t had been a freezing cold night shooting at Joshua Tree National Park. (I think the low that night was somewhere around 15 degrees.) But the pre-sunrise light wasn't terrible, so after spending about 20 minutes sitting in my car and warming up, I re-adjusted my hand warmers inside my gloves and got back into the fray.

Overall, for having spent a little less than 48 hours in the park, I bet I logged somewhere around 6 miles of hiking in this area. It was a great place to explore, assuming that, unlike me, you can avoid kicking a cholla while tromping around at night.

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Here's one more from my time spent in Joshua Tree National Park this winter. The foreground was lit indirectly, as the sun had already gone down at least half an hour before. But there was still enough rosy light to color the very tops of the boulders during this 15-second exposure. In the sky you can see the very last of the Belt of Venus (the Earth's shadow) as it faded away and stars emerged. That's part of Orion that you can see rising over the boulders.

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Here's another one from a winter trip to Joshua during a couple of the longest nights of the year. I experienced a couple of cloudless sunsets that lent themselves well to these sort of twilight-blend treatments.

I have one remaining spot in June's Crater Lake Night-Sky Photography workshop, and the early registration deadline (save 10%!) is tomorrow. We'll be covering twilight blends as well as Milky Way captures, and we'll be spending part of the weekend in a classroom setting covering post processing. I'd love to have you join!

Oh yeah, and this probably goes without saying, but this looks a whole lot better on a black background, so give 'er a click, por favor.

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Nothing special here, although I sure did a lot of hunting on this particular night for what I considered to be a "perfect" Joshua Tree at JTNP. This little cluster looked pretty photogenic, so I took a snap.

A couple hours after this some zodiacal light appeared on the horizon and totally screwed up my well-planned-out Milky Way shot, but that's okay.

I just announced my 2016 night-photography workshop schedule over at my website, and I'd love to have you join me for an evening of shooting at Crater Lake this coming summer. Save a bit of coin if you sign up before the new year. Thanks for looking, and cheers!

Tags:   ben coffman ben coffman photography joshua tree joshua tree national park jumbo rocks jumbo rocks campground yucca

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I spent a fair amount of time shooting infrared during my last trip to Joshua Tree, and it seemed like the perfect national park for it. Those Seussian trees just begged for the surreal colors of false-color IR.

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