Great Basin School of Photography

New 2026 Landscape and Night Photography Workshops Released! Black Friday/Cyber Monday discount 25% on most itineraries using code "FALL2025" during enrollment: jeffsullivanphotography.com/2025/11/26/n... #nightphotography

The Milky Way and green airglow shine over tufa rock formations at Mono Lake, while high altitude red aurora borealis is visible to the far north. This image shows why we love pursuing, and teaching, wide field landscape astrophotography!

We've had a great Eastern Sierra night photography workshop season! As wildfires and smoke take over, w planning for 2026.

I sold a 30" x 60" metal print of this Aurora borealis, airglow, and Milky Way arch image from May on Smugmug (my user name there is jeffsullivan).

Valley View reflection image from our Yosemite Fall Colors photography workshop in November, 2024.

A breaking storm leaves fog clearing from around El Capitan, as seen from the banks of the Merced River. This is form our Yosemite Fall Colors workshop in 2024, we have our next one coming up in just over 4 months: November 1-6, 2025!

Oregon Coast anyone? With the cost of domestic travel falling, we're looking at various locations in the American West to add photography workshops. Message us to get on our distribution list for new release news. #seascape #sunset #oregoncoast www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/workshops/

Rain showers over Panamint Valley in Death Valley National Park earlier this week.

Rainbow in Panamint Valley, in Death Valley National Park yesterday.

Yellow brittlebush blooming in Death Valley National Park earlier this week.

Our camping vehicle: Four Wheel Camper with solar panels, battery, refrigerator, stove, furnace, sink, water / outdoor shower, and more on a Ford F-350 truck. All terrain tires are the most important accessory, since these roads can not only puncture tires, the unpaved "washboard" surfaces also overheat and delaminate weak street radials. Your roadside assistance service won't help you out here, so have a full size spare (or two) and be prepared to fix multiple flat tires.

Images from our annual "adventure" trip to Death Valley: 6 days, 5 nights of photography in more remote areas of the national park. We enjoyed dramatic weather and light including sunsets, stars / Milky Way photography in this internationally-recognized "dark sky park", wildflowers, even a rainbow!

Aurora borealis and Perseid meteors over Topaz Lake on the California/ Nevada border, night of August 11-12, 2024 (Latitude 38.7 N). We'll be watching for a moderate repeat in the coming nights. www.JeffSullivanPhotography.com #nevada #nightphotography

A lot of the dust over Mesquite Flat sand dunes in Death Valley last Sunday was blowing from Cottonball Basin, which was mined for borax. Alkali dust is ultra-fine, getting deep into your lungs. LADWP maintains shallow ponds in Owens Lake to reduce exposure in the Western U.S. to alkali dust.

The full rainbow (and part of the double) was a nice surprise to see in one of North America's driest places!

Loved Yosemite National Park last week, but we're packing to spend next week in Death Valley National Park. We're expecting rain showers, so the light, drama, and rainbows could be incredible! www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/death-valley... #nationalparks #landscapephotography #photographyworkshops

Had a great time in Yosemite National Park last week, but we're already packing to spend next week in Death Valley National Park. We're expecting rain showers, so the light and drama may be incredible!

It's raining in parts of Death Valley National Park! On weather radar the storm moving toward this area is labeled "severe thunderstorm" and "flash flood"! Great news for our two Death Valley photo workshops coming up in March: www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/death-valley... #landscapephotography

Our winter Yosemite workshop is coming up in 5days! Every year is like a gift; we can't wait to see what we get! It's snowing above the Valley today, so we'll have snow on Half Dome, El Capitan, Three Brothers, and Horsetail Fall should flow strong. www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/yosemite-win...

New spot found while scouting new areas to shoot in our 2025 small group landscape and night photography workshops in Death Valley National Park. JeffSullivanPhotography.com

Storm light falling briefly on a mountain over Mesquite Flat sand dunes in Death Valley National Park. Fortunately I was using a Nikkor Z 28-400mm lens. If I had been walking around with a midrange or ultra-wide lens on the camera, I would have missed this! JeffSullivanPhotography.com

Our annual winter photography workshop in Yosemite National Park is coming up in a little over a month! www.JeffSullivanPhotography.com #landscapephotography #photographyworkshops #yosemitenationalpark

YouTube video by Jeff Sullivan Flying Over Big Dune, Nevada

Flying over Big Dune, Amargosa Valley, Nevada: youtu.be/XBwmDMzvPv8 #DJI

I tried out the Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 28-400mm lens in Death Valley earlier this month. Now I'm spoiled! I need to figure out how to raise the funds to upgrade to the new system.

How deep is the salty brine that grows the salt cracks in Badwater Basin? Shallower than you might think! We found this small pool of deep open salty water, with its surface just a few inches below the surface of the hard rock salt playa in Death Valley.

Another view of the pool of salt water that we brought photographers in our workshop to in Death Valley this month. This salty water is the source of the salt polygons that photographers like to capture. www.JeffSullivanPhotography.com #nationalpark #landscapephotography #photographyworkshops

Sand arcs in a curning line, purple on the left, beige on the right, small sandblasted granules of rack sorted by density in Death Valley National Park. The sand ripple patterns are even different across the surface of these two dissimilar materials. The arc of the curve leads the viewer to a couple of tall, pyramid-shaped dunes in the background, dramatically side-lit from the right. The sun only rises about 31 degrees high in the sky in December in Death Valley, and this dramatic "winter light" all day is why we lead workshops here this time of year.

It's always a little faster and easier to adjust and post iPhone images using the Adobe Lightroom mobile app, so here are a few early results from Death Valley earlier this month. My Flickr account is a great place to collect them into albums: www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreysullivan/ #iphoneography

How do we know that the water table in Badwater Basin is shallow? In places the playa is frequently wet, and in other places you can see the water. We found water on the salt flats in 2008, 2011, 2015, 2019, 2020, 2023 and 2024! www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/death-valley-photography-workshop-2013/

The salt crack polygons are re-forming in Badwater Basin, Death Valley National Park. The temporary Lake Manly is gone, but the water table is shallow, just a few inches below the surface of the salt flats.

Listing of 2025 landscape and night photography workshops offered by Jeff Sullivan and Lori Hibbett. Destinations include Yosemite National Park, Death Valley National Park, Bodie State Historic Park, Mono Lake and the High Sierra, and more!

We extended the Black Friday sale on our 2025 landscape & night photography workshops through tomorrow, December 20: www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/workshops/
Destinations include Yosemite National Park, Death Valley National Park, Bodie State Historic Park, Mono Lake and the High Sierra, and more!

I was all set up to capture Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas setting over Mt. Whitney in the Sierra Nevada, when a Starlink satellite train popped up over Mt. Whitney and photobombed the scene.

EEELLLLONNNN (shakes fist at sky)!

Enrollment in our September Bodie interior access and night photography workshop with Eastern Sierra night and landscape photography has done so well, we're working on adding a similar itinerary July 7-10! A club wants the first 3+ spots... it may fill fast! jeffsullivanphotography.com/workshops/

Joshua tree againsty snowy Telescope Peak - The mountain had nice side light on it, and there was a lone Joshua tree nearby that could potentially star in a composition with dramatic Telescope Peak in the background. This composition was not visible from the road, it took some imagination to envision the possible arrangement of the tree against the mountain, and a few dozen yards of walking to see if the anticipated shot turned out as well as expected. A few trial compositions later, and I had a selection of images to work with. The size, lighting and texture of the Joshua tree helps it stand out from the surrounding vegetation, making it a strong subject, especially in black and white. Backing up and using 200mm helped compress the Joshua tree against Telescope Peak, and increase the apparent size of Telescope Peak, while f/11 and focusing on the tree rendered Telescope Peak softer than the Joshua tree in the resulting image, helping the tree “pop” as the main subject. continued....

Photographic Composition: Conception and Fine Tuning (new blog post) - A Joshua tree is side-lit by the low winter sun against the backdrop of looming Telescope Peak. www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/2024/02/01/p... #deathvalley #California #landscapephotography #photographyworkshops

We had an amazing group and trip earlier this month in Death Valley! We'll be back March 4-9 for our spring photography workshop: www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/workshops/

Aurora Borealis Topaz Lake April 2023 The sun has been particularly active in 2023. It is approaching a solar maximum, so conditions for night photography could get even more interesting in the coming months! Our next night photography w...

There are decent odds of aurora borealis being seen down to mid-latitudes tonight, November 11/12. Here's what we were treated to in April 2024, here in Nothern Nevada: www.flickr.com/photos/jeffr... #nightphotography #timelapse #video

Sunlight shines underneath an incoming strom in Yosemite Valley, as seen form the iconic Tunnel View overlook.

It was nother one of those epic weeks in Yosemite National Park! I thought this light would be the best that we encountered... until the Rainbow came!

Join us here in February: www.JeffSullivanPhotography.com

Ephemeral Hosetail fall cascades down the face of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, selectively lit by a shaft of orange light from the setting sun. This rare spectacle reguires a number of condtions to occur. It's possible to see for about two weeks in late February, but the best nights for the narrowest lighting span less than a week. Snow is needed above Horsetail Fall, the weather that day has to be warm enough to melt that snow, and you need weather clear enough for the sun to be visible on the distant horizon for its last five minutes of color as it sets. So it's best to be in the Park for the better part of a week to have the best odds of seeing it on an evening or two. In 2024 Yosemite will have the day pass limited access program in effect once again to prevent crowding for this popular event. Members of our workshop will get day passes for the duration of the workshop, six days including the departure day.

Ephemeral Hosetail fall cascades down the face of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, selectively lit by a shaft of orange light from the setting sun. This rare spectacle reguires snow above Horsetail Fall, warm weather and the sun to be visible on the distant horizon for its last five minutes of color.

Ephemoral Hosetail fall cascades down the face of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, selectively lit by a shaft of orange light from the setting sun. This rare spectacle reguires a number of condtions to occur. It's possible to see for about two weeks in late February, but the best nights for the narrowest lighting span less than a week. Snow is needed above Horsetail Fall, the weather that day has to be warm enough to melt that snow, and you need weather clear enough for the sun to be visible on the distant horizon for its last five minutes of color as it sets. So it's best to be in the Park for the better part of a week to have the best odds of seeing it on an evening or two. In 2024 Yosemite will have the day pass limited access program in effect once again to prevent crowding for this popular event. Members of our workshop will get day passes for the duration of the workshop, six days including the departure day.

We'll be in Yosemite Valley for fall colors with a group on Friday, then return in February for winter photography & Horsetail Fall backlit by sunset light. www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/yosemite-nat...

In 2023 all the normal viewing spots were closed on the best day, but with local knowledge...