
Woodland Ivy Vine, © Mark S. Peterson Photography
After postponing my annual Spring Wildflower and Landscape Photography workshop a week due to an unprecedented week of May snow in this region, a great group of participants came together at one of my favorite woodland wildflower locations for a productive day of learning and nature photography.
We started the day at Berry Woods Preserve, which was the first Nature Conservancy acquisition in Iowa, and is a gorgeous forest a few miles south of Des Moines in Warren County. A lovely variety of the wildflowers native to this area can be found here. The spring wildflowers in this region tend to be woodland wildflowers (prairie wildflowers, in general, bloom later in Iowa – we’ll catch that action in my Midwest Summer Prairie workshop next month!), and lucky for our group the unusually cold and snowy May caused a slightly delayed bloom this year. We had some fabulous specimens to photograph.
At lunch time we proceeded to nearby Warren County Conservation’s Lundy Acres, and spent the afternoon there working on landscape techniques. It was very windy, and the wind presented some challenges. The attraction of this location is that it is also a native, unspoiled forest. It presented a strong challenge to those photographers experienced with shooting manicured or man-made landscapes, and forced participants to deal with the chaos of nature – working within that chaos to create simple, meaningful compositions. Some participants rose valiently to the challenge; others struggled to find their vision for the site. We worked on this through the afternoon, and some great images resulted.
Check out the fabulous work submitted by some of our participants below, and head on over to our Peterson Photo Workshops Flickr Group to see an even larger selection.
And here are a few behind-the-scenes looks at our workshop participants, hard at work!
Thanks to all of you who participated, I had a great time working with you – and congrats on creating some stellar nature photographs!





After working with several great groups of photographers at my January and February photography workshops, I’m now prepping some brand new images and content for my next photography workshop – Intro to Digital SLR Photography – 12:00-4:00pm, March 2, 2013 in Des Moines, IA.
Thanks to everyone who has registered for one or more of my photography workshops since I announced the 2013 dates just a couple short weeks ago. Registration has been the most active of any workshop year to date, with some events coming within a couple seats of filling the first week they were available. Some photographers are signing up for their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th Peterson Photo Workshop this season – thank you, I greatly appreciate your interest and support!
I’ve received a few email questions about registration for my upcoming workshops at Octagon Center for the Arts in Ames:
After a busy end-of-2012 season, a few days off over the holidays, and an international project just after the first of the year, I’m pleased to announce that I’ve posted my 2013 calendar of photography workshops. I’m again offering a full range of classes this year, ranging from Intro to DSLR Photography for photographers new to the DSLR world, to full-day field workshops that will appeal to advanced and professional photographers.
I have scheduled two half-day Digital SLR photography workshops at
Thanks to everyone that helped make 2012 a very fun photographic year. I enjoyed shooting with some fabulous new and old commercial, editorial, and portrait clients, and had a great time working with many dozens of new and returning workshop participants. Thanks for putting your trust in me for your imaging and for your photographic instruction!
Just a quick post to mention the great fun – and to thank the awesome participants – at yesterday’s iPhone Photo Adventure in West Des Moines. We had a fabulous group join us in hip Valley Junction, and had a blast shooting, editing, and sharing iPhone art!
Last weekend’s Autumn Color photography workshops at Ledges State Park were great fun, with a fantastic group of photographers on both days. Both Saturday and Sunday started with a bit of trepidation for a few photographers in each group, due to pouring rain as we assembled in the dark to prepare our gear.
In this crazy summer/fall season so far, I haven’t done a very good job of blogging info about events and happenings. One great event is coming up right away: