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Greetings,
Well autumn has finally arrived in the Pacific Northwest. We’ve already had a couple of decent storms and it’s rather blustery as I write this. My Seahawks have been giving the region ulcers, but our Mariners are close to making it to the playoffs for the first time in 20 years. The world is topsy-turvy.
I’ve got lots to share this month: 2022 workshops, including a new workshop destination, updates for Backlight from The Turning Gate, and John Barclay and I have scheduled our 2022 auroras photo tours to Yellowknife.
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One space remaining in White Sands workshop
Want to join a small group of photographers (limited to six) with two instructors in one of the country’s most beautiful and graphic landscapes? Sure, you do. But there’s only one space remaining.
The workshop, co-led with Cliff Zenor, is December 8-12. For more details, visit the White Sands page on my Workshops site.
Cliff and I will also be co-leading a workshop to Bosque del Apache the week before White Sands. More information can be found here.
Image above by Cliff Zenor
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New workshop! Great Smoky Mountains National Park
 Next April I’ll be teaming with Cliff Zenor for a workshop in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. You’ve probably seen the pictures of rushing streams in green forests, woodland wildflowers, and vistas of stacked mountains marching away in the distance.
Now’s your chance to photograph it all with a small group, limited to six, and two instructors!
See my Smoky Mountains page for more.
Image by Cliff Zenor
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Olympic National Park in the spring
My spring Olympic National Park workshop is now open for registration. The dates are May 17-22, which is a day longer than I normally make it. That’s because next year’s trip will be based out of Forks and Port Angeles.
The bulk of the workshop is based in Forks where we’ll visit rain forests, waterfalls, Lake Crescent and, of course, the ocean beaches.
The last night of the workshop will be spent in Port Angeles so we’ll have the chance to visit Hurricane Ridge for both a sunset and a sunrise.
We won’t find any wildflowers and likely no deer at the top of Hurricane Ridge in May (the meadows will likely still be covered in snow), but we could have mountain views and fog. Or clouds and peaks. Or magic light. Or all three. Frankly, some of my favorite images from Olympic have come from traveling the road to the top early in the morning and photographing tree islands in the fog or cloud shrouded peaks like in the image above, photographed in May of 2017.
This workshop is limited to six participants.
To learn more and to sign up, visit my Olympic in the Spring workshop page.
Note: this is a different workshop than the one I'm co-leading with John Barclay in July. In July, we'll see wildflowers and deer on Hurricane Ridge and we'll visit lavender farms in nearby Sequim. In July it's warmer and there's less of a chance of rain. The July workshop is limited to 12.
But in May, the water level in the streams and waterfalls is higher, things are greener because the hot weather hasn't hit yet, and the weather could be more...interesting. Which can make for more dramatic sunsets on the coast. The park just looks different in May than it does in July. And it's less crowded too! Plus the workshop is limited to six.
The July workshop is sold out, but if you want on the waiting list for that trip, contact John to get on the waiting list. More information on the July workshop can be found here.
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Palouse 2022
My 2022 Palouse workshop is also now open for registration. I’ll be co-leading this trip with Cliff Zenor. The workshop is limited to eight participants. Dates are June 14-19, based out of Colfax, WA.
For more information and to sign up, visit my Palouse page!
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New from the Turning Gate
 The Turning Gate (TTG) has just released Backlight 4.1 web authoring software for photographers. Backlight 4.1 has a number of fixes, updates and new features. One of my favorite new features is the Essay album template.
With Essay, I can mix text and images within an album. There are options for inserting single images or a grid of thumbnail images. I can have some text, a group of images, some more text, then more images, more text, etc.
When clicking on the images, you’re taken to a larger version of the image.
This is a great way to tell a story.
My first foray into creating an essay album (other than the early tests) is to share my thinking while creating the landscape image above, from Death Valley. You can read and see the story here.
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Lessons
I’ve added the above mentioned essay to the series of lessons I’ve created on my website. Lessons, you say? Why yes. I have an entire section of my website dedicated to photography lessons.
I haven’t mentioned in in this newsletter for a while so it seems a good time to mention it again.
It starts with my Back to Basics series that I initially created during the slide film days (the before times) and updated for digital.
I’ve also created several lessons from the field that deal with, well, dealing with things in the field.
And I have a small section on the possibilities of processing, which I really should add to.
You can access the Lessons pages on my website under the Info menu. Or just click here.
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Auroras 2022
John Barclay and I have picked dates for our 2022 Aurora Photo Tours:
September 20-27 and September 27-October 4.
Those registered for the cancelled 2021 tours will have first choice, but there may be some openings and there usually are cancellations as the year progresses. So if you’ve been wanting to photograph auroras, send John an email to inquire about any openings.
This tour can be tiring, what with staying up until the low single digits of the morning hours, but it’s also a lot of fun. Not only do we photograph auroras, we also photograph fall color, Old Town Yellowknife and more. The food in Yellowknife is great and the company is fantastic. John may even bring a guitar with him!
For some more information on the tours, take a peek at my Auroras tour page.
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In Closing
I have no new and exciting home projects to report on. Sorry to disappoint. So I guess that’s all for now.
Stay safe everyone and enjoy the fall color if you can! Here's one from a few years ago at Silver Falls State Park in Oregon.
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