This photo was special first because Sandy and I were sharing the Iowa night sky together just as we had many years earlier as kids growing up on the farm. It is also special because it was on a previously poor piece of land my parents bought years ago that was so poor it was named The Goldmine because the top soil was gone and the gold clay was showing.

Star Trails at Barker Dam in Joshua Tree National Park, March 2017. The reflections of the stars in the water make this a favorite of mine. I’m proud of this picture because it was my first star trail photo I ever took.

Taken during the Goldpaint Photography Alumni Workshop in Central Utah.

Summers at my grandparents farm in Iowa were always magical. I spent many nights down in the hay field watching lightning bugs and the Milky Way drift across the sky. 40 years later, “progress” has hidden much of the magic of the night sky above the farm. A month after attending the Arches workshop I found myself in Northern Iowa about as far away from the bigger cities as you can get in Iowa before entering the light pollution of another city. It was here that I was taken back to those warm Iowa summer nights of my youth.

I am a bit obsessed with Northern Lights and they are incredibly hard to capture here in Vermont. Planning ahead, I had this area mapped out just 10 min from home and facing due north. As the lights ramped, we headed out just hoping for a break in the clouds. This spot had no pull off (a narrow unpaved backroad), so I had my husband watching for the occasional car while I triggered and blocked the light from the tail lights and attempted to get faint foreground wisps of weeds

I took this image on my own at the Very Large Array of radio telescopes near Socorro, New Mexico. It is my favorite because it was the first time that I was able to independently envision a nighttime picture and have it come out exactly like I had envisioned. As a side note, the illumination of the telescope was provided by the headlights of the security vehicle that had come out to check up on me. The security person let me stay to take more pictures.

See more of Nancy's work by visiting her website.

The Gunnison River runs 2500’ below the rim of the Black Canyon. While it’s not a spectacular capture, it’s my favorite this year in part because I feel I’m getting better at foreground captures, and this one was particularly challenging due to the steep cliffs and new moon. This was taken while I was home last summer visiting my dad who passed away just a couple months later, so it has some special meaning for me that way too.

This image is special for me as this was on my bucket list for 3 years and this year I could finally capture it. Traveling from NJ to Grand Junction, driving to Canyonlands, hiking on a route which has no official trail, all in one day to capture this image. The feeling I experienced while camping out here cannot be explained in words. When the stars came the pain in the body vanished and gave me an experience which was memorable.

I shot this photo in one of the alumni New Mexico Badlands workshops. It's my favorite because I had to train all year for that workshop, and during it I got some serious blisters, but still managed to go on all the outings and get some awesome images.