Meeting Location: Socorro, NM. I have secured a room block for our Bosque Group and the VLA Option. After booking your trip, you will need to contact me to get a unique booking code for our hotel. I will give you the contact info and booking code to reserve your room. The room block will be checked in on 30 November and checked out on 5 December.

Note: If you sign up for the VLA Add-On for Session # 1, the VLA visit will occur on Friday, the 4th of December. We will leave the hotel around 12:30 PM for the one-hour drive to the VLA site.  If you do not attend the VLA extension, then you are free to depart on Friday, the 4th of December.

Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, a true natural wonder, is in San Antonio, Socorro County, New Mexico. Situated between the majestic Chupadera Mountains to the west and the serene San Pascual Mountains to the east, the 57,331-acre Bosque del Apache was established in 1939 to provide a critical stopover site for migrating waterfowl. The refuge is a sight to behold, with tens of thousands of cranes, geese, and ducks that winter here each year. Over 30,000 acres of Bosque del Apache are designated wilderness, a testament to its untouched beauty.

Fantastic location: I will not just take you to the prominent shoot locations, as you would with most workshops. Instead, we'll most likely see several of my favorite "hidden places" I found while serving in the Air Force. We will get off the paved roads for part of our time.

Flexible and advanced learning: This workshop focuses on making compelling landscape photos, emphasizing landscape and wildlife composition. We'll discuss both theory and practical application in great detail, and together, we'll take these concepts from the classroom and bring them to the field. We'll discuss various topics, including classic near-far landscape compositions, successful use of leading visual elements, visual progression, extreme perspectives, scouting techniques, depth-of-field, focus stacking techniques, and the importance of weather, light, and dramatic skies. Understanding animal behavior for this workshop is essential to capture stunning images. Please spend a few minutes observing the birds in their habitat. We'll also discuss digital darkroom techniques for optimizing your landscape photos. I aim to ensure that the photographic opportunities are intense and rewarding, the critique sessions are constructive, and the overall experience is friendly and enjoyable. 

Workshop location: The workshop is based in Socorro, NM, about 76 miles south of Albuquerque, NM, where we will conduct all classroom activities. We'll make several daily trips to the Wildlife Refuges for photography. You may choose to fly into El Paso, TX, but this will be a 190-mile drive. 

Physical requirements: As we venture off the beaten path, we'll be walking and standing frequently during this workshop. While we won't stray more than a few hundred feet from our vehicles, the terrain in Bosque Del Apache is predominantly flat, with the possibility of muddy or marshy conditions if it rains. Those in decent physical condition will find the walking to be easy to moderate. For those with mobility issues or in poor shape, this workshop is designed to be more manageable than most, as we'll always be in close proximity to our vehicles. We'll be waiting and observing the variety of birds that flock to this location for the winter. You don't need to be an athlete for this workshop, but if you have any physical limitations, please reach out to me before registering so we can discuss the basic physical requirements. 

We meet in the afternoon in the hotel lobby at 6:00 PM for an initial "meet and greet" event. I will give an opening presentation, provide an overview of the workshop activities, answer questions, and make plans for the morning shoot. Afterward, we'll head out for a group dinner (time and place to be determined).

Be prepared for three full days of intense workshop activities! We will photograph sunrise and bird blast-offs every morning, spending 2-4 hours in the field working on composition techniques. After the morning shoot, we return to the Hotel for classroom activities throughout the day (with meals and personal breaks as appropriate). Classroom activities will include presentations about landscape composition techniques, digital darkroom processing, and daily critique sessions. In the late afternoon, we head back into the field for our sunset photography session. Sometimes, we spend more time in the field if storms sweep through to capture dramatic stormy skies. Please note that we'll leave for sunrise very early (shortly after 5 a.m.), and sunset is very early (we won't be back until past 7 p.m.), so you won't get much sleep at night. We schedule extra breaks during the very long days so everyone can nap and try to catch up on lost sleep!

Please consider the VLA Option. What an amazing place to visit. The VLA site is 50 miles west on Highway 50, in Magdalena, NM. There is a gift shop and a small fee for the tour, but it is well worth it. We will visit the site and after our tour, we will drive around the perimeter looking for various shooting locations. You may consider having your telephoto lens for this visit and we can also plan for some timelapse and astrophotography weather permitting. If we set up for a timelapse, we may very well captures a stunning video of the array being calibrated.


NOTE: The VLA is open 7 days a week from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM. We will need to leave the hotel by 1:00 PM  to give us time to drive out to the VLA and have time to walk around the site. We have to be off the property by 4:00PM unless I can get permission to photograph later than closing time.