Death Valley Winter Light

December 8-13, 2024

After decades of exploring Death Valley, I’ve come to the conclusion that winter is overall the best season to visit Death Valley for photography, as I describe here: “The Advantages of Winter Light.” In recent years visiting during this time, we’ve enjoyed stunning weather and conditions for landscape photography, low crowds for untracked landscapes, sometimes Badwater flooded for weeks, low angle sunlight to enhance foreground textures, moderate temperatures, and low off-season lodging rates. It’s amazing to be in a major national park in a peak photography season, while being able to dial the clock back decades on the crowds!

For 2024 we’ll build upon our experiences in prior years. We’ll likely have snow-capped mountains in many compositions, and we may be able to visit Joshua trees in the snow. Winter light is a particularly good time for black and white photography. We’ll host multiple post-processing sessions to cover both color landscape photography and black and white.

The moon will be in the sky in the evenings. Since it is fully dark shortly after 6pm in December, we’ll consider a moonlit night shoot or two. While the peak night of the Geminid meteor shower will have interference from the moon all night in 2024, there is a solar maximum of sun activity this year, so airglow has been stunning in many of our night shots. We even captured aurora borealis multiple times in 2023 and 2024 nearby in Nevada, and in May and August 2024 some of the best aurora borealis events in 20 years were visible down to Death Valley! We’ll monitor space weather for opportunities during the workshop.

Last year (2023) we even had extensive wildflowers in Panamint Valley in December! In 2013 another valley in Death Valley National Park had wildflowers in November. We track late summer and fall storms to anticipate when and where wildflowers will occur.

See why we like returning to Death Valley in winter again and again:
Sample Death Valley winter light images.

Enrollment is limited to 8, secure a space while one is still available!

What’s included:

Guiding, based on our 60+ trips exploring the Park
Constant fine tuning of itinerary based on forecasts & conditions
Photography instruction, composition consultation if desired
Post-processiong sessions for color and black and white photography

What’s not included:

Lodging – camping to luxury, your choice! (discounts may be available; lodging recommendations will be provided upon registration)
Transportation – carpooling optional (no super-spreader vehicle!)
Meals/snacks/beverages (outdoor dining or take-out, as available)
Entrance fee to the park ($15/week)
Onerous group lodging terms (high price, poor cancellation terms, etc.)

Sample Itinerary

To ensure you get the best pictures and to accommodate for weather, we keep the exact itinerary flexible. This is an example of what to expect, though it may change slightly as necessary during the workshop.

December 8 — Travel. Meet in the afternoon at Furnace Creek Resort. We’ll photograph sunset, possibly blue hour, then head in for dinner. We may opt to go out and get a few night shots before retiring to our hotel rooms for the evening.
December 9, 10 — We’ll meet for sunrise, and make a few photography stops on our way to breakfast. We’ll grab a quick bite and then head back out for more photography. The sun barely gets over 32 degrees high this time of year, so the light will be good for much of the day. We’ll break for lunch and dinner as needed, possibly away from Furnace Creek if we’re off on an extended outing for the day.
December 11 – We’ll have one more sunrise and morning in the southern and eastern halves of the Park. Then we’ll move to being based out of Stovepipe Wells to be conveniently close to Mesquite Flat sand dunes and to be particularly close to any opportunities unfolding to the north or west (Ubehebe Crater, Panamint Valley, etc.). It gets dark early in December, so in the evenings we can practice night photography or conduct post-processing demos.
December 12 – A full day in the field, possibly off in a particularly interesting area of the park. Upon our return we can have another post-processing session.
December 13 – Meet for another sunrise in the Stovepipe Wells area, grab breakfast, pack, check out and make our way homeward.

We hope that you can join us!