Third Dawn - Reflection Lakes, Washington

Teaching 10 star photography workshops at Mount Rainier last summer gave me a great chance to really explore the area during mornings and off time. Reflection Lakes was one of the places we would all shoot, and I still consider it one of the best locations to shoot at Mount Rainier. Personally I like it for sunrise, but some amazing sunsets can be found there as well. Interested in checking it out for yourself? Here is the exact location from which I took the shot.

This year I picked some new locations to shoot at during my In the Field Summer Star Photography Workshops, which provide student's with dark skies, and beautiful landscapes for sunrise and sunset. Many of the students have processed some of their shots from this past summer and shared them on the Star Photography Student Upload Gallery. There are some really cool shots in there that I think you will enjoy, feel free to share some of your own as well. If you're interested in joining me head on over to the workshops page which is linked above! Hope to see you out there:)

If you're new to this site you may not know that I provide a long list of inspirational photographers half way down the page on the right-hand side bar. This is a dynamic list, so there will be some new content every now and then!

I had a lot of fun writing my newest tutorial which allows you to ditch your heavy laptop and start traveling with a Google Nexus 7 or Nexus 10 as a full time travel device. When I first set this thing up, it seemed a little bit complicated, now the learning curve is gone and I can fully set everything up and start transferring pictures in under 5 minutes. The biggest win for me is carrying such a light pack, with nearly any hardware. I urge you to check out the tutorial which I have linked below. Does anyone else have a nice travel setup that doesn't include a laptop? I know some of you post process on the road some this kinda thing seems unfathomable. 

Using Your Nexus 10 or Nexus 7 to Transfer Picture Files from Your Camera's Memory Card to an External Hard Drive

The Shot

I kinda forget which summer workshop this was, but our caravan of 8 or so cars rolled into Reflection Lakes around 4 AM after a full night of shooting the Milky Way over at Sunrise on the opposite flanks of Mount Rainier. Myself and a few night owls were able to grab some really nice starry twilight shots before the sun started to rise. My favorite part about Reflection Lakes is the moody fog which always sits over the lake. Good times...

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