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About Andy

 

I am an avid adventurer, conservationist, teacher, and outdoor photographer whose photography celebrates the African landscape and its rich wildlife, people, and culture. My photographic safaris allow my travelers to not only enhance their understanding of photography, lighting, and wildlife, but to develop a life-long admiration for Africa ‘s beauty and culture.

Banana Republic recently used my photographs as the cornerstone of their Urban Safari campaign, and my images were seen in all 750 stores around the globe, as well as in their billboards, catalogs and annual report. I was also the winner of the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year in the ‘Wild Places’ category in 2008 and a highly commended in the ‘Creative Visions of Nature’ category in 2007.

I launched Gura Gear in 2008, in an attempt to deliver lightweight camera bags to the market. I was looking for a lightweight camera bag to hold all of my photographic gear, and there was nothing desirable on the market that suited my needs. After spending 2 years with many prototypes, the Gura Gear Kiboko bag was born. More products are now available on the Gura Gear web site.

 

 

 

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Entries in Santa Fe (4)

Friday
Mar262010

Adobe Lightroom & The Fine Art Digital Print

Workshop Date: October 7-10, 2010

Workshop Leaders: Andy Biggs and Michael Clark

Location: Hotel Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico

 

About The Workshop

This 4-day workshop will be a combined classroom workshop with outdoor photographic shoots. The workshop coincides with the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, which is the world’s largest balloon festival and will certainly be one of our photographic destinations. All classroom instruction will be centered around Adobe Photoshop Lightroom v3.x, as well as the craft of creating a fine art digital print.

Workshop Schedule

Day 1 - Morning
Lightroom introduction. The modules: Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print and Web

Day 1 - Afternoon
Portrait lighting sessions Part I, outdoors

Day 2 - Morning
Dawn Patrol: Early morning shoot at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

Day 2 - Afternoon
Lightroom and the Develop module

Day 3 - Morning
How to select inkjet papers
Printing from Lightroom and Photoshop

Computers will not be provided but participants with laptops are encouraged to bring them. Following along on your own laptop is a hands-on way of learning what is being taught in the classroom.

Day 3 - Afternoon
Portrait lighting sessions Part II, indoors

Day 4 - Morning
Dawn Patrol: Early morning shoot at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

Day 4 - Afternoon
Hands-on printing with current large format printers on the market. Paper provided by Moab Paper.
Participants leave with one fine art print of their own work!

 

About the Instructors
Michael Clark is an internationally published outdoor photographer specializing in adventure sports, travel and landscape photography. He produces intense, raw image of athletes pushing their sports to the limit and has risked life and limb on a variety of assignments to bring back stunning images of rock climbers, mountaineers, kayakers and mountain bikers in remote locations around the world. He contributes to National Geographic, National Geographic Adventure, Sports Illustrated, Outside, Men's Journal, Backpacker, Outdoor Photographer, Digital Photo Pro, Climbing, Alpinist, Rock and Ice, Bike Magazine and The New York Times among many others. You can see Michael's work at www.michaelclarkphoto.com.

Andy Biggs is an avid adventurer, conservationist, teacher, and outdoor photographer whose photography celebrates the African landscape and its rich wildlife, people, and culture. With a deep respect and understanding for African wildlife, Andy unfolds the world of the Serengeti onto our doorstep with striking emotional depth. His photographic safaris allow the traveler to not only enhance their understanding of photography, lighting, and wildlife, but to develop a life-long admiration for Africa 's beauty and culture.

The Cost
The cost of this workshop is $1250 per person (inclusive of light breakfasts either in our teaching space or in the field). The same rate applies for each participant regardless of whether they are doing photography and participating in the workshop, or not. A nonrefundable deposit of $350 is required to secure your spot on the workshop. Final balance will be due no later than September 1, 2010.

Please note: We will attempt to adhere to this itinerary as much as possible. However, certain conditions, such as bad weather, may necessitate changes in the itinerary. We reserve the right to alter any itinerary at any time, if necessary.

Accommodations
The classroom portion of the workshop will be held at the Hotel Santa Fe. We have negotiated a group rate that is discounted from their advertised prices if you would like to stay at Hotel Santa Fe. Please inquire if interested.

Transportation
Most major airlines service Albuquerque, New Mexico, which is approximately 60 miles south of Santa Fe. Once in Albuquerque, you can take one of the many shuttles to your hotel in Santa Fe. Shuttle costs are approximately $25 - $30. Rental cars are available in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and from the hotel. The Hotel Santa Fe is located in downtown Santa Fe, within walking distance to shopping, restaurants and entertainment.

We do not provide transportation during the workshop. Please plan ahead and reserve a rental car. Of course, we will share vehicles and car pool to make life easier for all of us. We are not responsible for reimbursement of non-refundable airline tickets in the event of a workshop cancellation.

Workshop Materials
All participants will be given a copy of Michael’s e-book entitled Adobe Photoshop Lightroom:
 A Professional Photographer's Workflow, which details his complete workflow from start to finish.

You will need to bring the following equipment with you:
• a 35mm digital SLR camera with interchangeable lenses
• a laptop computer with a USB memory key, DVD or external hard drive. Instructors will be using Mac.
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software installed on your computer (you can download the 30-day trial version of Lightroom before the workshop if you don’t already have the software.)
• Digital memory cards with a card reader (preferably CompactFlash or Secure Digital Cards)
• power adapters and cables for laptop and digital camera
• camera manual
• batteries and charger for rechargeable batteries

It is expected that you know how to download images from your camera to the laptop, know basic editing techniques using your software, and are able to organize the edited images for critique.

$350 to hold your place until September 1 with a deposit.

 

Testimonials from last year's workshop

"Thank you and Michael for a wonderful, educational, experienced based workshop in Santa Fe. Today I reread my notes from the classroom work and have been amazed at how deeply informative it was. Michael's Lightroom Book as well as yours about digital printing have given me a whole new level of understanding especially around the Lightroom Develop module as well as on the entire topic of printing and color management. I really appreciate how you and Michael showed your individual processes for image workflow. Comparing and contrasting both methods allowed me to take the best of both and adapt them to fit my needs. My increase in knowledge along with the additional hands on guidance we got in the three photo sessions for aspen fall colors, Albuquerque Balloon Festival, and Abiquiu landscape site, will enable me going forward to make the best photos I'm capable of producing. Showing the class the image evaluation image printed on many different papers was most informative as was printing a few of our individual "best" photos from the week.

Andy, I've taken several photography seminars over the past few years. Without a doubt your's has been the most informative, well organized, openly sharing event I've attended.


Thanks again for all your help and guidance. It's clear you don't hold back when teaching and sincerely want all attendees to get as much out of the seminars as we're able to absorb."



"Hi Andy & Michael,


It was a pleasure to meet you both and I enjoyed the workshop a lot. I found Michael's well written e-book and in-class lecture on Lightroom very informative and I gained new insight it's operation features that I wouldn't have discovered on my own. The full printing workflow has always been a mystery to me, and thus I dismissed printing and never did much of it. When I first signed up for the workshop I considered the "fine art printing" aspect to not be the main reason why I attended, but this was the part of the workshop that I learned the most from - Andy's explanations and experience helped me to appreciate and better understand the full workflow from the proper paper selection (I didn't realize there were so many choices) to correct evaluation of output and will serve to encourage me to print more of my pictures.

Thanks for the great workshop!"
 

"Your workshop at Santa Fe was too good and I came away with a lot of knowledge and renewed energy. The level of expertise that you and Michael shared was topnotch and I hope to repeat this experience again. Thanks for such a great workshop!"

"..my mind is still spinning and I can't help but smile every time I think of the wonderful experience garnered from our workshop. Between what I learned from the two of you, as well as from my talented classmates - this was a great experience, and I would do it again."

Wednesday
Oct142009

Behind the scenes photos from our Lightroom and the Fine Art Digital Print workshop

Here are some behind the scenes photographs from our most recent workshop. All images copyright ©2009 Michael Clark.

 

Indoor teaching session on fine art digital printing

 

On our first afternoon, we saw the first snowfall of the year up near the Santa Fe ski basin

 

Trevor, our resident gear hound, putting his Hasselbad to work

 

Liftoff at the Balloon Fiesta

 

We spent an afternoon taking a nice hike near Georgia O'Keefe's home at Abiquiu, New Mexico

Wednesday
Oct142009

Santa Fe workshop followup

I have just returned from a workshop that I co-led with friend and adventure photographer Michael Clark. The workshop was located in the city of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and over a 4-day period we had 4 outdoor photo shoots and 4 indoor lectures. The outdoor shoots were a mix between the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque and landscape locations near Santa Fe. The indoor lectures were split between Adobe Lightroom's Library and Development modules and ending up with a fine art digital printing lecture with hands-on printing.

We had 16 participants with both Michael and I as instructors, as well as 1 assistant. We based the workshop at Hotel Santa Fe, and we couldn't be any happier with their facilities, proximity to good culture and dining, as well as service.

I took both still photographs as well as high definition video during the workshop, and I have to say that shooting video is a whole different ball game. This was my first time to shoot any video, and the first thing that I learned was that I need to storyboard what I want to shoot before I even turn the camera on.

I am still processing video and some of the images from the workshop, and will post a few behind-the-scenes shots soon. Michael and I are working on doing similar workshops in Santa Fe in 2010, and we are putting the plans in place right now. Here are a few photos from the Balloon Fiesta:

 

Nikon D700, 14-24mm @ 14mm, 1/40 @ f/3.5, ISO 1250

 

Nikon D700, 14-24mm @ 18mm, 1/1250 @ f/8, ISO 400

 

Michael, Linda and Jim

D700, 24-70mm, 1/250 @ f/8, ISO 400. Pop-up fill-flash (notice the round shadow at the bottom? Don't use the lens hood when using the built-in flash on the D700 or D300!)

 

D700, 14-24mm @ 24mm, 1/250 @ f/5.6, ISO 800

 

D700, 24-70mm, 1/800 @ f/8, ISO 400

Tuesday
Aug252009

Santa Fe Photowalk

I am organizing a photowalk in Santa Fe, New Mexico on October 7, 2009. Since I am running a workshop with Michael Clark beginning on October 8, I figured it would be fun to organize a casual and fun photowalk of Santa Fe the day before our workshop begins.

The photowalk is open to anybody who would like to join us. Just bring along a camera, comfortable shoes, water and whatever else makes sense. We will meet up at 4mp at the gazebo in the Plaza, and will go from there. We don't have a pretermined path to walk, so please don't be late. In fact, just show up early and be ready to go by 4pm. I am confident that we will end up at a restaurant with good food and margaritas at sundown. :-)

You can read the offical photowalk information on the Photowalklist.com web site:

Santa Fe Photowalk, October 7, 2009

and followed by

Adobe Lightroom and the Fine Art Digital Print, October 8-11, 2009

Only a few spaces left for the workshop