Death Valley Photography Adventure (2025)
Join Jess Santos and Ryan Oswald for the ultimate backcountry Night Photography Masterclass, deep in the rugged heart of Death Valley, from March 25th to 30th, 2025. This isn’t your average workshop—brace yourself to trek across shifting dunes, scale volcanic rock, roam sparkling salt flats, and scramble over textured mud playas. With every step, you’ll uncover wild, untouched terrain where creativity thrives. Trust us, Death Valley National Park is a compositional wonderland that will get your creative juices flowing like a waterfall in the desert (yes, we said waterfall in the desert)
To most, the desert is just an empty, unforgiving expanse—but with our expert eyes, you’ll peel back its layers to find a world of hidden textures, lines, and rugged landscapes begging to be photographed. And if we’re lucky, we might hit the jackpot—a bloom of wildflowers splashing vivid colors across the desert, an explosion of life and beauty against the odds.
We’re not just guiding you to the postcard spots; we’re taking you off the beaten path, far into the secret corners of Death Valley National Park, places we’ve explored countless nights ourselves. Our backcountry route is designed for those who crave adventure and want to push their photography skills to the next level. This masterclass is more than a workshop; it’s an expedition into the art of astrophotography.
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We will be including a Pre and Post Workshop Group Zoom Editing Session to cover losgistics, a meet and greet, putting it all together in the digital darkroom, this will be screen recorded for you to be able to finish your images at your leisure.
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⛰ All experience levels are welcome.
We are limiting this photography workshop to 10 students with 2 Instructors to ensure that everyone receives our attention and to keep compositional possibilities uncluttered.
This workshop is astrophotography based so we have kept the itinerary flexible to be able to chase clear skies at night and light during day. If it rains or conditions prove unsafe to venture out we will work on post processing, image critiques and in classroom sessions, there's always so much to learn both in field and in the classroom!
These are backcountry roads, this means a Higher Clearance Vehicle is REQUIRED (4x4 recommended, but not required). Please contact us if you need assistance in securing a capable vehicle. No previous dirt road driving experience required. This workshop will require moderate hiking (no more than 3 miles) through rocky or sandy terrain.
Planning your shoots
- Scouting and evaluating conditions
- Composing an image to grab the viewer’s attention
- Composing an image with a person in frame to show scale and tell a story
- How to work with light and how to find the best light for the scene
- Utilizing apps, such as PhotoPills, for more efficient planning
- Choosing the right lens, find your focal length
- How and when to use filters
- How to shoot with a plan or vision for editing
Capturing your image
- Histogram: How to read for perfectly exposed images
- Exposure control: How to use ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed in different scenarios
- Creative ways to use lens distortion
- Focus stacking & Focal Length Blends
- Bracketing and exposure blending
- Focusing at night to capture pin sharp stars and foreground
- Blue Hour Blending: How to capture blue hour & Milky Way
- Stacking for Noise Reduction: how to shoot the proper frames to stack
Bringing the image to life
- Lightroom and Photoshop: Learn our post-processing workflow
- How to blend mutliple images together in Photoshop (Blue Hour Blends, Focal Length Blends, Exposure Blends, Composites)
- Luminosity Masks
- Dodging and Burning
- Blue-hour Blends
- Star-stacking: how to edit starry night skies with Starry Landscape Stacker (or Sequator)
- Understanding layers and masks
- Finishing touches using clone stamp and removing distractions
- Creating Orton glows and painting with light
- Sharpening: Creating sharpness in your final image
