A couple of night photographer friends and extreme light painters are putting on a weekend workshop in the California desert at the Pearsonville Junk Yard on March 7th and 8th so if you’re interested in learning about light painting be sure to check it out. If you’re wondering why I say “extreme” just ask Troy to tell you about some of the abandoned brothel’s in the Nevada desert and you’ll probably think I was watering down my description.

I met Joe and Troy at the Nocturnes Night Photography Conference in 2006 at Mono Lake and I have no doubt this workshop will be a great experience for anyone who attends. Troy Paiva has published two well received books about light painting, Lost America and Night Vision, so if you’re not familiar they’re definitely worth a read.

If you’re interested you can find more information about the workshop on Troy’s web site: http://www.lostamerica.com/workshop.html.

Washington Park Arboretum, Seattle, WA

I wanted to let everyone know about a new project I’ve become part of that aims to build a community database of photography guides for locations around the world. Free Photo Guides was organized and put together by Brent Pearson from Australia. He’s put in a lot of work on it already and still seems to have time to produce some amazing photography!

I’m sure many of you have used sites like Trip Advisor and have benefited from people posting their own travel experiences to different locations. This is the same concept but targeted at photographers. Photographers with intimate knowledge of an area are invited to contribute guides to the project and if you’re up for up to it you can volunteer to become and administrator for your state or region. Remember, it’s a community run project so it’s all free and the more people that contribute to it the better it will be.

The USA site recently launched and I am the administrator for the Washington and Oregon sites. I posted the first guide for Washington which covers the Washington Park Arboretum and Foster Island in Seattle.

The contributors guide is available on the project home page so if you’re ready to contribute - it takes about an hour to put a guide together and it’s actually really fun - please download the guide and get started.

Feel free to email me at brianechapman@gmail.com or use the contact form if you’ve got any questions about how to contribute or if you want to become an administrator for your state.

I know there are a lot of great photographers in Washington and Oregon so hopefully we can get some guides up quickly!

I will have nine images in an upcoming group show in Bellevue, WA. Still working on image selection but I will be including the image in this post and at least three of the recent seagull images.

Please stop by if you get a chance! Directions and more info here.

I’ve added two portfolios of newer images - although I keep up with my flickr site I have tended to get behind when updating the home page galleries. If you’re a flickr user you may have seen some of the images - about half have not been posted before.

In the future, portfolios that are bumped off the home page will still be available in the archive.

Just a reminder that the registration deadline for the Seattle night photography workshop is coming up in a couple weeks - if you’re interested, don’t forget to sign up!

Here’s the official description of the workshop:

Night Photography is about the compression of time into a single moment, as represented by the image captured by the camera- be it a minute, or an hour. The camera records the passage of time in a way that we cannot ourselves perceive.

Venture out under the light of the full moon to see, and photograph the world from a new perspective. New technologies in photography have made Night Photography more accessible and popular than ever. Digital cameras allow for instant feedback that can serve as a guide for determining exposures, but there is more to successful night photography than just exposure. Lighting, contrast, atmosphere, equipment choices, and subject matter at night are some of the things this workshop will cover. We will explore the world of Night Photography, its history, and current masters of the form. Using both film and digital cameras, we will work with the light of the moon and with artificial light sources. During the workshop, participants will create a body of nocturnal images in a variety of locations.

Students will learn how to work with existing light as well as how to effectively use light painting techniques to enhance their night time photography. From relatively short exposures by streetlight, to full moon exposures of an hour or more, we will explore the range of possibilities of Night Photography.

You can find more information about Lance Keimig here and if you’ve made it this far you know where to find me! Don’t hesitate to contact me if you’ve got any questions.

Visit the PCNW for more information and registration.