Andy Best
Andy Best is an award-winning filmmaker, cinematographer, and photographer whose work spans wild landscapes and deeply personal narratives. A lifelong artist, he began in his grandmother's studio with pastels and oil paints before studying film in Portland, Oregon in the early 2000s. Over more than 15 years, Andy has built a career creating cinematic work for leading outdoor brands and publications. His travels and projects have taken him from Baja to Alaska and across the world — often alongside his two daughters — capturing the relationship between people and the wild places that shape them. He is a regular contributor to National Geographic Travel and Sony, and continues to produce films and campaigns through his independent production company, Lone Bison Films. His mission remains constant: inspire curiosity, stewardship, and a deeper connection to the natural world.
A guided night photography walk through Minneapolis alongside Andy Best, who will teach participants how to see and shoot in low light, find compelling compositions after dark, and use the city as a landscape. Equal parts technical lesson and adventure.
Andy has spent over a decade working as a nomadic filmmaker for brands like Sony, Toyota, CamelBak, Huckberry, and some of the top outdoor brands in the world, alongside tourism boards across the globe and his own documentary work. Often operating alone in remote places with no margin for error, he has learned that the most important creative decisions happen long before the camera comes out. In this masterclass, he walks through how he researches locations, anticipates variables, builds shot lists, and sets a production up to succeed before a single frame is captured.
Dark skies have taken Andy Best to remote corners of the world he never would have found otherwise. This workshop is built from years of failures and hard-won successes, and the throughline is always the same: preparation is everything. The settings are the easy part. The real skill is in knowing how to read the weather three days out, scout a location you've never stood in, time a moonrise to the minute, layer your planning until there's nothing left to chance, and show up with no excuses left to give. That's what gets the shot.
A conversation on the craft, business, and lifestyle of building a creative career in the outdoor industry, with adventure photographers and filmmakers working across personal projects and high-stakes assignments for major brands in some of the world's most challenging environments. Plus a look at photography's role in the conservation movement: how images drive public awareness, shift policy, and connect people to places worth protecting.
Space is limited. Get your passes today.
