astrophotography.
Another participant (Garrett) has tried astrophotography with both his DSLR and a 35mm film camera. On our last outing, different shutter durations were tried and tested with his film camera to capture star trails - with great success.
This makes me happy.
