Yosemite National Park

Yosemite and Ansel Adams; you can’t think of one without thinking of the other. Adams made many of his most famous images right here and by doing so, made Yosemite a premium destination for all the outdoor and nature photographers to follow.

Mid May is a great time to be in Yosemite to photograph the waterfalls, reflec- tions, and flowering dogwood. And with any luck we’ll have a bit of fog in the valley in the mornings for some of those dramatically moody shots from Tunnel View. Spring is also the time for the classic photograph of the flowering dogwoods along the Merced River.

We’ll hit all the classic places like Swinging Bridge, Cathedral Beach, Cathedral Rocks, Tunnel View, Glacier Point and the Mariposa Grove(roads permitting). We’ll find great views of El Capitan and Half Dome, Yosemite and Bridal Falls as well as the intimate scenes to be found at Fern Spring (my personal favorite) and around the blossoming dogwood trees.

Since this is “Grand Landscape Country” we’ll spend a lot of time working on landscape techniques like choosing foregrounds, hyperfocal focusing, working with reflections, graduated neutral density filters, panoramas, and more. There will also be ample opportunity for close ups and intimate landscapes.

My goal is to help you create photographs that are uniquely your own and to help you develop your own style. To that end, I’ll be encouraging you to stretch beyond what you’re used to doing and to look for perspectives, angles and compositions that are expressions of your own view of the world.

Since there are so many opportunities and so many great scenes with easy access, this workshop won’t involve much hiking. But never fear, I’ll employ other means to exhaust you.
Mid day we’ll gather in our classroom for critiques, questions, teaching demonstrations, along with Photoshop and digital asset management discussions and demonstrations.