During this workshop participants will learn the techniques to make great images of waterbirds. Bosque del Apache is one of the premiere bird photography sites in North America. In the winter it's home to up to 20,000 wintering cranes and 50,000 wintering Snow and Ross's Geese. The foothill mountain backdrops and beautiful sunrises and sunsets make for fantastic images. An emphasis will be placed on learning how to photograph birds in flight on this workshop, including techniques for handholding large lenses. In addition to learning a great deal participants should take home a lot of wonderful images from this workshop.
Leaders: Nate Chappell is an expert at handholding large lenses to obtain great images of birds in flight. He will teach you all of his techniques for this including how to use manual exposure to ensure consistent exposures. Gorazd Golob is an excellent photographer from Slovenia who regularly leads photo tours to South Africa.
Itinerary:
December 4, 2010 - Arrive at Socorro, New Mexico. We will be staying at the Socorro, New Mexico Best Western. Arrive and check in by 5pm. This evening we will all go out to dinner together and Nate will give a slide show on photographing birds at Bosque detailing different techniques he used for the photographs he has taken there. This will be an opportunity for participants to ask questions and prepare for the 3 and half days of shooting.
December 5-7, 2010 3 full days of shooting at Bosque del Apache NWR. Our main targets will be the wintering Sandhill Cranes, Snow Geese and Ross's Geese. In addition it's a very good location for photographing other waterfowl especially dabbling ducks such as shoveler, pintail, teal, etc. The auto tours usually produce a fair amount of raptors as well as roadrunners and other species. Around the headquarters smaller birds such as Northern Cardinal and Mountain Bluebird can be found. Nate and Gorazd will be available to answer all of your photography questions and guide you to help you get the best possible images from the trip. In the evenings and/or at midday we will review some of the photos we took during the day.
December 8, 2010 One more morning of photographing at Bosque and then depart back to Socorro and home about 10am.
Fees: The fee for the workshop is $1,245. The fee includes lodging, workshop instruction, guiding and permits. It does not include meals or transportation. If a nonphotographer spouse/companion would like to come along on the workshop the fee is only $100 for the nonphotographer, this includes lodging. A $400 deposit is required to hold your spot for the workshop. Please email Nate at nchappell@trogontours.net and he will send you the sign up sheet.
Number of participants: Maximum of 8
Equipment needed: At times you will be quite close to the birds, however the minimum size lens that you would want to have would be 300mm. We have one Nikon and one Canon lens available to be lent out to tour participants.
Transportation: You will need your own car, however we will carpool as much as possible locally at Bosque. If you are flying into the area the closest airport is Albuquerque, NM, which is about 1 hour from Socorro.