A girlfriend and I share a passion for photography. I would love to spend more time taking photos, so when Insu asked me if I wanted to go to a photography workshop with her in Zion, I was thrilled. The workshop was led by Ian Plant. He is a wonderful nature photographer, and he takes some incredible photos. You can see his work here and even download some wonderful instructional e-books he’s written (they are really inexpensive, but full of good information). The e-books are beautiful to look at, and are also full of details on how to take better photos. In person, and in his writing, Ian is generous with his information and suggestions.
I periodically give myself “assignments” to go out and learn the functions of my camera, or focus on a particular kind of shooting (macro, fog, sunrise, etc.). The idea of a class where you are totally immersed in your subject all day, for five days sounded fabulous – and it was! And to have access to a bunch of other creative souls, who might want to share techniques and tips – that is the perfect way to take your skills to the next level quickly. I couldn’t wait to get started!
I had bought a tripod earlier in the year and took it to Yellowstone and Yosemite to practice with it. I was glad that I had done that, because it took me some time to be comfortable with using it. It was nice to be able to focus on the task at hand – taking photos – instead of struggling with my equipment.
In looking through Ian’s photos I noticed that a majority of the images that caught my eye were ones that he had used an extra wide-angle lens to shoot. I had purchased a Tokina 12-24mm wide angle lens (read the blog on the lens purchase here) before this trip and Ian pointed out the situations where that lens would make the better shot. I had fun experimenting with the lens, and getting used to how much of the scene that lens took it.
This photo of leaves was one of those experiments. I was trying to see how close I could get to things in the foreground and still have a visual line leading through the photo to the background. The wide-angle lens takes in a lot of real estate in front of the camera – so the original shot had way too much going on to be a good photo. But I was mostly just goofing around and testing what worked, and what didn’t. I had thought at the time I shot this that “this would make a great shot if the leaves still had color in them.” I was surprised how much I liked the shot when I cropped out the end of the canyon and the sky – bringing the focus down to the leaves in the rock crevice. The leaves shot is not an award winner, but I find it very pleasing. And a success of my experimenting!
I wrote in the Yellowstone journal about my failed experiments with trying to get those slow motion shots of water. You know the ones where the water looks “soft”. Ian took us to The Grotto and the Virgin River to show us how to make abstract shots with the reflections in the water. This area was shaded, but there were lots of brilliant patches of gold and blue on the water – light reflected from the canyon walls. I love shots where it takes a minute to figure out what the photo really is, or what scale things are. It’s more interesting sometimes if these things aren’t so obvious. This exercise was total play – and I enjoyed it a lot. The samples below are from a few locations (because it was so much fun I was testing it out the rest of the week).
Since Insu and I had driven up the day before the class started, we decided to get up early and get some sunrise shots. We missed the spot were looking for, but we found a good location anyway (like there is any bad scenery in Zion)! I’m so amazed at how much color there is just before the sun shows itself. If you are lucky and you’ve got some clouds in the sky you end up with some fantastic shots — because the clouds catch and reflect all that color. Sadly, we had a whole week of unbelievably clear skies, but we still got some good shots. Below are early morning shots from a few different locations.
The workshop included some classroom time. Ian showed us some of his photos and told us how he processed his RAW images in Photoshop (he has some really incredible color in his images). I use Photoshop a lot in my work (graphic design) but had found editing RAW files less than intuitive. I found that LightRoom was pretty easy to use, but for some photos it wasn’t enough. Ian’s method is pretty easy to follow and I’ve been happier with the results. On a few of my images I found I liked some of the settings in LightRoom better. This is definitely an area for more research on my part. I can see using both programs to get the most out of your images. I will be doing more research and experimenting with this as I go along (I feel like I’ve got a much better idea of what I can expect, and get out of my images, now).
Just an aside here – I don’t have time to take classes in everything I’m interested in, so I usually just dive in, and figure out what I need to know, to get the task at hand done. Now that I’m more interested in processing RAW images I realize I don’t fully know how to use the tools I’ve got on my desk. A couple years ago a friend suggested Lyda.com as a great way to fill in the blanks for things like this. They have tutorials on all kinds of graphic programs. It’s a subscription service but you can just sign up for as long as you want – then go away and come back again. I like that the lessons are broken out into chapters so you can fly past what you know and watch a tutorial on just what you need to learn. I’ve been going in and checking out the lessons on LightRoom (to fill in the blanks). I plan on checking out what they have on RAW processing in general, and in PhotoShop as well. I love learning new things and this helps speed up the process for me!
I liked how we would go to each location and then spend some time in a small area just looking for things to shot. One spot that I think worked well for everyone was Emerald Pools. We walked to the lower pool before the sun had crested the canyon wall. In the time that we were there the sun moved in, and across the lower pool. The pool has waterfalls, trees, things growing on the walls, and hanging off the walls. The shooting opportunities were endless. And the scene kept changing as the sun moved up. I think I got my best shot of the week at this location – a log under a waterfall, with a spotlight sunbeam. I learned later that I should have had my polarizer on the camera to reduce the glare – but I still love this shot.
Taking this photography workshop was totally worthwhile! I learned a lot and made some new photography friends. Ian was very knowledgeable and shared a lot of information (I’d recommend taking a workshop from him). My head is overflowing with details and things I want to practice. I’m making some time before the workday starts to go to the reserve near our house and take some photos. Partly to practice some of what I’ve learned, and partly to see if I can get some good shots of the Torrey Pine trees in the morning fog. Most importantly, I’m having a lot of fun trying to get better pictures!
Checkerboard Mesa at sunset was the perfect location for our first day of class!
We stayed at the Historic Pioneer Lodge for this trip. It was a wonderful place – recently renovated, with clean and comfortable rooms. The lodge is located in Springdale, right outside the entrance to Zion National Park. You can get more details at their website. Springdale is full of galleries, places to stay and a good variety of eating establishments. You can find a detailed listing of all of that and more here.
Dear Reader: I’m interested in how you do things, please share!
What kinds of workshops or classes have you taken, and how have they changed, or helped, your photography?
[SBW1]Not sure what this means.