Great Basin School of Photography

Our eighth season on Bodie started on June 1. It had been a long, wet spring and there were still patches of snow on the ground in the hills surrounding Bodie. It had been raining on and off for days, and naturally in those preceding days, a number of the registrants wanted to know whether what would happen if it were still raining on the evening we were supposed to be in Bodie.  But it’s high desert. Sagebrush country. Spring’s supposed to be giving way to summer. I live about 45 miles north. We had done this dozens of times before, and typically the best nights in Bodie start with weather. The long range SkyFire forecast (an optional service in the smartphone app The Photographers Ephemeris predicted at least 60% odds of good sunset photography on the Bodie night and on the two preceding practice nights. So it was time to celebrate the possibility of greatness while preparing for the somewhat less likely chance of the weather not breaking. My update on weather:

“Conditions are looking very promising for the workshop later this week! The recent cold air is gradually transitioning to drier and warmer next week, but we have enough leftover weather to possibly give us some photogenic drama in our images. I woke to 10% chance of rain today, and there were two columns to the south… 5% of the horizon each?

My favorite June photography in this area has mostly been taken under arriving or departing storms, or sporadic shower conditions.Thunderstorms are the best, because they are strong in the afternoon, break up into rainbows and colorful sunsets, but tend to dissipate or drift eastward as we’re getting ready to shoot the night sky.

Just in case we are in Bodie as a shower is passing by or finishing up, bring rain gear, a rain sleeve for your camera (or a clear plastic vegetable bag that you can poke a lens hole in), and very warm winter-like clothes including warm, waterproof footwear and warm hat and gloves for our the later hours at night in Bodie. We had cold air, wind and even snow flurries last October, but the photography of Milky Way and green airglow through moving clouds was epic, so no one wanted to stop, and we shot as long as we were allowed! We tend to stay somewhat warm from moving around, but it’s good to slightly overdress so you won’t lose shooting time to go warm up in the meeting room.”

To make a long story short, the town was wet and muddy, and the skies were cloudy when we arrived, as expected. The clouds started breaking up just before sunset, as they often do. The clouds were significantly gone in twilight, as often happens. By the time full darkness arrived, the Milky Way was spectacular in the recently rain-washed clear skies, and there were few signs that there was ever any doubt about how great the night photography conditions would be!

The streets in Bodie are conveniently oriented such that the June Milky Way sits nicely in the sky behind all of the west-facing buildings. All that remained was to run around town and cue up compositions and light paint them as quickly and efficiently as possible! I can’t post them all here, but here’s a representative example.

Our Bodie workshop in late June worked out in much the same way. Cloudy skies, seemingly too cloudy. Will they break for sunset? In time for night photography? The prospects don’t look good. But after doing this so many times, you get to know the drill. Prepare for the worst, but trust that it’ll most likely be great. Sure enough, light brokwe through for some golden hour light, topped with clouds!

But this time, there were still scattered rain showers on the horizon. Rain drops catch the light of the sun, and refracted light back from the inside of the rain drop, reflected twice, creating a rainbow. Light rays reflected three times create a second rainbow, with the colors reversed by that additional reflection. Double rainbows!

This is all happening pretty fast, and the light fades, but it comes back, with double rainbows again!. Once again the light fades, and a few minutes later, with the light of the setting sun warming, we get a third round of double rainbows, but with sunset color starting to show in the clouds above.

Eventually the rainbows gives way to “normal” sunset light, not exacly a letdown, but not sunset with double rainbows either. Are we spoiled, or what?

There’s drama in every direction. Pick your subject. Shoot it fast, because there’s another one nearby you need to shoot before the color and light end.

You know the saying… “But wait, there’s more!” As the direct light on the clouds starts to fade, there’s still reflected light on the underside of the clouds from sunset over the horizon. And the clouds are really intricate, and colored in a very complex surreal way. I said out loud “You know no one is going to believe this!” How do you even attempt to present a proof point… with a quick iPhone panorama perhaps?

The light keeps changing to the west. We could stand there and have a great sequence of shots on Main Street, but I know that there’s a better subject. Time to set an example. I make sure that everyone’s shutter is closed, and I get permission to run around the building to the left, suggesting that everyone join me at the…

…rusty 1937 Chevy. I arrive in time for a quick sample composition, then I get out of the way as others arrive and review the process and settings that worked show them the sample as they get set up. I’ve seen the suggestion that instructors should not bring a camera to workshops. The prime sunset light can last two minutes. There are many time-critical situations in landscape photography when the instructor can’t determine settings and give people time to do the whole process with their own hands on their own camera (to better learn it), if the instructor has to borrow a camera to run a test shot. Learning composition is an iterative process, not something that is gifted (done for you), to result in the most learning. At this point we’ve had 2-3 nights practice, the Bodie night is the final exam. Graduation night.

As sunset faded into blue hour, the weather and color wasn’t quite done with us yet. Fortunately we had the technology, and the technique, to capture it.

Twilight is when we tend to go back to the meeting room and switch to night camera gear, night settings, and bundle up with more layers of clothing. But you still have to know, based on having done this a lot of times before, what is likely to be going on outside, and when to pop out of the meeting room for a clearing cloud long exposure!

When you do get out for night photography, in late June there’s still time to get rising Milky Way arches.

And the Milky Way presents some nice corner to corner landscape compositions.

As well as some vertical ones.

Of course we have to take time for a quick star trails shot…

There’s more, but I don’t want to make this post too long, no one will wait for it to load!

In August, we still have the nice Eastern Sierra light and weather.

Remember to take some vertical shots, and leave room at the top in case someone wants to use it for a cover.

Then at night, The Milky Way starts on the left side of Main Street.

And it crosses over to the other.

And again we can do some star trails (bring a second camera and tripod, and you can even shoot star trails while also running around getting Milky Way shots).

Well, that’s a handful of the opportunities we chased, in three nights in Bodie in 2019 alone. We’ll have four workshops in 2020, with the first one having two nights in Bodie!

One more thing… I did go back out to Bodie on October 15 last year. Since I turn out a lot of work from Bodie, I get found by TV producers for local consultation and help with their productions in Bodie, basically a “fixer and photographer” role.

This one was a little different…

They wanted to do a short feature on me! the had seen that FranceTV segment on Bodie that included 2.5 minutes of me (there’s a copy posted on this page). This one will be 20 minutes. It’ll mainly air in France and Germany, and I probably won’t understand what they’re saying about me so no pressure… I’ll post a link when the segment airs and a copy is placed online.

If you’e made it this far, thanks for sitting through a few of my Bodie results from 2019! For more of my image results form Bodie, see my much larger Bodie album on Flickr. If you might want to join us sometime, check out my upcoming Bodie workshop listings.