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Bodie Photography Workshops

This is our Bodie workshop overview page.  Our 2026 summer workshops are released! For 15 seasons we have led several small group Bodie night photography workshop itineraries. All include two practice nights in stunning places before our first night in Bodie (the minimum required for fellow workshop participants not to be trashing your foreground with their lights, and for everyone to be shooting efficiently together, so you can capture more compositions during our limited time in Bodie). For many recent seasons we’ve been the only workshop leaders to maintain both an Inyo National Forest permit (required to shoot Mono Lake) and a Yosemite National Park permit to shoot up in the High Sierra.

We feel that 8 photographers is the maximum for the spaces we’ll be shooting in, and that two local guides/instructors, each with several dozen nights experience in Bodie (and hundreds of nights leading workshops), is best to keep a group with mixed experience and various cameras productive. All of our Bodie workshops are conducted with proper permits, insurance and first aid certifications required to enable us to shoot all of the best locations in the area.

2026 will be our 15th season offering an average of 5-6 Bodie access sessions per year, often with multiple nights in Bodie, or morning interior access plus night. We’ve shot in Bodie in every month of the summer season multiple times. We don’t drop by this area occasionally, we live 45 minutes north of Bodie Road. Sometimes we visit 15 times per year. We’ve each encountered a lot more subjects and compositions in our ~90 special access sessions, in more conditions, than others with less experience in Bodie (Lori and I compete with each other to find new subjects/compositions). 

After about a decade working with the USFS, we were granted a 5-year permit. They even bought a 60″ panorama print on metal to display on their Mono Basin visitor center wall! Support serious, professional operators who would never risk their clients’ workshop (like getting shut down by their leader getting cited). Your success, your investment of travel and time, and your trust, is valuable to us. Many of our clients come back out with us again and again!

Bodie Night Photography Workshop plus Mono Lake, High Sierra
Four nights with the last two in Bodie
June 10-14, 2026
$2195  New, register now here!

Our two nights in Bodie will feature no moon in the sky, for pristine dark sky shooting conditions until we have to work our way back to the parking lot to be off Park lands by 1am. The Milky Way will be low to the horizon, on the east side of Main Street. We can capture compositions with the Milky Way prominent across the sky, as well as Milky Way arch panoramas.

With dozens of nights experience shooting in Bodie, Lori and I can help you cover more subjects in the time we have available, as well as compositions optimized for the time of night as the Milky Way rises.

Lori and I are avid astrophotographers. We’ve captured the aurora borealis numerous times in the area, including on 3 nights in Bodie and at Mono Lake during one of our 2025 workshops. In recent years we have updated our lighting, our exposure technique, and our post-processing workflow, tools and techniques. You’ll benefit from our knowledge and experience.

We have two additional practice nights with interesting subjects in the area before our two Bodie nights. You capture more images when the group is shooting competently and efficiently together, and stray light is minimized.

We pursue daytime landscapes, wildflowers, wildlife, and sunsets as well. We conduct post-processing sessions to make sure that you get the best possible results with your images.

More information and registration here.

Bodie and Eastern Sierra Night Photography Workshop plus Bodie Interior Access
Four nights with the last one in Bodie, plus a morning interior access session
July 7-11, 2026  
$2145  New, register now here!

Our night in Bodie will feature no moon in the sky, for pristine dark sky shooting conditions until we have to work our way back to the parking lot to be off Park lands by 1am. We can capture compositions with the Milky Way prominent across the sky in landscape and portrait orientation compositions, as well as Milky Way arch panoramas.

Each with 75+ nights experience shooting in Bodie, Lori and I can help you cover more subjects in the time we have available, as well as compositions optimized for the month and time of night as the Milky Way rises.

Lori and I are avid astrophotographers. We’ve captured the aurora borealis numerous times in the area, including on 3 nights in Bodie and at Mono Lake during one of our 2025 workshops. In recent years we have updated our lighting, our exposure technique, and our post-processing workflow, tools and techniques. Our images are 100% real, never faked in Photoshop with sky substitution, our Milky Way reflection shots are photographs, never faked, including Milky Way reflections. Integrity is important to us. You’ll benefit from our knowledge and experience.

We have two additional practice nights with interesting subjects in the area before our two Bodie nights. You capture more images when the group is shooting competently and efficiently together, and stray light is minimized.

We pursue daytime landscapes, wildflowers, wildlife, and sunsets as well. We conduct post-processing sessions to make sure that you get the best possible results with your images.

We maintain permits to be able to lead you on lands administered by Inyo National Forest (such as Mono Lake) and  Yosemite National Park, so we can take you wherever the weather and light are best.

More information and registration here.

Eastern Sierra Night Photography Boot Camp plus Bodie Night
Three nights with the last one in Bodie
TBD, 2027  

We’ve been offering intensive weekend night photography boot camps in recent years, based on the training and practice that we enjoy in our Bodie workshops before our Bodie nights. Most of our clients prefer two nights in Bodie, so unless we get a group interested,  we’re putting off the shorter format where we have only one night in Bodie.  

We’ll be close enough to the new moon to be able to pursue night photography, with full darkness conveniently starting early at 8:36pm. In recent years we have updated our lighting, our exposure technique, and our post-processing tools and techniques. All of our sample images are straight photography, with no sky substitutions or faked reflections. We conduct post-processing sessions to help you produce the best possible results with your images!

In many years we’re the only operator offering workshops in Bodie that also maintains permits for both Inyo National Forest (Mono Lake) and Yosemite National Park. We won’t risk the successful operation of your workshop to save a few bucks. We’re the local experts. Jeff displays over 2000 Mono County images on Flickr, another 1000 covering Yosemite National Park. We love leading workshops, but we’re not going to do this forever. Benefit from our experience and knowledge while you still can!

More information and registration here.

Itinerary

To ensure you get the best pictures and to accommodate for any adverse weather, we keep the exact daily itinerary flexible, so we can use weather forecasts and sunrise and sunset forecasts to maximize your success. 

We’re offering at least three different itineraries including Bodie in 2026, so visit the detailed workshop description pages for each of the workshops above to see more detail. 

It has come to our attention that some other workshops operating in this area do NOT have the Inyo National Forest permits required to operate at Mono Lake! I hear that it can be a bummer if your workshop is shut down due to lack of a permit! Lori and I are reputable, professional, permitted operators, carrying the Wilderness First Aid training and liability insurance required to select from the best shooting locations as we operate in the area in Bodie, Inyo National Forest (including Mono Lake), and Yosemite National Park.

Sunrise in Bodie State Historic Park, California.
Bodie Photography Workshop blue truck Lori Hibbett
2026 Eastern Sierra Milky Way night photography workshops

What’s included:

  • Guiding, based on our 90+ special access sessions, day and night, exploring the Park
  • Constant fine tuning of itinerary based on forecasts & conditions
  • Optimized process from lighting to exposure, noise reduction and post-processing.
  • Photography instruction, composition consultation, post-processing demonstrations.
  • Permits to also guide you at Mono Lake (Inyo National Forest), and in Yosemite
 

What’s not included:

  • Lodging. Camping to luxury, your choice! We’ll recommend towns/locations upon registration.
  • Transportation – carpooling optional (no super-spreader vehicle!)
  • Meals/snacks/beverages (outdoor dining or take-out, as available)
  • No onerous group lodging terms (high price, poor cancellation terms)

 

Great Basin School of Photography, LLC operates under permit on the Inyo National Forest.
Great Basin School of Photography, LLC operates under permit in Yosemite National Park.

Bodie Workshops Are Our Job

We live here, a short drive from Bodie Road. We’re full time photography workshop guides and instructors, not moonlighting at this, so we’re very experienced at helping clients with all levels of photography and night photography experience. In Bodie. We’ll help you with optimized exposure techniques, lighting, and post-processing tools and techniques. And with so many nights experience in Bodie, we’ll move you through compositions efficiently, optimized to astrophotography opportunities available that week and the time of night, and the conditions. 

Lori and I are the local experts: of the nearly 12,000 images that Jeff shares on Flickr, over 2000 are from Mono County and another 1000+ are from Yosemite. While leading workshops we draw from our superior knowledge of how the local weather and light will unfold, and we draw from a superior inventory of subjects and locations that we know in order to set you up for the best shots. we’re not aware of anyone else who has 1200+ Bodie photos documenting many years of running Bodie special access sessions from May through November, day and night, with every imaginable combination of weather and light. As avid local astrophotographers, we know when to pursue aurora borealis shots. During Our May-June 2025 workshop we captured it on three nights at Mono Lake and in Bodie. We’ve captured multiple comets over Bodie, lightning, iridescent clouds, the International Space Station… if there’s something unique to shoot, we’ll set you up for it! We’ve had out images featured on the cover of the annual Bodie Foundation calendar and the Mono Lake Committee calendar. One of Jeff’s photos appears in the California State Parks brochure sold at Mono Lake South Tufa. The Mono Lake Committee bookstore in Lee Vining sells his 320-page guidebook “Photographing California Vol. 2 – South“, which includes four chapters on the Eastern Sierra and Yosemite. Inyo National Forest just purchased a 60” print of a Milky Way arch (with green airglow and red aurora borealis at the northern end) over Mono Lake tufa, to hang at their visitor center at Mono Lake. See more on our About Us page.

Our photos are honest representations of what you can capture. None of these results are faked. For ethical reasons we don’t substitute skies or fake reflections, including Milky Way reflections. You may do whatever modifications you choose, we just don’t want clients to feel fooled/tricked if they came and found out that the Milky Way was portrayed in impossible positions (which we’ve seen others do). We never create fake AI images (which plagiarize the original, actual creators’ hard work, using data centers driving up residential electricity rates). 

I was recently asked by a client about copyright… if you join us, you’re hiring us in part to lead you to compositions we copyrighted in our thousands of images from pasts visits (Bodie, Mono Lake, Yosemite, etc). So no problem. It’s an interesting question though. How do others find unique compositions that don’t mimic our prior copyrighted work, including the work of our prior workshop participants? If they’re operating without required permits, or if they don’t hesitate to show obviously faked results in order to (fool and) obtain customers, are they also shamelessly ripping off our work? We love to support local nonprofits and we’ve raised somewhere in the vicinity of $200,000 dollars for the Bodie Foundation’s building stabilization efforts. That plus our other operating expenses illustrates what’s at stake, the sizeable investment we’ve made to secure special access to be able to produce our unique images. Not to mention years of invested time. Unscrupulous operators are not a small issue. 

2026 Workshop Schedule, Great Basin School of Photography

We limit group size to 8 photographers, with both owners Jeff and Lori, for a 4:1 guide to client ratio. (Click on the blue text to navigate to each workshop.)

March 2-6, 2026  Death Valley Spring Wildflower Landscape Photography with Total Lunar Eclipse  $1595  4 nights Enroll now! 
Landscape, full moon rise and set, total lunar eclipse. *BEST ODDS OF A SUPER BLOOM IN 10 YEARS!* 

April 18-23, 2026  Nevada Backcountry Adventure Photography  $1995 5 nights  New! 
Some of our favorite remote locations, comfortable spring weather with dark Milky Way nights. High clearance with sturdy tires advised.

May 26-31, 2026  Oregon Coast Photography  $2495 5 nights  Full! 
We start by staying  in a lighthouse keeper’s quarters, and it just gets better from there.

May 31 – June 3, 2026  Redwoods & Rhododendrons Photography  $995 3 nights  Enroll now! 
Light rays shining through redwood trees, with the rhododendrons in bloom.

June 10-14, 2026  Bodie, Mono Lake and High Sierra Photography  $2195 4 nights, 2 in Bodie  New!
Our only workshop with two nights in Bodie in 2026.

July 7-11, 2026  Bodie Night, Building Interiors plus Mono Lake & High Sierra Photography  $2145 4 nights, 1 in Bodie, 1 morning in Bodie  New!
Our only 
2026 workshop with one night in Bodie plus  one morning building interior access session.

August 9-17, 2026  High Sierra Photography Week via Horsepacker   $4595  About a week in the High Sierra, multiple locations, layover days 
Catered with horses and mules. We hope to include dark skies for Milky Way, during the Perseid meteor shower. Limit 6.  NEW! 

October 24-29, 2026  Yosemite Fall Colors & Moon Photography $1995 5 nights   New!
Possibly the best full moon rise on 14 years, fall colors on the elm, dogwoods and bigleaf maples too.
Jeff has identified a special opportunity that he’s been wanting to capture for over a decade (shh). This is that trip.

December 9-14, 2026  Death Valley Winter Light Photography  $1995 5 nights  New! 
Color, black and white, night, plus dark skies all night after 8pm for the Geminid meteor shower.

March 7-12, 2027  Death Valley Backcountry Adventure Photography  $TBD  (Fall 2026 release) 
The Racetrack, Eureka Dunes, and more with dark Milky Way nights.

Use our contact form to get on our interest/new release list, to hear if/when we release new itineraries/destinations: Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Oregon Coast, Washington Coast, California Redwoods & Coast, and so on. We’ve scouted most of these areas for years for our own photography, so we can plan custom itineraries for small groups.