|
Take your landscape photographs from so-so to spectacular!
My approach to teaching landscape photography can be summed up in eight words: Master the craft,
and the art will follow. For a landscape
photographer, the meaning of craft goes well beyond an understanding of photographic basics like aperture and shutter speed,
focus point and depth of field. It also includes the ability to locate promising subjects using topographic
maps and computerized mapping tools. These computer programs help photographers visualize how light will
play across the landscape and enable them to answer questions such as, "What is the best day in 2012 to photograph the
full moon rising through Utah's world-famous Delicate Arch at sunset?".
Mastering the craft also means learning about atmospheric optics, the science of how sunlight interacts with our atmosphere.
Atmospheric optics explains why the sky is often blue and sunsets are sometimes red. That knowledge
can help photographers seek out spectacular light. Understanding the science of light also permits the
knowledgeable photographer to predict where rainbows will appear. Atmospheric optics also explains why
the bow-shaped twilight wedge, the blue shadow of the Earth cast on the western sky just before sunrise, reveals that the
Earth is round even though you cannot directly observe the curvature of the horizon even from the summit of a 14,000-foot
peak. Most crucially,
mastering the craft includes an understanding of how the complexities of human vision affect the way we see the world and
the way we view art. To take just one example, our visual system can see a range of light intensities,
from brightest highlight to deepest shadow, of about 10,000 to 1. A photographic print can only reproduce
a range of light intensities of about 50 to 1. One of the fundamental problems for a landscape photographer
is finding the most believable and natural-looking way to compress the very broad range of tones we see in the real world
into the much narrower range of tones we can reproduce in a print. My workshops tackle this problem from
many angles, starting with exposure in the field and concluding with a variety of techniques in the digital darkroom.
These techniques include the "Rembrandt Solution," a technique pioneered by the 17th century master painter
that is still relevant in the digital age. Used properly, the Rembrandt Solution can create the illusion
of greater dynamic range in a print than actually exists.
2012 Workshops in Rocky
Mountain National Park Most of
my workshops are offered through the Rocky Mountain Nature Association, the non-profit educational and fund-raising arm of Rocky Mountain
National Park. March 2 (evening)
to March 4, 2012 June 15 (evening) to
June 17, 2012 August 17 (evening) to August 19, 2012 These workshops are intense, information-packed weekends that will help low-intermediate
to advanced photographers take the next step upward in their artistic development. Complete novices who have just purchased
their first digital camera will probably find the workshop too difficult. Students
will enjoy two sunrise shoots and one sunset shoot at prime locations in nearby Rocky Mountain National Park. Images
shot at sunrise each day will be evaluated in class later that afternoon, giving students immediate feedback on their efforts.
Each student will have a half-hour of one-on-one time
with the instructor. This time can be used for a portfolio review or to discuss any other aspect
of landscape photography that interests the student. Both film
and digital photographers are welcome, but film shooters should be aware that they will not be able to get film processed
in time to see it during the workshop. If possible, digital photographers should bring a laptop loaded with their favorite
image-editing software. All workshops will be based at
the Rocky Mountain Nature Association's Field Seminar and Conference Center in Estes Park, on the east side of Rocky Mountain
National Park. The $250 workshop fee does not include meals or lodging. These workshops are not sequential; the contents of
each weekend-long workshop will be identical. For more information on the seminars, please contact me at 303 499-3009 or email me. To register, please visit the Rocky Mountain Nature Association website or call 970 586-3262.
To download a PDF of the syllabus for any of my 2012
Rocky Mountain National Park workshops, please click the appropriate link below.
Syllabus for March 2-4, 2012, workshop
Syllabus for June 15-17, 2012, workshop
Syllabus for August 17-19, 2012, workshop
Santa Fe Photographic Workshops From January 23 to January 27, 2012, I will be teaching a five-day workshop called The Art and Science of
Landscape Photography in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This workshop will explore even more deeply the topics I introduce
in my workshops for the Rocky Mountain Nature Association. In the morning, students will listen to lectures and edit
their images in the school's top-flight computer laboratory. During the afternoon and evening, students will practice
what they've learned while shooting at the many scenic locations near Santa Fe. Students will also be offered an opportunity
for half an hour of one-on-one time with the instructor. This time can be used for a portfolio review or to discuss
any aspect of landscape photography that interests the student. The workshop fee is $995 plus a $40 location fee.
For more information, please visit Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, give me a call at 303 499-3009 or email me.
Ah Haa!
School for the Arts Workshop From Friday
evening, September 28 to midday Sunday,September 30, 2012, I will be teaching a landscape photography workshop called Photographing
Telluride's Spectacular Autumn. The workshop will be based at the Ah Haa! School for the Arts in Telluride, Colorado.
Telluride is in the heart of the San Juan Mountains, where the fall color display typically peaks at the end of
September. This workshop will combine ample field time with intensive classroom instruction on landscape photography.
The classroom content will be similar to that in my summer Rocky Mountain Nature Association workshops. The cost will
be determined in the weeks ahead. Please call 303 499-3009 or contact me for more information.
2012 Colorado Photography Festival The second annual Colorado Photography Festival will take place on August 11 and 12, 2012. At the
inaugural event in 2011, six professional nature photographers gave instruction in the classroom and in the field on all aspects
of nature photography, from capturing images in the field to optimizing them in Lightroom. Last year's instructors
were Grant Collier (the festival organizer), Glenn Randall, Nat Coalson, Steve Sieren, Andy Long and Dan Ballard.
The first day of the festival took place at the
Auraria campus in downtown Denver. All six instructors gave presentations on different subjects related to nature photography.
On the second day, each instructor led a workshop with up to 12 participants at one of the many scenic locations around Denver.
Participants had their choice of any of the six workshops. At the 2012 festival I will teach a one-day workshop called Mastering Dramatic Light: How to Make Great
Photographs of High-Contrast Scenes. The workshop will take place on Sunday, August 12. I will not be speaking
at the Saturday symposium.
The cost in
2011 was $250 for the entire weekend. Plans for 2012 are still evolving, and there may be additional events in
the days before and after the weekend of August 11 and 12. To get more information on the 2012 festival, please visit
http://www.coloradophotographyfestival.com/.
Online workshops taught through the Perfect Picture School of
Photography This spring I began teaching a four-week online course called
Mastering Dramatic Light: How to Make Great Photographs of High-Contrast Scenes. The workshop is offered
each month except December, starting on the first Friday of the month. When the workshop is over, students will
be able to approach any landscape subject, in any light, and be confident that they know how to photograph the scene so that
the final print has the range of tones they want throughout the image. The workshop costs $195. To obtain more information,
and to register, please visit the Perfect Picture website.
Here's what my students
have had to say about my workshops:
A+! Surpassed all my expectations! "Top-flight instructor - knew his material and,
even more importantly, knew how to teach it."
"I've been photographing for 10 years now, and I still
learned a ton in this class!" "Glenn was a very good instructor,
able to handle novices and experts in the same class, all of us learning something."
"I have taken photo seminars before from other instructors but Glenn was far superior. I learned
a lot more than I expected." "Glenn is an excellent instructor.
He explains the complex concepts in easy-to-understand language. He is very professional and cares very much about helping
the students." blank white text "He
is the one instructor I've had who is more interested in helping the students improve their photography skills rather than
taking good photos himself." "It was my first workshop ever
and I can't wait to sign up for more. I believe Glenn was a wonderful instructor and feel very honored that he
shared so much of his personal knowledge that he worked so long and hard to gain. That really is priceless in my book." "I
learned more in that one weekend at your workshop than I learned in five or six other workshops combined." "Awesome instructor! Great personalized and group instruction, expert knowledge. I appreciated
that he could explain the science and physics behind the topics and techniques he presented. This course gave me the
background to dive much further into digital photography." For more information, contact me by clicking here or calling
me at 303 499-3009.
|
