Focus on Tropical Botanicals—A Photo Workshop
with Steven Foster, 12-18 May 2010
The American Botanical Council (ABC) presents a photo workshop with acclaimed botanical photographer and herbalist Steven Foster, at Finca Luna Nueva Lodge in Costa Rica from May 12-18, 2010. Spend six nights at the beautiful facilities at Finca Luna Nueva Lodge, an ecolodge and Certified Biodynamic herb farm in the heart of the Costa Rican rainforest, located, just ten miles from one of the world's most active volcanoes, the Arenal Volcano.
Plants provide more than simple visual aesthetics. Photography offers an excellent medium to begin to explore simple beauty and gaining a deeper understanding of how to relate to plants.
We will focus on techniques for improving your plant photography. Rather than dry optical theory or studio techniques, we will spend most of our time on techniques for field work.
ANYONE CAN TAKE GREAT PHOTOGRAPHS! JOIN US NO MATTER WHAT YOUR SKILL LEVEL. IT'S NOT THE CAMERA THAT COUNTS. WORKSHOP REQUIREMENTS: ENTHUSIASM TO LEARN AND ENJOY A FABULOUS TROPICAL VENUE
REGISTRATION FORM (PDF) or REGISTRATION FORM (WORD FILE)
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Call Steven Foster at: 479-981-2136 for further details.
Call Steven Foster at 479-981-2136 for More details
Workshop fee of only $1250 (double occupancy) includes 6 nights, meals, and airport transfers. Roundtirp airfare from your originating airport to San Jose, Costa Rica (SJO) is additional.
Workshop Structure
The best way to improve your photographic skills, like many things worth doing is "practice, practice, practice." Shoot anything and everything. During our time at Finca Luna Nueva we will have up to 90 minutes of classroom time in the morning, then head to the field and shoot. The schedule will remain flexible depending upon light, weather and the needs of participants.
After taking photographs for a couple of hours, we will download images and spend some time reviewing and critiquing results then head back to the field to do some more shooting. One day will include a field trip to the Arenal volcano (usually active daily). We are going to build plenty of time into our schedule to enjoy the beautiful natural surroundings, sounds of the rainforest, and just being in this lush, fabulous location. You may want to take a walk, read, hop in the hot tub or pool or treat yourself to a massage.
Workshop Content
We will explore working with ambient natural light and making the most of the equipment you have.
One key to successfully capturing images is to know and understand your equipment, and learning to keep your photography simple. For plant photography, you will need a camera body, close-up lens (macro lens or diopter for a fixed lens), and the single most important piece of equipment – a tripod. A wide-angle lens and a telephoto lens (at least 200 mm, for a 35 mm camera body) will also enhance your enjoyment of taking plant and flower photos. If you don't have this equipment, don't worry. You can take great photographs with whatever camera you own, even a digital point and shoot camera that cost you less than $100.00!
Assessing our equipment. Don’t be intimidated by the fact that you don’t have thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment. You can get good photographic results with the equipment you have, even if just a 50 mm normal lens and basic 35 mm camera. However, one important piece of equipment besides your camera, and a hopefully a good marco lens or lens with close-up capability, is a tripod. Photographing plants invariably requires relatively long exposures, so besides the camera itself, a decent sturdy tripod is essential for wildflower photography in general. Another piece of equipment that you will want to long exposures is a cable release. One other very essential piece of equipment is your camera manual. Read, re-read it and read it again until you begin to understand all of the features available to you as well as the camera's basic operation. If you don't understand something in the manual, highlight the item or write down a question to bring to the workshop. It really does take reading the manual several times to understand it. Remember that most camera manual are probably written by an engineer with English as a third language. . . .
Finding a subject and knowing what you are shooting. Anyone can take a photograph of a beautiful flower. If you want to find great subjects, especially plants, you have to know what you’re looking for and where to find it. Finca Luna Nueva offers exciting photographic opportunities simply by stepping outside any structure on the property. We will also discuss the ethics of plant conservation and “gardening” to create a more pleasing composition. The key to ethical wildflower photography is “leave no trace.”
We will also look at images and talk about elements that make them interesting compositions, or a technically good photograph. Feel free to bring some of your own work!
Technique will be covered including helping to understand depth of field, focus, exposure, composition, making the most of ambient light, and macro techniques.
You took a great picture. Now what? In this new era of digital photography, snapping the shutter is only the first step. We will discuss various digital workflows once you have captured images and downloaded them to your computer, with information on useful software, file formats, keywording and meta data, color space, equipment calibration, and other steps necessary for creating the best output for prints, the web, electronic media, and publication.
