The February 9, 2024 Northern Lights Photography Workshop was the first workshop this year, as the January photo workshop was cancelled due to a snowstorm. We were excited about the first workshop of the year, and to continue with our educational initiatives at the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge in association with being the headquarters of the Keweenaw Dark Sky Park.
We had five attendees for the workshop, all of which were staying at the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge. With the workshop being our monthly Lights Out!, the guests were able to better experience and understand how to see the stars (even when it is snowing outside, which it was during the workshop).
Nate Bett was the instructor for the class. He has a diverse background in photography including attaining an MFA from Parsons The New School For Design in 2012, working for Canon cameras at trade shows and teaching photo classes at Northern Michigan University (NMU).
To reiterate how the night sky photo workshops are structured: The Night Sky Photo Workshops are broken into two segments: an inside presentation and an outside, hands-on portion. This night’s class started at 7:00pm and Nate launched into a digital slideshow covering topics like: preparations for a night sky photo shoot, Aurora basics, camera settings, and picking good locations.
Friday during the day was clear, which gave hope to the workshop attendees being able to get out and take pictures. However, as the workshop began, Mother Nature decided to have snowflakes come down from the sky.
So the attendees and Nate were not able to spend time outside after the inside lecture. Rather, attendees were able to spend time with Nate asking specific questions about cameras and night-time photography — specific to taking photos of the beautiful Northern Lights. The attendees brought their cameras with them, so they were able to get hands on instruction from Nate.
Our next photo workshop will be held during the new moon in March, on March 9th:
And don’t forget about the 2024 Upper Peninsula Dark Sky Festival in April.
founder, golfer, runner, professor, entrepreneurship