I wish I could say the images accompanying this post are mine, but they are not. They are the work of Royce Bair. Royce is a photographer from Utah who specializes in shooting night-time landscapes that incorporate the Milky Way. He calls these images Nightscapes. He is currently touring the United States give lectures on how to capture such images. I was lucky enough to convince him to come to Tacoma and give his talk to the Tacoma Mountaineers. This will be a great event and a good opportunity to learn how to capture these wonderful shots. As you know if you are a regular reader of my blog, I’ve tried to get shots like these, with limited success. Hopefully, Royce will be able to teach me a thing or two.
The talk will be held Friday, February 13th from 7 to 9 pm at the Tacoma Mountaineers building at 2302 N 30th Street, Tacoma, Washington. It is free to attend and no reservation is needed (though it is first come-first served on seats). If you do decide to come by, be sure to introduce yourself to me as a reader of my blog.
Royce says that many of his shots are captured in a single exposure and have little post-processing. He will be giving a step-by-step recipe for capturing this images. His accompanying slide show will offer a lot of technical, how-to information including planning when and where to shoot the Milky Way, finding dark skies, calculating star alignments, choosing the right equipment, how to calculate the correct exposures, light painting, noise-reduction techniques, and exposure blending.
Royce is a semi-retired magazine photographer who has been capturing nightscapes for three decades. His photographs have appeared in National Geographic, Smithsonian, Reader’s Digest and American Photo, among others. His lecture tour is in advance of his upcoming ebook “Milky Way Nightscapes, A Guide to Photographing the Starry Night Sky.” Can’t make the lecture? You can order an advance copy of his ebook this month at a discounted price by sending him an email. Details are at the ebook link.
Hope to see you Friday!
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