Glacier Bay has been a favorite location of mine since I started teaching workshops there in the early 1980s. A small boat cruise in this vast watery landscape is the best way to witness the ecstatic breaching whales, the bevies of sea otters, and the flocks of cormorants, ducks, and puffins. The weather cooperated, which is never a given in Alaska.
A great advantage of the way we run this workshop is that when others are heading in to a harbor for dinner, we are able to stay out and work the best light of the day in late afternoon into evening. As a highlight, we were rewarded with gorgeous backlighting of surfacing whales. Never passing over the opportunity to experiment, we employed panning to photograph the waterlilies in a glacial kettle in one of our forays on land. Referencing Monet in one’s photography is always a good challenge.
The new owners of the Alaskan Song yacht are proudly continuing the great hospitality we have enjoyed in past years, making it easy for friendships to grow between our fellow travelers. I can’t wait to return in 2025 – Sign up today and reserve your spot!
For anyone looking to join an upcoming workshop here in the Pacific Northwest, I’ve extended the early bird savings on some upcoming workshops though the weekend – save a couple hundred bucks and join me in one of two very different locations!
The first opportunity begins August 17th, with a small group photography retreat on the Oregon Coast. While I’m often leading a group in Abstract Astoria, this is an opportunity to explore new locations in a small-group setting of five travelers. While any workshop I lead will include a healthy dose of finding abstractions and unique points of view, this one will focus more on the breathtaking seaside landscapes that the coast has to offer.
The following trip brings us inland, to the Palouse of Eastern Washington. Often referred to as “The American Tuscany”, the Palouse is home to breathtaking landscapes, turn-of-the-century farms and rolling hills of gold under blue skies. It really couldn’t be much different from the mossy, rocky, misty shores of Oregon. I’m looking forward to the juxtaposition of exploring these varied locations back to back!
All of this follows my Katmai bear workshops, both of which only have one or two spots left available – make this year your year to go and claim one of them and capture your own amazing shots of one of America’s signature wildlife attractions.
If I don’t see you on a workshop, have a fantastic summer! If you need inspiration for photography goals, peruse the blog – I’m sure you’ll find something to spark an idea!
Summer is here! It’s been relatively cool in the Pacific Northwest recently, but I’m not complaining as it also hasn’t been overly rainy, making for good conditions to spend some time working in my garden recharging the batteries after what has been a busy 2023.
The year started off on the road in Bangladesh and Thailand, with the later providing shots of clouds of bats emerging from their tunnel colony that will be in my upcoming book Wild Lives, releasing this fall. From there it was off to Japan, and then a later engagement in the northern mountains of India in search of the elusive snow leopard for that same project.
Of course, it wouldn’t be spring without workshops here at home in our beautiful United States. Perennial favorite Abstract Astoria was once again on the agenda and if a more creative and/or abstract workshop is on your to-do list, there are plenty of upcoming events and workshops coming up on both U.S. coasts to check out.
We went coast to coast, with workshops in Joshua Tree, Moab, and the Great Smoky Mountains.
Finally, a specially mention for everyone who joined me at my home in Seattle and then for our Creative Sessions weekend. We had a great time, and I look forward to doing it again in the future. Enjoy the photos and have a fantastic summer!
This past spring I returned to Moab, Utah with a great group of workshop participants that were graciously receptive to my teaching goals in such locations – shooting the unobvious! It’s easy to come to a place like this and shoot the arches and other well-known landmarks. I can recite ad nauseum the camera settings I might use while we sit around waiting for perfect light and re-create the same shot you’ll find on postcards as you head out of town. That’s not why I come here and certainly not why I choose to lead workshops here.
Places like Moab, Astoria, and other significant locations around the country and the world are attractions for a reason, however— so I recommend people get those shots if they want them, of course. In these popular locations it’s much easier to find lodging and great food versus some remote and obscure spot on the map, so they make great places to hold these workshops. However there is so much more to be seen in the details, reflections, and abstracts to create new and unique one-of-a-kind images as well, and that’s where I like to focus my time and my teaching.
Enjoy the video, and check out my upcoming workshop offerings!
Unless you’re new to checking out the blog (Welcome, if so!) you’ve heard of my popular Abstract Astoria Workshop. It’s been a consistent destination for us year after year, and for good reason. As the oldest city on the west coast, Astoria is a venerable Scandinavian-inspired burg with an abundance of character and old-school charm. Culinary delights are around every corner, and on those corners you’re bound to find museums, breweries, and even old forts— abandoned, but ripe with photographic opportunity.
This makes it an easy choice for a recurring abstract workshop. Not only are the traditional vistas, shores, and surrounding forest great opportunities for your standard fare travel photos, the aged concrete bunkers, rusted logging equipment and waterways of moiré patterns nestled in amongst the greenery and culture make for an amazing trifecta of creativity, photography, and hospitality.
These are just some of the reasons we keep going back— and why this workshop has so many repeat clients. We’ll be heading back next spring, and now is a good time to plan your trip as this one will assuredly be a sell-out as usual! Check out the events page for this location and more.
Summer is near, and I’m feeling it in Seattle! Coming off a fantastic weekend workshop that began last Friday evening with a meet and greet at my home, I came away feeling invigorated after working with everyone who joined.
We added some smaller-group workshops to our events page – and they immediately sold out. If this is something that interests you, we will work with you to figure something out when my schedule allows. The up-side of these smaller trips are more one-on-one time as well as having accommodations and transportation resolved for you.
For the spontaneous adventurer who can get themselves here at the end of the week, one spot remains to join us on the Olympic peninsula. Who is us? Myself, my long-time shooting partner Gavriel Jecan, and office superstar Libby Pfeiffer who assembles these fantastic opportunities.
The Columbia river gorge is one of the most iconic locations on the west coast, and there are a few spots left to join Gav and myself here in early June. While we will have plenty of opportunities to capture the vistas, waterfalls and temperate rainforest of the area our goal here is to use this naturally beautiful location to dial into the abstract. This is something I’ve taught myself to do over decades, and there’s nothing I enjoy more than teaching it to you.
Before the summer wraps up, I’ll be returning to Katmai, Alaska – home to the bear that adorns the cover of my upcoming book, Wild Lives. We’ve been working with the same folks on the ground (and in the air!) for a long time now, and I always look forward to the two weeks we spend teaching workshops here. We are fast approaching the time of year when the last few spots for these opportunities fill up – so don’t miss out and sign up today!
Teaching what I love to do is my passion and the breakthroughs that happen on our workshops are, simply put – awesome. Being able to pass on a lifetime of learning is why I do this!
This past weekend we had a great workshop in California’s Joshua Tree National Park. As expected after the state’s record rainfall this winter, the wildflowers were out in force and the cacti were blooming which made for some unexpected hummingbird photography. However, it’s Joshua Tree’s eponymous yuccas and ancient granite formations that I love to explore.
Earth Day arrives tomorrow, April 22nd and you can celebrate by visiting your local national parks for a fee-free day. With over 400 national parks and one in each state, there’s likely at least one near you. . . get your camera gear ready and head out for some photos and fresh air!
Don’t know which one to visit? The National Parks Service has created a handy interactive quiz that will help you narrow down your interests to a location that meets your needs based on distance, activities and more.
Share your photos online tagged with the #yourparkstory / #myparkstory hashtags and interact with others celebrating Earth Day at our protected natural places! Some of my best work, including photos from my upcoming magnum opus on international wildlife has been capture in our national parks. Enjoy the image gallery. Better yet, get out there and create your own!
National parks are powerful places that have many meanings and connections to those who visit them – our shared history, our sense of discovery, and our dreams of the future. They teach us about ourselves and the world around us, and invite us to continue to learn, grow, and explore. National Park Week is a time to reflect on what parks mean to us, enjoy what they provide to their visitors and communities, and commit to protecting these places we cherish.
In a win for wildlife, the latest tiger census in India has seen an increase of 200 tigers from just four years ago! Launched in the early 1970s, Project Tiger relocated entire villages to open up habitat corridors for the big cats, thus minimizing conflict with humans, and giving the wildlife room to rewild the lush sal and bamboo forests and grassy meadows.
Join me in November to experience the best India has to offer: we will travel to two national parks to photograph the elusive big cats as well as barasinghas, rhinos and the massive wild water buffalos. We might even see sloth bears and leopards!
November is a time of celebration too. Diwali, the festival of lights, is celebrated all over the country with spectacular light displays, gift-giving, a delicious sweets. It is a time of spiritual uplift, a celebration of good over evil, and the end of the harvest season.
You know what I loved about this latest “Winter in Japan” workshop? The Snow! Meaning snow was falling as we photographing in various locations. It made for great conditions at the snow monkey hot springs farther north in Hokkaido. It was positively magical with the iconic Japanese cranes; the world looked like a shaken snow globe. Using a faster shutter speed really emphasizes the snowflakes. Depending on the light conditions, I was using ISOs between 2000 and 4000 with my favorite 100-500mm lens.
