Photo Tours, Expeditions, and Workshops for Adventure Photographers

What is the Digital Landscape Workshops all about?

Landscape photography! Our passion for it, your passion for it! It is that simple! Charlie and our guest instructors have designed a workshop program that will give you so much information about photography it will leave your head spinning! The days will be long, the photo opportunities endless, and the instruction incomparable. There is no better formula for learning than this workshop with top professional photographers, in a beautiful setting, and joined by a group of fellow photographers eager to learn. We’ll give you information that we have spent our careers compiling, information that will help you improve your photography. The following is information we think you need so you can be prepared when you arrive at the workshop.

Pre-Trip Planning                                  
                                                                                                      Prior to your departure for the Digital Landscape Workshop, you will need to do the following:

If you are new to photography and unfamiliar with your camera and lenses, read the manual and as much information as you can. Learn how to clean your sensor and have a sensor cleaning kit with you. Then come prepared to learn like you never have before!

-You will need a laptop computer and Photoshop CS. If you do not have PS CS2, follow this link and download the 30 day free trial right before leaving for the workshop.   http://www.adobe.com/products/tryadobe/main.jsp

Check the weather forecast for the region in which you plan to attend. I use www.weather.com .
Pack for cold and warm weather, seeing what the weather guy thinks is not a bad idea.
Double check your airline, hotel, and rental reservations if necessary.

Checking the long range weather forecast right before you leave will help you prepare for the right weather conditions. Although it is always safer to

                                                                                Equipment
                                                                                            By now you know what equipment you will need, but just to make sure you don’t forget anything, here is a recap.

You will need a digital SLR with as many lenses as you own or wish to bring. You will also need numerous compact flash cards and I recommend at least 1 gigabyte of flash card space, more is better, and/or a portable, rechargeable hard drive or cd burner to download in the field. The need for this hard drive depends on your CF capacity and if you have plenty of CF space, then the hard drive/cd burner will not be necessary. You also need a means to download your images to your laptop, either by cord or CF Card adapters. A good tripod is necessary for landscape photography and should part of your standard gear. Your laptop computer should be at least 512mb of RAM as Photoshop will run much better. Lens cleaning tissue and fluid, a sensor cleaning kit, and the enthusiasm to shoot great pictures are the rest of what you will need. You should have a polarizing filter and split neutral density or colored graduated filters are also very useful.

Even a flash could come in handy to use as a flash fill on a flower. Another great filter choice is the 81B warming filter, but better yet is the Nikon A2 warming filter. It is an 81B with a little bit of red in it. If you are not a Nikon shooter, you may still find a matching thread size and be able to get the A2 to fit your lenses. Make sure you have extra batteries and that you are charging them every opportunity you get. Make sure that once you have successfully downloaded your CF cards, that you immediately format them for the next shoot. A cable release is also handy as you may find yourself shooting long shutter speeds to get blurring water.

Arrival

Plan to arrive at the posted time for the workshop. Do not come early as the doors wont be open. Promptly, at the posted start time, the doors will open and you can check in at the registration desk. This is also your opportunity to meet Charlie and our guest instructors as well as all your fellow photographers. We ask you to be here for the social as you will make new friends and find others to car pool with, which we strongly encourage. We may visit some areas that have very limited parking, so carpooling is essential. Don’t forget, Aspen Workshops cannot provide any transportation.

Opening Night

Our opening presentation will vary with each workshop but promptly at the stated time, we will begin with Charlie’s and our guest instructor’s presentations. Here is an opportunity to learn invaluable information about each instructor’s photography, their careers, and how they approach digital landscape photography. Each of these instructors has a different and unique eye and sees the world in their own way. They arrive at the final image in very different ways as well and here is where you will pick up so many useful tips, tools, and ideas. You’ll learn about light, the essence of every photo. You will learn about composition, the blueprint to successful photos. You will learn about looking at the scene and working to pull out a great photograph. You will learn about exposing and selecting f/stops and shutter speeds. (The Photoshop and workflow will come later.) We want you to leave the evening presentation motivated and excited about the upcoming days of capturing great photography. So motivated we worry whether you will get a good nights sleep.

Photography Schedule

The best light of the day is in the morning and in the evening, so this means we will rise early and stay out late to capture it. Light is what shapes the land and tells us a visual story about the landscape. The hills and valleys, rocks and grasses, water and soil are all defined and shaped with light. Our schedule will reflect the best times to be at the best locations in the best light. Each day’s locations will be planned in advance, but since we cannot control the weather, the schedule may need changing to allow us the best use of light that we are given. Depending on our group size, we may need to break into two groups and alternate locations by group. This will allow us to minimize the impact we have on certain environments. It also allows you more personal time with the instructors who will be there with you and prepared to answer all questions you may have.

Dining

Because of our longs days and action packed schedule, time for meals will be challenging. This is because we want to maximize the learning time in the field and in the Digital Darkroom. We will have a break following our morning shoot and prior to our evening shoot where you will have time for a sit down meal. But we highly recommend that you bring snacks and drink for those in between moments when the hunger wakes up. You could bring high energy bars for the first thing in the morning and snacks for other times of the day.

Shooting

This is when you take your enthusiasm and everything you have learned into the field to capture great landscape and nature images. While we’ll have our cameras in hand and be right there with you, our goal is to make sure you are having a good shoot. If you have questions; ask! Some of you may choose to stay nearby while others may wish to go it alone and make your own discoveries. Either way, we are here to help you. Want us to look through your viewfinder? Just ask! Do you want to look at our LCD? Just ask? Any questions about anything? Just ask! We will begin photographing at sunrise and stop when the light gets ‘bald’, meaning harsh, hot, and contrasty. Quittin’ time will vary each day depending on the light and location. Later in the day we’ll return to a new location several hours before sunset so we can find great photos in anticipation of the great evening light. We’ll call it a day when the last rays of sunset light no longer make photography viable.

The Digital Darkroom

The excitement continues when we return to our meeting room to discuss our shoots and look at more photography. Today’s digital technologies have allowed photographers to not only have a wonderful experience in the field capturing their favorite subjects, but Photoshop has opened a whole new world of imaging magic with its endless tools. Each day we’ll begin with downloading our images to the computer followed by several information loaded discussions on workflow, Photoshop, maximizing your image for printing, stock photography, and managing your photo files. Our Photoshop experts will each show you the magic with their favorite tips and tricks for processing and manipulating your images. And this is just the beginning. Charlie will share his area of expertise; shooting, marketing, and publishing your stock photos. While one instructor is teaching the others will be nearby to answer your questions.

The Digital Darkroom is an interactive experience as we’ll have our computers hooked to the projector so you can see everything we are doing. Our goal is to provide you so much information that you will leave very motivated, inspired, and educated with new found techniques and tools. Your learning potential is unlimited and we will be right there to assist you.

Photography is a wonderful and powerful personal experience and digital technologies have provided so many opportunities to satisfy your passion for photography. We look forward to meeting you and shooting our wonderful world. See you at the Digital Landscape Workshop!