Every once in a while we offer both Bodie sunrise/interior access session and a Bodie night photography session in one workshop. Now entering our 16th season running many workshops per year in Bodie, we’re running a dual format Bodie workshop again in 2026!
This itinerary starts with two days/nights in the area pursuing landscape photography and dark sky night photography. As locals with decades of experience in the area, at various times of the summer we can take you to places that few people know about.
By practicing Milky Way photography, Milky Way panoramas, and Milky Way reflections before we have our precious time in Bodie at night, everyone is able to be more proficient and successful in Bodie. We will practice various efficient exposure techniques, lighting, and post processing techniques. Post-processing sessions will be held during the middle part of the day when the light isn’t best for photography.
Our third day will find us greeting our monitor at the Bodie gate at 6 am, where we’ll receive a brief safety talk and then be escorted into town where multiple buildings will be opened for us to go inside and photograph historic shops, hotels, bars, antiques, and mining buildings and artifacts. We will have access to the buildings until noon. You’ll have three hours to photograph golden hour until 9, when the park opens to visitors, but we’ll continue to enjoy exclusive interior access as the public gradually filters in. We’ll wrap up and then grab lunch and take a break, reconvening for dinner and our 6pm – 1am night session.
Lori and I like July compositions with the rising Milky Way, to enable corner-to-corner Milky Way in the sky compositions early, and optimized portrait compositions later in the night. Our roughly 75 night sessions in Bodie over the prior 15 seasons enables us to time the various opportunities well throughout the night. We also have the lighting down for each subject, and with that much experience in the exact conditions in this location, we’ve developed specific and superior exposure techniques for greater detail and less noise.
Early to mid summer in Bodie can offer scattered rain showers during the afternoon, a colorful sunset and potentially rainbows as the storms clears, generally followed by clear skies for Milky Way photography under a dark night sky. July offers specific alignments and lighting of various subjects in town during golden hour, so night photography is far from the only opportunity.
Weather and photographic opportunities will influence our daily itineraries. You will have two trip leaders, each with 75+ nights experience shooting and leading groups in Bodie (plus roughly 20 interior access sessions), 200+ days leading photographers in the Eastern Sierra. Based on our experience, we prefer our workshops to have no more than 8 participants for a 4:1 student to instructor ratio, to give you maximum attention and more time inside Bodie’s buildings. Some workshops have 15-20 people and long lines to get into each building!
A portion of the proceeds of your fee goes to the Bodie Foundation to assist in their building stabilization program to help preserve the park. Please note that in Bodie we’ll spend a few hours standing and walking at an elevation of 8374 feet. Consult your doctor if you have any concerns.
Jeff maintains an album on Flickr of over 1200 sample real photos (no faked sky substitutions, no faked Milky Way reflections, no AI) from Bodie State Historic Park. His Mono County album is over 2000 photos, Yosemite over 1000 photos. We live here. We work here. Running photography workshops. Hundreds of nights over 15 seasons. See a sample itinerary below.
