Olympic Peninsula Workshop 2023

I have been wanting to get back to the Olympic Peninsula for awhile now, I love it there. The rain forest and lush greens call me in a way like the mountains do. Our mantra for this trip: Fear no light and embrace the chaos…

This trip is a great add-on to my Palouse workshop.

Dates: May 18-22 , 2023

Price: $1899.00/Limit 8

Join Denise Ippolito and local naturalist Roy Kropp and talented ONP photographer Jim Hagen for a five day photo adventure through three distinct ecosystems; Rain forests, coastal beaches and glaciated peaks. We will experience forests covered in moss and ferns, Big leaf maples, Douglas firs and Sitka spruce. Roosevelt Elk frequent the rain forests and are visible from the trails. Waterfalls and cascades galore. On the coast we will photograph sunsets, ocean sea stacks, and tide pools. Join me to photograph the amazing “Green Machine” of Washington State.

Our tentative schedule includes locations such as: Sol Duc Falls, The Hoh Rain Forest, Second Beach, Rialto Beach and Crescent Beach, Hurricane Ridge, Salt Creek, Madison Falls, Upper Dungeness, Marymere Falls, Moments in Time Trail and more.

Participants should be physically fit and able to walk at least two miles at one time, most trails are level and easy with some being a little but more rugged but still very doable. We will not be walking at a fast pace since photography is our goal-not hiking.

A detailed PDF file will be sent upon registration.

Meet & Greet at 12:00 noon at our hotel on May 18th. (address and details given at sign-up).

Our bases for this trip are: Port Angeles and Forks, Washington. Participants should plan to fly into Seattle Washington and drive to Port Angeles, Washington.

Workshop ends, it is best to plan your flights home in the morning of the 23rd or late evening of the 22nd.

*Please note meals, lodging, transportation and park fees are not included in the price of the workshop.

TO SIGN UP CLICK HERE.

Charleston South Carolina - March 27-31, 2023

Charleston low country is one of my favorite locations to shoot at. With the vail of moss that blows gently in the breeze and the mix of old and new coming together you can’t miss, especially if you like artistic images. During my last trip we added a few new spots including the ones shown in the images above. I am looking forward to getting back there.

Charleston is also a great trip to work on infrared. I use my infrared in the cemetery mostly but also at Magnolia Plantation (see image below). You don’t need to shoot infrared in Charleston, some of the locations are so special that color only does them justice. But shooting B&W or infrared just adds to your time in the field.

I found a new spot last year for shooting the bridge…

5 days
$1899.00 / Limit 10
Join Denise Ippolito for this low country adventure where we will highlight some of Charleston’s best known photo locations as well as a few hidden gems. Magnolia Gardens Plantation, Old Sheldon Church Ruins, an old cemetery, Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, Angel Oak and Rainbow Row.

There will be an informal Meet & Greet at our hotel in Charleston at 8:00pm on the night before the trip on March 26th. I will go over logistics, gear and explain some of the photo opportunities that we have in store for you. You will not want to miss this.

Daily schedule includes a morning photo shoot and an afternoon and/or evening photo shoot depending on local conditions. We will have at least one Photoshop/Lightroom session during the photo tour. Plus at least one client image review.
Participants should plan to attend the Meet & Greet. You should plan your trip home after the morning shoot of the last day (March 31st)
*Note – There will be some walking involved and all participants must be able to walk at least 1 1/2 miles without distress. Please wear comfortable shoes. .All schedule times and itinerary is subject to change depending on local conditions and weather. A detailed information sheet will be sent to you upon sign up.

Included: All plantation fees and any additional access fees, In-the-field photography instruction, Photoshop session and image review session.
Not Included- all meals, lodging, transportation.

This workshop needs a minimum of 8 participants.

To sign up CLICK HERE.

Onward

Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless Digital Camera and Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS Lens

Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless Digital Camera and Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS Lens

On my last blog post, I shared some of my images that I captured from the six sessions we had with the Camargue horses in the South of France. Did I mention how incredibly beautiful these white stallions and mares are? 

Anyway, I am already missing my time near the sea eating moules à l'ail, beurre et vin. However, we are in the lavender region of the Provence and tomorrow will have our second photo shoot with the lavender. Our first lavender shoot was at the Sénanque Abbey where new lavender had been replanted recently and it looked terrific. I heard that last year there was scaffolding on the abbey. Lucky us, it was gone and the building looked spic and span. 

Tonight, we are having dinner at a restaurant that overlooks the The Pont du Gard which is an ancient Roman aqueduct. After dinner we plan to photograph the bridge during blue hour, and we’ll wait around for them to light the bridge with different colors. 

On the following morning, we will will visit Roussillon which is one of the nicest villages in my opinion. The town is famous for its magnificent red cliffs and ochre quarries that are accented with green pine trees.

Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless Digital Camera and Sony FE 24-105mm f/4, G lens

Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless Digital Camera and Sony FE 24-105mm f/4, G lens, sky replaced in Photoshop

Update -July 8th, we went early to Roussillon well before the crowds. It was just as I had remembered. I saw one of the painted doors that I love so much and visited the bake shop for a delicious pastry and cappuccino before exploring the quaint village and sunlit cliffs.

Next we hit the lavender fields. The fields are always impressive to see and smell; the aroma is out of this world fantastic. One of my favorite things about the fields are the long rows that seem to go on forever. The color and lushness of the fields can vary greatly. This year I concentrated on some closer shots (not really macro but closer than usual with a wide angle lens) using my Sony 24-105mm lens. I shot at about 50mm for most of my lavender images (not the abbey) and used f/4 to create a softer look. I even tried a few high-key looks.

We also visited some of the well-known fields that we frequent year after year. Unfortunately, there was a heat wave and several of those fields had already been harvested. But our expert guide found a few beautiful fields at peak. One of the spots was secluded and we had it all to ourselves. We ate our dinner as we photographed the lavender and shared a bottle of wine as the sunset over the lavender. We said our goodbyes to each other and Au Revoir to the Camargue…

at last light… Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless Digital Camera and Sony FE 24-105mm f/4, G lens

High-key lavender, shot with the Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless Digital Camera and Sony FE 24-105mm f/4, G lens @50mm, f/4.

shot with the Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless Digital Camera and Sony FE 24-105mm f/4, G lens

Photoshop multiple exposure by blending one sharp shot with one in-camera blur. Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless Digital Camera and Sony FE 24-105mm f/4, G lens

Off to the Camargue!

I’m on my way to the Camargue France (July1st). Because of scheduling overlap due to COVID postponements I must go straight from Edinburgh to Marseille with no time in between. That really isn’t a bad thing because it ends up saving me an additional flight. However, my original plans were to spend some time in Edinburgh on my own. 

I have a connection through Brussels which is a bit time consuming but hey, I’ve never been to Brussels so I’m hoping to taste a bit of the local fare while at the airport… like chocolate!

When I was in Seahouses in Northumberland, I managed to squeeze in a few walks at night through the countryside. Someday I hope to buy a cottage there and get another dog and spend my days walking near the sea and along the country roads. Of course, I’m hoping to spend some time with the seabirds as well. Also, I’ll be a little closer to the Scottish Highlands-which is on my bucket list. 

Back to the Camargue. I always love visiting France and seeing my guide again. We have become friends over the years, and he is a terrific photographer, and we have a lot to catch up on. 

Usually on our first day we see several sunflower fields and stop to photograph at one or two before checking into our hotel. It’s hard to pass them by when they are calling our name except this time we did as the light was too harsh. Our guide promised a better shooting session with better light for the sunflowers- and who doesn’t love a sunflower field. 

During our time in France, we have several photo sessions lined up with the beautiful white horses of the Camargue. The photo oops include a couple of beach runs, some local private ranches and pond areas. 

A lot of times, the horses are led through the water while we wait on the other side. They are prompted to run straight at us. This can be a bit intimidating but if you stay together, it is perfectly fine. One of the problems I’ve found is that if the horses stand around to long between shoots, they will roll in the mud… there goes the clean white horses <wink> but it’s all good. The images are compelling, and I’ve had many clients produce award winners over the years. 

Next year, I have two back-to-back workshops scheduled. Donna Bourdon, who is an avid equestrian, will be leading both trips. Donna loves to work with horses, birds and flowers. She enjoys using slow shutter speeds to create pleasing blurs. She also loves tack sharp flight images, captured using fast shutter speeds. Donna has been working a lot with high-key imagery, so she’s a perfect fit for the workshop. 

In addition to our sessions with the horses we will spend some time exploring and photographing abbey’s that are steeped in rich history, we’ll walk through towns surrounded by ramparts and photograph a couple of historic bridges at night for blue hour. In addition to all of that we will visit a bird rookery complete with nesting herons and flocks of flamingos. 

We’ll finish the tour with a trip to the lavender fields in Provence. There we will have several photo sessions with the beautiful lavender that laces the countryside. We’ll also visit an old and quaint town on the top of a hillside-complete with French pastries and more. 

Update—-I wasn’t able to publish the blog when I first wrote it because of the spotty internet. Today is July 7th and we finished up with the horses and will be photographing lavender fields soon! I’ve included a few of my shots so far but many more to come…

1/20 second pan blur.

A high-key image converted to B&W

A high-key capture

1/8 second blur

A twist and zoom blur, I had to add a little canvas and fix the tips of the flower in Photoshop.

UK Puffin Trip Report

Well, the 2022 UK Puffin trip is about to begin (June 24). It’s already off to a rocky start. Firstly, the trip has been postponed twice due to Covid, so there is that. Next, we were hit with new landing rules for the Farne Islands. Since the birds have not been disturbed in two years, they have started building nests along some of the boardwalks. That, plus staffing issues has created a change. Change is not always good and to be fair it’s not always bad. 

Next, we have to pile on the Avian flu (highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 has been confirmed in Scotland and in other parts of the UK.) which has been killing many seabirds abroad including the gannets that nest on Bass Rock. So, for us that means our planned visit to the rock is off. But more importantly, thousands of seabirds have already died, and the numbers go up daily. I am hopeful that something can be done soon to stop this outbreak.

The drama or bad luck - whichever you prefer, continues, as some of my clients are flying British Airlines home and a strike is festering and should be in full swing just in time to delay or cancel their flights home…It has been much easier to fly internationally, however, there are still some COVID related issues that most people don’t think about. Staffing is one of the biggest issues. Even though most airports, airlines, restaurants, hotels, parks, etc. are listed as fully operational- there are a lot of them that are grossly understaffed or have new employees that have not been fully trained. 

And on the day before I left one of the clients tested positive for COVID and could not come on the trip. Holy smokes that’s a lot of bad luck!! Jinxed is the word I have been using. 

Ok, so with all of that going on why not cancel? Bad weather = good pictures. I’m hoping that a rough start ends up being a great ending. Call me optimistic but I truly believe that we will still have a wonderful adventure filled with great photo opportunities.

So, onto the trip details. It ended up being a fantastic week at the cottages. We had many more landings and photo opportunities than I had anticipated given the new circumstances. We did not get to land on Bass Rock, but my friend Michael/co-driver and I took the group to Bempton Cliffs and enjoyed a gannet filled day. In fact, I will be changing the itinerary for next year’s trip to include a drive to Bempton Cliffs with a one night stay there so that we can have three possible photo sessions. The cliffs, flowers, flight shots-all very good! Lots of Northern Gannets!

At the Farne Island we had some great opportunities with Atlantic Puffin, Guillemot, Razor Bill, Shag, Arctic Tern and more…. Most days we had a landing on Inner Farne. For those of you that have been there before, that is the island with the dive-bombing Arctic Terns, they are great fun to watch and photograph and yes sometimes they do hit your head and it hurts but just a tiny bit…

Our last day we were able to land on Staple Island as well as Inner Farne, the group agreed that this year Inner Farne was better anyway! We had a great group—I mean a really great group. Everyone got along well. We enjoyed our dinners together and all the time spent on the boats and the islands. Plus, I think we all love puffins!

After all the bad luck or jinxing that went on it turned out to be a fantastic trip. I’ll be driving the group back to Edinburgh this morning and I am already looking forward to next year’s trip. I’ve added a few of my favorite images from this year’s visit.

The gannets above were photographed at Bempton Cliffs, I loved the soft blowing grasses in the foreground.

Some of the cliffs were filled with small daisy-like flowers. I loved including them in the foreground. Sometimes blurred flowers and sometimes not.

When the sun is behind you and hits the sea it can create a beautiful bokeh, I like this look and spent some time sharing the how-to and where the best spot to create it.

A young gannet coming in for a landing at Bempton Cliffs.

As I was moving my camera to another bird I noticed this vail of color covering this puffin that looked like it was going to smell the flower.

Kittiwake coming in with nestng material to the cliffside at Inner Farne.

I can’t leave the Farne Islands without a puffin in heaven shot! I shared my technique for this shot with the group and of course my favorite spot for it.