August 2026

Read along monthly as we celebrate creativity, local events, shared stories, opportunities and artist spotlights.

Summer in Truckee cannot be beat with great outdoor art, music, and literary festivals to enjoy during the week and on the weekend. We invite you to join us in August while the weather is still warm and the days are long for a variety of summer favorites—whether it is a locally brewed coffee, hand crafted cocktail, Donner Lake paddleboard, mountain trail hike, farmers market excursion or local food truck—and catch up on everything happening in the Truckee Cultural District.

If you were at Wednesday (7/29) night's opening reception for Rural Lakescapes, you already know: it was a fun evening with tunes by Blue Bird Music. Six of our featured artists joined, along with Town of Truckee staff and the Truckee-Tahoe Airport Board of Directors, for a night that reminded us just how much this community shows up to meet local artists. Thank you to everyone who came out and supported!

A big thank you to Emily Rademacher of Rademacher Media our Truckee Thursdays photographer offering images for our featured artists to market their work all year long.

As we approach August 10, International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, we pause to acknowledge that Truckee and Nevada County sit on the ancestral lands of the Washoe, Nisenan, and Maidu peoples, who have stewarded this region for generations. We honor their history, resilience, and continued presence in our community.

As always, there's plenty more happening throughout the district. Read on for this month's highlights.

Grab your camera and get outside!

The Keep It Dark Photo Contest is still underway. This annual contest invites photographers of every level to capture Nevada County's night skies and help us celebrate (and protect) one of our region's most underrated resources: darkness.

Here's what you need to know:

• Submissions due: August 12

• Entries: Up to 2 night sky images per photographer, captured anywhere in Nevada County

• Categories: Youth, Amateur, and Professional, with Best of the West and Best of the East winners chosen from all submissions

• Public voting: Opens Aug 21-Sept 4 online at VisitTruckee.com/Keep-It-Dark-Contest

Want the full scoop?

As Kellie Cutler, our Program Manager for the Truckee Cultural District put it, the contest has been fully embraced by night sky photographers capturing the beautifully rare and unique place we call home. It's grown into a true countywide celebration of dark sky stewardship, bringing together residents, visitors, and photographers of all ages around a shared love of what's above us.

Keep It Dark is a community initiative of the Town of Truckee in partnership with the Truckee Cultural District, Visit Truckee-Tahoe, Nevada County Arts & Culture, and the City of Nevada City.

August Events

Stay connected with local event calendars and community boards for the latest updates on gallery shows, performances, and gatherings. Our favorite resources include: Truckee.com, Visit Truckee-Tahoe, 101.5 KTKE and the Nevada County Arts Council

TCD: When did you start photographing the night sky?

KALT: I started doing astrophotography over the summer of 2020, when comet neowise lit up the night sky. I turned around and snapped a photo in the opposite direction, revealing the Milky Way on my LCD screen. I was so fired up, I’ll never forget exclaiming to my friend “that’s just THERE?!” After that, I started shooting the Milky Way intermittently while working as a commercial photographer as a way to keep my passion alive outside of work, before later going on to start my Milky Way Marathon project. I love this question, because any person who’s taken a photo of the Milky Way remembers their first time. Capturing a photo of something so expansive that was subtly hiding above you is so rewarding. 

TCD: What is the Milky Way Marathon project?

KALT: I started having more severe complications as a result of hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS) , an incurable genetic connective tissue disorder. My body doesn’t properly produce collagen, a structure that acts like glue across your body and exists in every systems from your joints, skin, ligaments, organs, blood vessels, etc. I developed progressive problems in almost every system of my body, causing me to take a step back from my job. I didn’t pick up my camera for awhile, until the fear of my declining mobility started to gnaw at me. At the beginning of 2025 I decided I was going to go out and shoot the Milky Way every month, for as many days as my body would allow me. So every month around the new moon I started planning Milky Way shoots around Nevada County, and put every ounce of energy into each shot like it might be my last— thus, the “Milky Way Marathon” was born. At first I only intended to do this during the spring, but the project quickly grew. I still haven’t broken my streak, and don’t intend to. It’s given me a reason to keep fighting, astrophotography became my light in the dark.

TCD: Share something unexpected you’re able to see through your lens

KALT: My camera allows me to see so many things I can’t see with the naked eye. I have an Astro-modified camera, this means I’ve essentially peeled off a layer of my camera sensor (the IR-cut layer), allowing it to obtain greater visibility from certain wavelengths of light, revealing red/magenta colored Hydrogen-alpha light-emitting nebula we can’t see with our eyes. Human eyes are very inefficient in the dark since we use “cone” cells to process color, which requires light, leaving “rods” to take over, which while very sensitive to light, see in black and white. Cameras aren’t limited by such primitive features like us humans— it can capture so much of the color and detail our eyes fail to see, like the gas and dust lanes comprising the Milky Way core, the yellow and blue hue of stars varying with temperature, and those nebula birthing new stars.

TCD: What are the best ways to support night sky photographers? 

KALT: Invest in dark sky lighting! Lighting with dimmers, timers, and motion sensors. Ideally that is directed downward so that the light only shines where it’s needed, instead of emanating photons up into the atmosphere, wasted. Environmental changes like this are so impactful to preserving our views of the Milky Way. Also buying prints from artists, attending workshops, engaging and resharing content is always great. But perhaps the best way to support your fav earthbound space cadet: buy us a coffee, we’re so tired!

TCD: Share recent opportunities since taking this journey

KALT: What started as a simple monthly art practice changed my life. I’ve gotten to travel and shoot amazing, remote places I never thought I was capable of seeing, places that have never been captured at night before. I’ve shot alongside renowned astrophotographers whose work has inspired me since I was a kid, and had people fly out to Nevada County to collaborate on the project. I’ve been able to raise money to pay for treatment from one of two specialty EDS clinics that exist in the country. I’ve been able to continually adapt my artistic approach to my dynamic physical condition, which often looks hysterically ridiculous, and has involved such things as employing the use of a literal exoskeleton. My Milky Way Marathon project and disability advocacy efforts landed me one of Professional Photographers of America’s 30 under 30 honorees. Most of all, I feel as though creating art from a place of grief and physical decline, has brought me endless gratitude for what I’m still capable of. Capturing and contemplating under the expanse of the cosmos has brought a mindset shift that reverberated throughout every area of my life. 

TCD: What are your career goals as a professional night sky photographer?

KALT: I want to show more and more people the power of dark skies: the night rewards boundless curiosity, it’s a symbol of hope, a place for processing grief, a spiritual portal, containing narratives of cultural lore, a rabbit hole of physics and equations to nerd over, producing matter and light. The sky connects us all. Aside from continuing my lifelong art project, however long or short that may turn out to be, I aim to continue to support the Town of Truckee in their robust advocacy efforts and dark sky community certification initiative, as well as continuing to expand my Milky Way Marathon project to include more nights spent teaching and introducing others to our galaxy.