Coming up June 30 on the lovely Midwestern prairie –  a full day of nature photography field education while photographing summer prairie wildflowers, plants, insects and other fauna, and the classic Midwest prairie landscape! If you enjoy nature photography, please consider joining us for our next Midwest Nature Photography Field Workshop!

This summer workshop is always one of my favorites – we’ll begin very early (before sunrise!) at one of my favorite “hidden gem” locations for amazing Midwest summer prairie  photography – smack-dab in the “Middle of Nowhere” in rural Marshall County, Iowa (near – you guessed it – a town called Marshalltown).  The focus of this workshop is on creating macro images, nature “portraits,” and prairie landscapes.

The objective of this workshop is to help photographers build solid field macro and landscape photography techniques.  We’ll photograph wildflowers such as Purple Coneflower, Prairie Phlox, Prairie Blazing Star, Blue Vervain, White Campion, and numerous others [*see note].  Likewise, in the morning, opportunities to photograph dew-laden insects will likely abound.  We’ll photograph the classic summer prairie, and oak savannah natural landscapes.  Additionally, those who photograph birds may want to bring their bird lens, as well – finches and other prairie birds are common at this location. Participants will leave in the evening with a portfolio of strong photos, new skills, and probably some new photo friends from the area!

[*note: there is no guarantee that we'll be able to photograph each of these wildflower species, but all are regularly found at these locations during this general timeframe.  Actual blossoms the week of our workshop, of course, will depend on local conditions which vary year-to-year]

Like all of our workshops, group size is kept small to allow individual attention and instruction. Your instructor(s) will not photograph their own work during the workshop – the focus is on helping participants to maximize their photo skills. Instructor photography is for technique demonstration only.

Location

Exact meeting location and maps will be emailed to participants prior to the event – our starting point is approximately 45 minutes Northeast of Des Moines in rural Marshall County, Iowa.

Timing

As with most nature photography, the best shooting times are morning and late-afternoon/evening. We will meet around sunrise, and photograph until mid-morning. The middle, high-sun portion of the day will be used for discussion, hands-on education, and technique practice. We will then again actively photograph when the sun is a little lower in the sky during the afternoon.

What to bring

Photo Gear: A Digital SLR camera, normal- , wide-angle, and telephoto- lenses, and a dedicated macro lens if you have one!  A sturdy tripod and plenty of media cards for a full day of shooting are also essential.  If you do not own a tripod, you will want one, but please contact me before purchasing one!

Appropriate clothing and safety gear: dress in layers. You’ll probably want long pants and long sleeves due to brush, bugs, and burrs part of the day.  Comfortable shoes, hiking boots, or rubber hunting boots (we will be off-trail much/most of the time, and the prairie floor can be very wet). Bug spray. A hat. Sunblock. Rain gear – just in case. Plenty of water.

Please note that the locations we will work may be drenched with summer dew in the morning, and will almost certainly contain a few hazards like burrs and mosquitos – come prepared!

Snacks and bottled water will be provided, but you should also bring water, as well. An option will be available to pre-order a fantastic boxed lunch at nominal cost.

Registration

Feel free to download our full 2012 workshop info here.

Workshop cost is $99 per person and covers a complete day of field instruction, and snacks and drinks.

Please use our contact form to receive complete information and registration materials!

In past years this workshop has filled quickly, and the date is fast approaching – register now to reserve your spot!

Questions?

Please don’t hesitate to contact us with your questions about this fun field event!

Thanks for reading, and thanks for your interest in the Midwest Nature Photography Field Workshop Series!

This workshop is targeted at participants who have either taken our “Intro to DSLR Photography” class, another SLR photo workshop, or who have a firm grasp of their DSLR and it’s capabilities. This workshop moves beyond the basics of camera settings, and we’ll work hands-on on the streets of Ames to explore creative SLR techniques. Regardless of your level of skill with your DSLR, we’re pretty sure this workshop will help move your SLR photography to the next level.

Participants should bring their camera, lenses, accessories, and a tripod if they have one (it’s okay if you don’t have a tripod, but after an afternoon of shooting with us, you’ll see why a tripod may be your most important accessory!).

Join us for a fun afternoon of photography while firmly advancing your skill with your camera!

This collection of baby shower crafts was created by craft designer (and Fiskars Scissors “Fiskateer”) Lisa Storms. The models pictured are a combination of semi-professional models based in the Des Moines, Iowa area (home of Meredith Corp’s Better Homes & Gardens magazine group) and staffers at the company. Make-up and hair were done by stylist Aurilla Goldsmith of Auriginal Designs. Set styling was by Tari Colby, and the shoot was art directed by Deb Berger. Here are some of those photos, and a few additional images that didn’t appear in the magazine or on the website. Enjoy!

Good afternoon! Here are a few more details about my upcoming iPhone Photography workshop ~ iPhone Photography Adventure! ~ May 5 at Octagon Center for the Arts in Ames! It’s the third workshop in my Spring 2012 Digital Photography Workshop Series at the Octagon. Here’s the scoop on the session!

The iPhone has been widely heralded as the first smartphone that finally offered a credible built-in camera – or, some would rather say it’s a fabulous point-and-shoot camera with a built-in phone. Regardless of how you view it, the iPhone’s image quality - particularly that of the newer models - is competitive with, or even better than, many point-and-shoot cameras. And with so many Apps and image-sharing services such as Instagram available for the device, image capture, manipulation, and sharing with the iPhone have become amazingly fun!

This 3-hour workshop is designed to help the iPhone user master the phone’s camera and become familiar with a suite of photography Apps that will allow you to have an absolute blast taking, manipulating, and sharing iPhone photos!

We will begin by covering techniques of shooting the camera using professional photo techniques, and will explore a collection of the more capable available photography and image-manipulation Apps. Whether you want to create photo-realistic snapshots or creative art; whether you want sleek, modern looks, or retro/vintage grunge; whether you want to share your images online, via a mobile device, or to make prints (Gasp – yes, it’s possible!); there will be something for you in this session!

We’ll build a portfolio of iPhone photos when we venture out to an eclectic mix of fun Ames locations to photograph a variety of subjects while discussing camera-handling techniques, composition, and lighting. With a collection of newly-created images, we’ll return to the Octagon’s North Studio to post-process and share our masterpieces – all on our iPhones.

Participants should bring their iPhone and have an Apple ID to download Apps during the session. Note that while some of the Apps we’ll cover are free, others may cost $3.00-4.00 each depending on your imaging tastes.

Registration materials for this workshop are available on the Octagon website, here.

Thanks for reading! If you’re in the area and are an iPhone user, I hope you’ll join us for this fun event!

A note about these photos: The images in the above gallery were captured with my iPhone 4s, and manipulated with an assortment of Apps that we’ll discuss and use in the May 5 class. The above images were cropped into the square format for sharing on the Instagram photo-sharing service. I happen to really like the square image format - it reminds me of the fun I used to have working with my medium format Rolleiflex film cameras, which also produced square photographs! I also happen to really like textured images with rough borders and a grungy overall look. But that’s just my style – participant workshop images won’t necessarily be square, or textured, or grungy – participants will leave the workshop with the tools to share photos that express their own artistic style!

I’ve recently added a session of my popular Intro to Digital SLR Photography Workshop to my spring workshop schedule. It’s this Saturday, April 21, 2:00-5:00pm at Octagon Center for the Arts, 427 Douglas Ave, in downtown Ames, Iowa.

We just added this to the calendar a week or so ago, but my workshops at the Octagon fill fast so don’t hesitate to register if interested! As far as I know there are still seats available as of today! We’ve pushed the start time on this one back so those of you in Ames can enjoy your VEISHEA parade and still have time to get over to the Octagon for a fun afternoon of photography! (For those of you reading that are not from around here, Ames is a Big-12 college town, home of Iowa State University, and “VEISHEA” is a week-long annual spring festival that’s one of the university’s historic traditions).

Who should attend? This seminar is targeted at those new to SLR photography – though experienced shooters are also welcome -  who want to understand and master their digital SLR. The session is based on the premise that you can’t get consistent and predictable results with your photography until you take control of your camera – and you can’t do that until you understand why the various settings do what they do!

We will thoroughly explore basic (and a few advanced) camera settings that will allow you to understand those settings so that you can obtain consistent and predictable results – and no longer merely click the button and hope you got what you wanted!

The session starts with my “10 Must-Know Controls and Settings” that every SLR photographer must learn in order to consistently get photos you want! We’ll also explore artistry in photography, a few compositional “rules,” and discuss optimal accessories and lenses that will help you grow in photography.

A few of the specific topics we’ll cover:

• File Formats (should I shoot jpeg? tiff? RAW? And why?)
• Understanding exposure (ISO, shutter speeds, and f/stops and how they work together)
• Technically correct exposures vs. artistically correct exposures
• Your camera’s Exposure modes
• Focus modes and when to use which
• Understanding metering patterns
• Composition basics
• Understanding your histogram
• What to, and not to, buy next as your interest in photography grows

Is that a long list? Yes! But it’s all so fun!

And this is a fun, fast-paced, hands-on workshop that alternates between classroom discussion and active studio shooting situations where participants will practice new skills with hands-on instruction.

More details and registration for this workshop (as well as several other workshops I’ll be doing at the Octagon in upcoming weeks) are available here.  Advance registration is required, so if interested, reserve your spot today!

Finally, speaking of other workshops, if you’re interested in this one, you may also want to consider my “Intermediate DSLR Photography” workshop as a “next step” – also coming up at the Octagon on May 26. Those who complete the Intro workshop or who have a solid basic understanding of their DSLR are eligible for that one. Details are here.

Intro to Digital SLR Photography ~ April 21
Octagon Center for the Arts, Ames, Iowa

Introduction to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom ~ April 28
Octagon Center for the Arts, Ames, Iowa

iPhone Photography Adventure! ~ May 5
Octagon Center for the Arts, Ames, Iowa

Intermediate Digital SLR Photography ~ May 26
Octagon Center for the Arts, Ames, Iowa

The Midwest Summer Prairie ~ June 30
Field Workshop – Central Iowa

Studio & Natural Light Table-Top Photography ~ July 13
Studio Workshop – Des Moines, Iowa

Portrait Lighting for Studio & Location Portraiture ~ August 18
Studio Workshop – Des Moines, Iowa

Living History Farms Photography Day ~ September 15-16
Living History Farms, Urbandale, Iowa

Midwest Autumn Color ~ October 13 & 14
One-day event – due to heavy demand I’m repeating this one on two back-to-back weekend dates. Field Workshop delivered at a fabulous Midwest state park at the peak of Iowa’s fall color season!

Midwest Landscapes & Migrating Birds ~ November 17-18
Two-Day Weekend Field workshop, DeSoto NWR near Omaha, NE

Info for the April and May offerings at Octagon Center for the Arts can be found HERE.

For detailed info on the field workshops, please use our CONTACT FORM.

I’ve totally updated the workshops this year and am looking forward to a fun series! Thanks for your interest!

But, having come from a creative household (as a small child my parents ensured that I took art classes at the local community art center, making everything from clay sculptures to paper kites)  it has been fascinating to learn about how these items are made, and to photograph them to make them editorially and artistically compelling for the magazines, books, and websites on which they’ll be used.

This work has also been interesting because it has required me to pull together photographic skills I’ve mastered in other areas. Specifically, the images I’ve created for BHG have called upon macro photography skills and mastery of depth-of-field principals, a variety of studio and location lighting techniques, portrait techniques, and in some cases masterful post-processing.

Below are a few of the images and magazine covers I’ve produced for BHG recently. Note that there are two February covers for the Scrapbooking title – the publisher was conducting a test of newsstand sales using different cover concepts, and I was asked to produce both covers. I hope you enjoy browsing the small sampling of this work below -  it’s been much fun creating the images!

I photographed these beautiful cupcakes (truly delectable despite primary ingredients consisting of styrofoam balls, adhesive, and baker’s twine) during a recent studio session to create a cover image for the April 2012 issue of a popular crafting magazine.

After completing an image styled for the magazine’s cover, my assistant and I plated the cupcakes on these vintage cake stands and set them in the sunny studio window. It was a lovely autumn morning, and the warm sunlight streaming through the window of the old studio storefront lent to the vintage styling of the set-up.

I photographed the image using a Nikon D3 and 200mm AF-D Micro-Nikkor lens mounted to a Kirk BH-1 ballhead on a Studio Titan camera stand. Shooting tethered via Nikon Camera Control Pro 2 directly into Lightroom allowed me to view the images large on a Dell studio monitor (my usual set-up for editorial and commercial studio work) to ensure I had exactly the image I wanted before moving to another composition. Post-processing in Photoshop, I added a texture layer and the rough frame edge to complete the vintage look.

Bon appetit!

Our popular annual Autumn Color photography workshops are fast approaching – and there are still spots available. This year we are expanding the Midwest Nature Photography Field Workshops fall color events to include another fabulous Iowa location – Wildcat Den State Park!

Saturday, October 15, we’ll be offering our one-day field workshop at the gorgeous Wildcat Den State Park, near Muscatine, Iowa. This lovely state park is conveniently located about 30-minutes West of Davenport, 1 hour Southeast of Iowa City, or 2 hours 40 minutes East of Des Moines. It features a variety of fabulous nature photography subjects, and a historic stream-side mill.

Sunday, October 23, we’ll then be returning to the beautiful Ledges State Park in Boone County (about 30 minutes North of Des Moines) for another one-day field workshop. The Ledges has been a highly productive workshop location for us in past years! This park’s mix of prairie, cliffs, and deep valley streams make a marvelous location for our workshop participants. Central Iowa photographers won’t want to miss this opportunity to shoot with us!

The itinerary for each Autumn Color workshop begins early, with a quick pre-dawn get-acquainted meeting, and then we move right into a very packed day of hands-on photography, creating beautiful fall color photographs until dusk!

Topics covered include both basic and advanced topics of outdoor nature photography, including exposure, selective focus, composition, proper field technique, numerous creative techniques, equipment and gear, and much more.  Our experienced instructors are hands-on and do not shoot their own images in the field; rather, they focus 100% of their efforts on assisting participants to learn proper technique and to create fantastic images. Our goal is to help you return from the field at the end of the day with a collection of publication-quality autumn color photographs including landscapes, close-up or macro images, and evocative artistic images.

Our Autumn Color one-day field workshops generally sell out and have a waiting list! We keep group size small to ensure plentiful individual attention and to allow the group to move from location to location in the park without difficulty. If interested in joining us for one or both days, please contact us right away for more information and to reserve your spot! Please note that our workshops are targeted at SLR users – digital or film.

For more information, please see this link. For questions or to register, please contact us right away! Registrants will receive complete itinerary, details of the day, packing list, and a list of recommended nearby hotels, prior to the event.

As always, thanks for your interest in the Midwest Nature Photography Field Workshop Series. See you in the Field!