Registration Opens for May 24 Bodie Night or Interior Workshops

Light painting in Bodie with partial monlight

Our first of five special access workshops in Bodie State Historic Park in 2015 is coming up in only 5 weeks!

We open registration for our Bodie workshops bundled with both night photography instruction and morning interior access first, since we'd hate to turn away anyone who want wants both simply because one or the other filled up.  Not everyone wants both however, so as space permits we sometimes are able to offer separate registration for the morning or evening session separately.

So if you'd like interior or night access to Bodie at a lower cost than both together, you can join us on May 24 as follows:

     May 24 interior access (approximately 5:30 am - noon) $245: 

     https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=RCQZ356GBZU2N

     May 24 night photography workshop only (approximately 6 pm - 1 am) $325: 
     https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=D34XKVKWDQNAJ


For more details on the workshops, including frequently asked questions on our workshops, visit this page on my Web site:

     Bodie Night Photography Workshops     
     http://www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/blog/bodie-night-photography-workshops/

Wheaton & Hollis Hotel

On May 24 the moon will set around 1 am as we're leaving the park, and it will be roughly a "first quarter" moon, 50% full.  This will be good for capturing the town well lit at night, bur it's not so bright that we can't add light of our own as well.  In addition to the lights I've been using for years, I recently bought a ProtoMachines LED2 for its range of colors as well as its fine control over intensity.  I've already taken it out for a week in March, and I'll be out practicing with it more in April and May as well.  For more examples of what Bodie is like with moonlight, here's an album on Flickr showing some past visits:

     Bodie Under Moonlight
     https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreysullivan/sets/72157646890561079/

Inside the Lottie Johl House

For interior access we enter as many buildings as we have time for.  On our last workshop in 2014, the ten photographers with us worked fast and entered 14 buildings!  I've found over the past few years that a tripod can be handy for the darkest rooms where I might want to use long exposures and/or exposure bracketing, but I like the fine composition control of shooting with the camera in hand.  To further extend the handheld concept, I can hold my iPhone in places and ways that would not be practical with a heavy DSLR, so some of my favorite shots now come from those low or creative angles.  You can see 100+ examples of Bodie interiors in an album here:

     Bodie Interiors 
     https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreysullivan/sets/72157634013024369/

Sunset in Bodie during a night photography workshop

Of course golden hour, sunrises and sunsets are not to be missed, so a general album of roughly 300 photos from the park is worth browsing as well:

     Bodie State Historic Park

It's difficult to say whether we'll be able to open up separate registration for other nights or interior sessions in 2015, it all depends upon how registration goes as the dates approach.  But I can say that May 24 is the only moonlit night we'll be in Bodie this year.  Most of the other night we have booked are on moonlit nights, so we can make the most of the Milky Way.

One tradeoff between the moonless and moonlit nights is that star trail shots may arguably be better with some moonlight, so the sky isn't completely filled with the vortex of stars.

Now in our fourth season, we're averaging 5 night workshops and 3 interior access workshops per year in Bodie. We've experienced multiple workshops in every month from May through October, with the moon in various phases and compass directions.  We'll help you make the most out of your time in Bodie!

If you're interested in both the night and interior workshops together on May 24 with a small price break, or one of our other dates in 2015, visit our main Bodie Photography Workshops page for information and to register.