Sky at Night Astro Photo Workshop

And we have lift off! During the Covid lockdown I had a lot of extra time on my hands given that the three movie projects I was working on were off and all photo shoots were cancelled from from March up to September. So the learning and development opportunity was massive! For the last few years I have had a growing curiosity in Quantum Physics, Astro Physics and Cosmology. So the bulk of my reading and online searches over the pandemic period have been in these fields. Combined with my passion for photography and in particular the night sky, and with the increasing number or emails and messages I get about my night sky photography along with the frequent questions I get from people I meet about how I achieve the photos I’m producing, I decided that it might be a good idea to put together some photography workshops.

I do not claim to be hold a great deal of knowledge and secrets in these areas, in fact far from it! The more I learn the more I realise I do not know and in my lifetime will never know. But the knowledge I do have I love to share and to see those with an interest evolve alongside me.

I planned on doing my first Astro Photography Workshop together with Cabane Mont Fort, my favourite mountain refuge in Verbier. The Perseids Meteor Shower of which I shoot every year was gracing our skies last week. And I was excited to share it with people. We would hike up to the mountain refuge at 2457m, introduce ourselves to each other over an aperitif, discuss photography equipment and settings. Then we would continue this conversation over a fondue on the terrace whilst the sun was getting lower in the sky. By sunset we would be ready to shoot. By the time it was fully dark we would have time to experiment on settings. We would shoot the Perseids meteor shower until midnight/1am and then head off to bed. We would wake for the sunrise, shoot the amazing mountains in the morning light as they started to light up and then have breakfast before heading down the mountain again. It was a good plan! But like all good plans in outdoor photography, the weather is either our friend or our enemy. The only shower we had was a rain shower. Summer storms resulted in that plan being scrapped.

However on Saturday night I had a private Astro Photography Workshop booked with the Dearloves. Annabel had bought the evening as a gift for her husband Mark for their wedding anniversary and I was praying for good weather for them! And I am happy to say it was the most perfect evening from start to finish.

Annabel & Mark had never used a camera in any other setting other than Automatic. So they were taking a big leap from Automatic to shooting Astro Photography! But already by the end of cheese fondue I knew they were fully understanding how Aperture, Speed and ISO worked and how they worked together. I was totally impressed with their experimentation of all the settings they had never used or understood before. The best part for me was the constant ‘wow’s’ I kept hearing and every time I heard this word with the positivity and excitement tone in it, I laughed. I was so impressed and so pleased with the results in their shots.

Mark wanted to use his own camera to be able to use it when I was not by his side guiding him in the future. As they only had one camera, Annabel used my camera. Marks own camera was not a professional DSLR and the lens was an 18-55mm f4.5 kit lens, so Mark had a harder task on his hands. But both produced amazing images for a first time not shooting on Automatic and first time shooting at night. These are a couple of images are taken by Mark & Annabel:

In Mark’s words on a recent post on Facebook “This was my first attempt at photographing the night sky using my own Nikon under the expert tutelage of Melody Sky as part of her ‘Sky at Night Astro Photography Workshops’. We hiked up to Cabane Mont Fort for a sunset fondue, followed by tuition and tips. At about 10pm it was dark enough to put theory into practice. Even though my camera is relatively basic I couldn’t believe the results! Incredible pictures of the stars but in particular of the Milky Way. I highly recommend this fantastic experience”. 

I’m happy now to have the first workshop completed and having seen it be such a success. I know they now have the bug. Only issue is Mark is going to be cursing me every time he goes into a camera shop now as he wants all the equipment!

Thank you both for being the best students I could possibly have had on my first evening. I’m going to be watching your evolution in photography carefully! And thank you also to Cabane Mont Fort who have been very open to welcoming my workshops and flexible with the weather!