diff --git a/nginx/nginx.conf b/nginx/nginx.conf
index b471316..311fedf 100644
--- a/nginx/nginx.conf
+++ b/nginx/nginx.conf
@@ -3,8 +3,8 @@
 load_module modules/ngx_http_brotli_static_module.so;
 
 error_log syslog:server=unix:/dev/log,nohostname;
-# work around nginx still logging to stderr when using syslog error_log
-error_log /dev/null;
+# leave stderr open but minimize duplicate logging to it
+error_log stderr emerg;
 
 worker_processes auto;
 worker_rlimit_nofile 16384;