You, our conference attendees, get to choose who will be our keynote speakers!
Our 2020 NightScaper Conference will run for three days: May 20-22. Because we have 32 speakers and over 50 program presentations during those three days, there will often be two or three presentations going on at the same time, in different rooms. However, the most popular programs will stand alone—i.e., there will be no one else presenting in these time slots. These will be our keynote presentations, and your vote will determine who will be those keynote speakers.
As a registered conference attendee, you will receive an official email ballot asking you to list your top 10 speakers (in order of preference), based on their program(s) content and their reputation for delivering good instruction. When responding to the ballot email, you do not need to list their names, just use the number in front of their names. We expect that the 4 or 5 speakers, receiving the most votes, will become our keynote speakers. In December, we will publish a day-by-day and hour-by-hour schedule.
2020 SPEAKERS in alphabetical order:
Please do NOT let alphabetical position sway your voting—your voting should only be determined by your interest in the program content and the speaker's reputation for delivering good instruction.
Program Ratings. General (G), beginner (B), intermediate (I) or advanced (A): indicate the night photography skill level that might be need to most effectively attend and understand the information presented by the speaker. "General" is a rating suitable for all skill levels.
1. Royce Bair - Author of the eBook, Milky Way NightScapes, and co-founder of the Low Level Lighting method for astro-landscapes; Royce will present two programs: (I) "Advanced Techniques for Low Level Lighting" and (G) "Nightscape Ethics."
2. Yuri Beletsky - Yuri is an international astro-landscape photographer and a professional astronomer from Chile. "Living in Chile, the country famous by its dark clear skies, gives me a unique opportunity to reveal the majesty of our cosmos and to share my passion with people around the world." Yuri will do two programs: (G) "Natural color of the night sky," and (I-A) "Mastering panoramic images of the Milky Way."
3. Eric Benedetti - Eric's program, "Tracking Mounts: Increasing Accessibility to Astrophotography and Nightscapes," will help dispel the myth that people need to spend thousands of dollars on things like Full Frame cameras, highly expensive and specific lenses, and other equipment that the photography community considers the norm! Eric has not yet rated his program.
4. Mike Berenson - Mike is the founder and lead instructor at Night Photography Workshop and owner of Colorado Captures fine art photography. His program, (I-A) “Stacking Deep Dive,” will look at stacking multiple exposures - including how it's done and why you'd want to use it. Mike has a second program, (G) "NightScaping Without Wanting To Kill Someone," on how to keep shooting NightScapes fun for everyone.
5. Russell Brown - A live performance of the 'Russell Brown Show' is not to be missed! As Senior Principal Designer at Adobe Systems Inc. and an Emmy Award-winning instructor, his ability to both teach and entertain has endeared him to audiences around the world. His program, (G) "The Wonders of all Things Mobile," pushes the boundaries of mobile phone technology to capture long exposure night photography.
6. Ben Canales - Ben is one of the earliest nightscape innovators. In 2011, he received international attention as National Geographic's Travel Photo of the Year. Ben's program, (G) "Humans in Night Photos–Yourself or Others," will talk about the power of adding the human figure into a night shot, and how that can be just you or friend/model you bring along.
7. Ken Childress - Ken's program, (I-A) "Introduction to Making Milky Way Portraits," will teach you how to add a human element to your Milky Way photography. This presentation will give you multiple methods to create unique portraits under the Milky Way. Simple setups will provide
you with the tools to create your unique portraits.
8. Roger Clark - A planetary and NASA scientist, with over 300 scientific papers to his credit, Dr. Clark's programs will cover (I) "Natural colors in the night sky," and (I-A) "Post processing to preserve star and nebula colors." Roger's website.
9. Alan Dyer - Co-author of the popular guidebook, The Backyard Astronomer’s Guide, and author of the ebook, How to Photograph and Process Nightscapes and Time-Lapses. Alan will present two programs: (G) "Chasing the Northern Lights" and (I-A) "Diving into Deep-Sky Photography."
10. Bettymaya Foott - Bettymaya is the Director of Engagement for the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA). A fellow nightscaper, her passion for saving our night skies from the encroachment of light pollution is contagious! Her program, (G) “Save the Stars,” will both enlighten your understanding and move you to action.
11. Jack Fusco - Jack was a recent TEDx speaker about nightscape photography. His upcoming conference program, (G) "The Art of Chasing the Shot," embraces the journey of both failure and success to elevate your images and storytelling. In Part II, Jack covers (G) "Capturing vs. Creating" – finding where your personal line gets drawn.
12. Eric Gail - Eric’s program will show you how to (G) “Master the Power of Photoshop.” The owner and founder of the Adventure Photography Network, Eric has been color processing and retouching for Hollywood and the music industry for more than 30 years. His work can be seen on TV, online and in print all over the world. He has logged more than 40K hours in Photoshop and has taught on a corporate level. Eric will divide his program into three segment: #1 Anatomy of an image, #2 The non-destructive workflow, #3 Advanced Photoshop for Outdoor Photographers. Although this last segment is only for users of Photoshop, Eric will make this simple enough for beginners to understand.
13. Brad Goldpaint - 2018 winner of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year and producer of the upcoming time-lapse film, “Illusion of Light." Brad’s main program, (A) “Photographing the Milky Way with Moonlight,” might sound counter-intuitive, but the results may surprise you. One of the most challenging aspects of night photography is capturing the dark, ambiguous landscape beneath a starry night. Artificial lights and longer exposures can be used to help avoid this problem, but what if there was a natural way to bring life to your images? Brad's second program, (G) "Illusion of Lights: A Journey Into the Unseen," is an extended look into the 7 year, time-lapse project capturing the beauty of the night.
14. Joyce Harman - Joyce's program, (G) "Saving Dark Skies Locally," will tell her story about the Rappahannock Night Sky Initiative, and how she was able to create local dark sky awareness in Rappahannock County, Virginia—enabling the area to be protected and become an asset to the community. Joyce will teach you how you might be able to do something similar in your area.
15. Christine Kenyon - A popular writer on nightscape photography, Christine's main program, (B-I) “Come Along on a Virtual Nightscape Adventure,” will take you on a nightscaper adventure; executing a plan, from concept to completion. Through immersive multimedia you will be transported "virtually" from the conference room to the field. Kenyon will follow up with a second session she has entitled, (B-I) "Share Your Best Nightscapes – Constructive Critique & Rewards,” that will include pre-planned audience participation.
16. Aaron King - Producer of the popular Photog Adventures series of podcasts, video tutorials and workshops, Aaron will do two programs: "Know your Cosmos!" (Key tips and tricks to know when and where your Milky Way Opportunity will be.) "Milky way Panoramas!" (Why something you think is hard is actually the easiest thing ever and you still only need Lightroom to do it!). Aaron has not yet rated his programs.
17. David Kingham - David’s first program, (G) “There is more to the Night Sky than the Milky Way Core!” will expand creative horizons. You’ll learn how photograph and process meteor shower image files to create something that actually looks like a shower! Are you putting away your cameras in the winter? David will show you why the winter is his favorite time to photograph the night sky! David's second program, (G) "Breaking Through Creative Barriers with Contemplative Photography," will help you overcome your blocks to creativity.
18. Shreeni Manievannan - Shreeni will present two programs, (G & B) "Maximizing & pushing the limits with GoPro cameras," and (G & B) "Capturing Starscapes on a budget." Both programs are highly recommended for beginning nightscapers and those wishing to see what a budget camera is capable of doing with astro-landscapes, when applying the best techniques.
19. Miles Morgan - A professional airline pilot, based in the Pacific Northwest, Miles' unique style of twilight photography is proof that there is much more to nightscapes than just capturing the Milky Way! You'll discover this in his program, (G) "Finding Variety in Night Sky Photography.” Miles will do a follow up segment to this program called, (I) “Twilight Photography and Photoshop Techniques.”
20. Wayne Pinkston - Co-founder of the Low Level Lighting method for landscapes, Wayne will present an extensive step-by-step (G) "Low Level Lighting" program on how he does his unique artificial landscape lighting, showcased with his amazing nightscape panoramas.
21. Wenjie Qiao - Sony World Photography National Awards Winner and author of Planit Pro, an app utilized virtual viewfinder to plan landscape photos precisely. Wenjie’s program is about (G-A) “Planning Night Photography in an Easy Way.” It will not only cover the Milky Way, but also every aspect that you can possibly plan in the starry night. You will find out how his creative planning ideas can also be part of your night photography workflow. Wenjie's program will be divided into three blocks. (G) Block 1: Milky Way Composition Demystified, (I) Block 2: Adding Moon to Milky Way Photos, (I-A) Block 3: Understanding Exposure for the Moon Time-lapse.
22. Bryony Richards - Bryony's program, (G) "Nightscapes and Science: what stories are your photos hiding?," will focus on some of the scientific elements of nightscape photography including: Airglow versus aurora. Airglow colors and their significance—how can you enhance airglow in your images Telling the difference between planes, satellites, meteors, comets, or iridium flares. Composition of meteors based upon color. Chemistry of nebula and how getting this right can help your color balancing!
23. Ron Risman - Producer and director of dozens of timelapse videos that have received national attention in advertising and documentaries, Ron's program, (G) "9 Ways to Improve Your Astro Photography with Timelapse," you'll learn how capturing a time lapse can benefit you when you're in the field. Few night photographers actually stay out long enough to capture time lapse footage. But there are eight reasons why time lapse footage has quickly become the swiss-army knife of astro photography.
24. Mike Shaw - Author of two books on astro-landscape photography. Mike’s program, (G) “Astronomy 101 for Nightscapers,” will give you a crash course with fun facts about the Earth’s place in the Solar System, Milky Way and Universe, and how the Earth’s daily and annual movements give you ever-changing views of the cosmos. You’ll also explore the lesser photographed features of the Earth’s night atmosphere. Shaw will divide his program into three segments: I - Navigating the Night Sky, II - Mastering the Moon, and III - Discovering Deep Sky Nightscapes: Deepscapes!
25. Ross Schram von Haupt - Although camera technology has come a long way, night photography still faces a lot of complications, including noise, coma and astigmatism. Ross' program, (B-A) "Techniques for Clean Night Shots," will cover several in field and post processing techniques to overcome these limitations. Schram will divide his program into two blocks: (B-I) Block 1. (I-A) Block 2.
26. Ryan Smith - Ryan will help your define your vision as a photographer and as a businessperson. He will do three programs: (G) "Photography, the perfect Side Hustle" - Tips for making your passion pay it’s own way. (G) "Photographer or Artist" - Defining your own personal vision that’s best for you. (G) "Photography Life is a journey, not a competition" - Enjoying the craft without “playing the game.”
27. Joshua Snow - Josh’s program, (I-A) “Verge of Reality,” discusses the mindset of conceiving a vision for your imagery, and bringing it to life in post processing through creative choices, staying true to the art and dealing with the mental struggles of being an artist. Josh will help you move away from just "taking photos" to a higher level that transports the viewer into your soul.
28. David Soldano - David's program, (I) "Low Level Lighting Nightscapes," will discuss his favorite tools, techniques and tips for using low level lighting to add depth and drama to your nightscape images. White Balance and the different colors of various lights will also be covered. You will learn to determine which lights work best on trees, red rocks, people and etc. Three excellent examples of low level lighting will be deconstructed, and David will reveal how the photographers lit the images and discuss their creative process.
29. Derek Sturman - Derek's program, (G) "Perceiving and Portraying Reality," will present the methods by which photographers attempt to replicate an entire experience within the confined dimensions of an image. Using Photoshop, you will be able to express more of the emotion or experience from that moment than the camera is able to capture. Derek will focus on composites as well and blended images and the method of creating art that replicates an experience rather than just an exact mechanical replication of a moment.
30. David Swindler - Creating high-quality panoramic images at night is much more difficult than during the day. David's program, (I) “Creating Extraordinary Night Panoramics” will discuss his best tips and tricks to putting together the perfect night panoramic image from shooting to post-processing.
31. Mike Taylor - Mike and Sonia Taylor operate the freelance imaging studio out of a 19th century farmhouse in central Maine. Mike’s program, (G) “New England Night Photography,” discusses how Maine is one of the last bastions that offers dark skies on the east coast. Behind the Scenes graphics and RAW files show how he blends long foreground exposures with the night sky.
32. Marc Toso - Marc's website and program, (G) "Ancient Skies," focuses on humanity’s relationship with the night sky. Marc will discuss archeoastronomy, how night photography intersects science, culture and religion and how learning about and appreciating the night sky can ultimately teach us about ourselves, our origins and humanity’s place in the universe.
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