$2,495
$2,495
With the high-country snow melts, Yosemite’s waterfalls and rivers spring to life, invoking scenes like perhaps no other in the world. In years of maximum water flow, Yosemite’s Upper and Lower Falls make a thundering sound that can be heard throughout the Valley. Bridalveil Fall is spectacular in the spring, with sprays that reach half of its 620-foot height. Some waterfalls, such as Ribbon Falls, only appear during the spring if it’s wet enough – at 1,162 feet, it is one of the tallest waterfalls in the world.
Wildflowers bloom everywhere in Yosemite in the spring, and you can see scores of varieties. Yosemite is one of the few places you can see the bright red stalks of the Snow Plant, a striking sight even if it’s technically a fungus and not a flower. You may also see poppies, goldfields, meadowfoam, baby blue-eyes, and redbud trees.
This workshop has been scheduled to coincide with peak waterfall season in the spring of the year. You’ll have the opportunity to photograph rainbows, waterfalls, wildflowers, and wide-open landscapes at some of Yosemite’s most iconic locations, some of which include the big granite domes of El Capitan, Sentinel Dome, and Half-Dome, and the cascading waters of Yosemite Falls, Bridalveil Falls, and Vernal Falls. We’ll also shoot many other locations on the valley floor, making sure that you’re in the right place at the right time during the best lighting conditions.
John Bosma Fine Arts Photography is an Authorized Permittee of the National Park Service.
The majority of our days will start early, before sunrise. After a quick cup of coffee or tea, we’ll be off to get into position at a location in the best light of the day with breakfast in the field in order to maximize our shooting time. We’ll often continue until mid-to-late morning before heading back to Basecamp.
Back at Basecamp, we’ll have time for off-loading memory cards, classroom lectures & instruction, working on our images, one-on-one guidance, or time to relax. Then, in the mid-to-late afternoon, we’ll head out again to capture the evening skies, getting the most out of the sunset and/or shooting the stars in the night sky.
More important than just getting you to some of the best and most remote locations at the best times of the day, this four-day landscape photography workshop will teach you how to visualize an image, how to plan your shoot, how to capture your image in the field, and how to bring your image to life using a variety of post-production techniques.
In the Field:
We’ll learn how to scout and visualize a scene, compose a ground/sky/sea landscape to show scale and tell a story, how to manage complex highlight and shadow scenes, how and when to use filters, how to plan your images for a blended blue hour composite, how to focus your camera at night to capture pin sharp stars and foreground, and how to use apps like PhotoPills to plan a shoot. We’ll also use techniques such as dynamic bracketing and exposure blending, focus stacking and focal length blending, neutral density filters, and stacking for noise reduction.
In the Classroom:
We’ll spend time developing your post-production workflow – learning when Lightroom is enough and when you need to move your work into Photoshop. We’ll learn how to use techniques such as luminosity masks to create and solve contrast, color, and blending issues; how to blend multiple images together in Photoshop to create blue hour blends, focal length blends, and exposure blends; how to use start stacking to create pin sharp starry night skies; how to create Orton glows and sharpen your final image; and how to use apps like ProPanel to increase your efficiency.
You’ll benefit from hours of capture time in the field with an instructor by your side, and classroom instruction as you learn new techniques and strategies for creating dynamic images.
What’s Included in Your Tuition:
- 4 nights lodging / 3.5 training days
- Field meals and snacks
- All ground transportation during the workshop
- Workshop course materials
- In-the-field photographic training
- Online prep & orientation classes prior to the workshop
- Post-production classes and techniques during the workshop
- Online post-production classes after the workshop
What’s Not Included in Your Tuition:
- Transportation to/from your home to Basecamp
- Lodging beyond the 4 nights included in the workshop
- Your National Park Pass for entry to Yosemite
- Meals
- Alcoholic beverages
- Travel Medical and Trip Cancellation Insurance
- Personal expenses, gratuities, and anything not listed as included
Please see our How to Prepare For Your Workshop page for guidelines on workshop prep, gear, and packing. Approximately 90 days before your workshop, you will be sent a PDF with more specific instructions.
