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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Whenever I'm shooting in a location I make a conscious effort to get at least a handful of photos that capture "the essence" of the location, as a unique place.

During my last visit to Joshua Tree National Park this was the photo I thought best fit that description. To me, JPNP is rock piles, clear (or mostly clear skies), Joshua Trees, mountains, and a melange of other desert vegetation. Although I took many, many photos that didn't have all of these elements, none of those photos particularly defined the location like this one did, to me anyway.

When you shoot at a location are you concerned with capturing the essence of the location? Or do you feel like that sort of thing is too restrictive and cramps your creativity?

Thanks for checking it out!

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Landscape photography is to the daily 9-5 grind as infrared photography is to wearing your tie on your head and singing karaoke on Friday night.

Vertical panorama of 4 photos, 16mm, f/16, 1/60th of a second.

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I took this panorama almost a year ago in Joshua Tree National Park and thought I'd finally dust off the files and publish my efforts.

I had intended to shoot a few infrared night photos while I was in the park, and I succeeded, but post-processing them has been a borderline nightmare. This, I believe, is the first night infrared panorama I've ever published. It's no coincidence that this particular pano was shot with a B+W 090 filter, which gave me some latitude in post processing. Other photos taken with a filter giving a narrower band of IR light still sit on my hard drive, but they'll likely eventually get processed.

Anyway, I'm open to feedback on this one. I think I'm finally happy with the result, but I'm curious to hear (read) what others think of shooting infrared night photos.

Thanks for taking a look!

Tags:   ben coffman ben coffman photography desert infrared infrared milky way infrared panorama joshua tree joshua tree images joshua tree national park joshua tree photos landscape long exposure long exposure night photography milky way national park nature night photography rocks starry night stars

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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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