Landscapes, Travel, Wildlife and People
We hit the Colorado elk rut at prime time to photograph elk behavior. We saw males fighting, bugling and tossing vegetation on their antlers, all in hopes of attracting females. Check out our trip report by clicking on this link: Trip Report Link
With our 2022 schedule starting to fill we just added 3 new workshops including Hummingbirds in Ecuador and a Creative Portrait Lighting Workshop in Fort Collins coming up soon.
Thanks for reading our posts!
Tom and Cree
Tom and I had a very busy spring and summer leading workshops and are happy to be traveling again. We will be returning to Alaska in a week for our last Brown Bear Workshop then plan to head to Minnesota with our canoe for some downtime.
After three months of wildlife workshops in Yellowstone, Alaska and Arizona, we decided to offer a few online, wildlife editing classes. These are designed to help folks refine their editing and workflow when staring down hundreds of images after a workshop.
Details: Do you ever get back from a wildlife workshop and have hundreds of images to edit and you’re not sure how to get started? Join Tom to learn how he uses Photo Mechanic and PhotoShop to select, rename, edit and store his images efficiently. Learn More
Details: Join Tom and Cree for a refresher course on how to make your wildlife images look terrific without going overboard. This is the perfect class for people who use Camera Raw or Lightroom for most of their editing and want to do more with PhotoShop. Whether birds or mammals are your favorite subject, you will learn plenty of new tips for editing both. As an added bonus, Tom’s Workflow class is free when you sign up for this class. Learn More
The rest of our 2021 season is full with workshops coming up in Ouray, Estes Park, Route 66 and Bosque del Apache. We plan to be busy and look forward to seeing many of you in the field!
Our 2022 Schedule is starting to fill. There are a few spaces left on both domestic and international trips. See the 2022 Schedule
We always love hearing from you! creetbp@gmail.com or (970) 631-9383
Enjoy the rest of your summer!
Cree and Tom
We just returned from two terrific workshops in Arizona to photograph hummingbirds. Check out the highlights by clicking on the link below:
Click here to see the trip report: https://spark.adobe.com/page/Lo9tKtBwMJJ1B/
We still have a few spots open for workshops in 2022. Check out the updated schedule by clicking here
Thanks for reading our posts!
Tom and Cree
Tom and Cree celebrate the great images being created by their community of photographers each month by selecting a Photograph of the Month. For June we selected an image of a coastal brown bear created by Rodger Israel on our Brown Bear Safari Workshop. We hope you enjoy Rodger’s images as much as we do!
The Story …
This is from the meadow at Lily Pond along the Katmai coast. We were sitting around on old logs, all hunkered together.
The bear decided to take a walk around us to check us out. I just waited for him to line up with the mountains to take the shot.
It was important to have the right lens with me. Everyone thinks of photographing bears with long glass. When the bear started approaching us I realized he was too close for the longer lenses. I switched over to shorter glass to get the environmental shot of the bear.
It was as close as I wanted to get to a bear. I would not have wanted to get closer.
EXIF Data: Nikon D850 with a 24-120mm F4 at 120mm
F8, 1/1250 sec, ISO 450
Rodger’s tips for photographing coastal brown bears:
Wear your waders and don’t carry too much stuff.
About Katmai National Park
It is the ultimate bear experience. You can get close to the bears in their natural habitat. We were the only people there and the weather was nicer than I expected.
Katmai National Park is a wonderful combination of bears and scenery.
On Rodger’s Horizon
Northern Lights in Fairbanks
Greenland
Australia and Tasmania
Tanzania
Faroe Islands
We have two bear workshops coming up in 2022. Check out our schedule : Click Here
Tom and Cree celebrate the great images being created by our community of photographers each month by selecting a Photograph of the Month. For May we selected an image of a black bear created by Bruce Moore on our Yellowstone in Spring Workshop. We hope you enjoy Bruce’s images as much as we do!
The Story …
I have been taking photos since I was ten years old. My first camera was an Imperial Satellite 127. I sold flower seeds door to door to earn points. When I had enough points I picked the Satellite camera.
I love cameras. They are like art pieces to me. I have about 50 lenses and 30 cameras in my home. I learned more about my camera on this workshop than any other I have taken. Learning to adjust exposure compensation and ISO quickly on the top of my camera helped immensely.
I also learned to try and get as low as possible when taking wildlife images. It looks like I am eye level with the black bear (photo above) even though I am 20 ft above him. The bear helped a lot. He looked right at me. That really made the picture.
I heard Tom clicking away next to me – his camera sounded like a Gatling gun. So I took about 18 photos of the bear and I have three that I really like.
Each camera only has so many pictures in their life. I take every click seriously. Besides, I don’t have the patience to look through 5000 photos.
EXIF Data: Nikon D800 with a 150-600mm Sigma lens
Aperture Priority mode f11, 1/640 sec, ISO 4500 Exposure Compensation -.03
Bruce’s tips for shooting wildlife photography:
Make sure you have the right lens on for the subject matter. When we were photographing the wolf on the bison kill, I noticed that several people in the crowd had the wrong lens. One person was using a 100 mm lens and they would have to crop too much to be able to see the animal.
I had just bought a 150-600 Sigma lens for the trip. It was worth it for the wolf shot alone. When I returned home, I went right out and got the teleconverter to go with it.
About Yellowstone National Park
I signed up for Tom and Cree’s Yellowstone in Spring Workshop because I had never been to Yellowstone before. I learned it is very spread out.
It is an amazing place. You can be an amateur and take really phenomenal photographs in Yellowstone with just a little bit of knowledge…..and the help of really good guides who know where to put you.
On Bruce’s Horizon
Grand Teton National Park in September – in search of grizzly bears and moose
Tom and Cree are headed to Madera Canyon in Arizona for new hummingbird workshops in July – 1 space left: click here.
For a full listing of upcoming workshops, including our Easter Island Workshop in January 2022: Click Here
Tom and Cree celebrate the great images being created by our community of photographers each month by selecting a Photograph of the Month. For April we selected an image created by Brian Kennedy on our Utah Landscapes Workshop. We hope you enjoy Brian’s images as much as we do!
The Story …
We were at Sunset Point and Tom was ahead of everyone. Tom pointed out how the light was hitting different formations.
The sun was peaking in and out of the clouds. A shaft of light came through and hit the formation we were looking at.
I was shooting at f11 because I knew that was a good setting for my lens. I used focus peaking to focus. I was looking at the image in the viewfinder and the histogram was perfect. The entire image was red because of focus peaking.
To edit the image I just set the white point and the black point and it looked great.
EXIF Data: Canon mirrorless R5 with a 100-400mm lens
Aperture Priority mode f11, 1/80 sec, ISO 160 with focus peaking
About Bryce and Capitol Reef
Bryce Canyon was on my bucket list. I’ve seen pictures of it. I love sunsets and sunrises. With the red rock, how can you not want to photograph there?
In Capitol Reef, I was learning new features of the new mirrorless Canon R5. I was practicing focus peaking. I love focus peaking. After that section of the trip, I was a focus peaking fool.
Like the histogram, focus peaking is a tool. I have been dissapointed in the past when I get home from a landscape shoot and parts of the image were out of focus. With focus peaking I know what will be in focus and what will not.
Michael Iles and I approached the barn at Capitol Reef and we noticed there was no lock on the gate. We walked into the pen and got a better angle and were able to get a bit closer to the barn. I used the 24-70 (lens) with the R5.
Brian’s tips for shooting landscapes:
Tip #1: Get to the spots early.
Tip #2: Know your equipment. I did better in Bryce then in Capitol Reef because I understood my equipment better.
On Brian’s Horizon
Death Valley National Park
Acadia National Park – 4th trip there
Bucket List: Costa Rica, Alaska Brown Bears, Yellowstone in Winter, Canadian Rockies
Tom and Cree are headed to Yellowstone National Park next for two May wildlife workshops. For a full listing of upcoming workshops, including our new trip to France: Click Here
Tom and I celebrate the great images being created by our community of photographers each month by selecting a Photo of the Month. For February we selected images by Sherry Reese that she edited in our PhotoShop 2 Class. We hope you enjoy Sherry’s images as much as we do
The Story …
In PhotoShop 2 we had daily assignments to develop our PhotoShop skills. Reviewiing my old photos, I was looking for an image to change the color of something. I thought of the image with the yellow umbrella. I had always wanted to do something better with the image in editing. Before when I tried editing it in Lightroom – I was unsuccessful.
When the PhotoShop 2 class came along, it gave me the skills to remove tricky objects…..like the guy behind the woman with the umbrella. It wasn’t the umbrella color that I wanted to change. I thought the yellow color was beautiful. It was the green bag in her hand.
I also wanted to mute her surroundings. The sky was blown out and distracting in the background. In PhotoShop 2 I learned how to work with skies by using selection tools and adjustment layers.
After editing the photo, I realized that now it is the picture I was hoping to take in the moment. Tuscany 2018
Editing in PhotoShop instead of Lightroom:
PhotoShop is transformational. I could easily leave Lightroom out of my workflow now. In PhotoShop you can do everything and more. And, my workflow is easier now. I don’t have to worry about missing photos or catalogues.
One of my favorite features of PhotoShop is the ease of object removal. My favorite tools to use for this are the spot healing brush and the patch tool. They are both easy to use.
I also like the ability to work in layers in PhotoShop. I can manipulate one part of the image, and leave the other part alone with the use of layer masks.
A Tip for using PhotoShop:
I thought PhotoShop was going to be so complicated and that I wouldn’t be able to understand it.
Then I realized that you don’t have to use everything PhotoShop does to make it work for you. It seemed like a mystery before and now it no longer does.
On Sherry’s Horizon
Brown Bear Safari in Alaska in June
Hawaii – perhaps without a camera!
Galapagos Islands in August
March classes start soon and we have a few spaces in Bird Photography and Adobe Portfolio class. Click Here We have been working on a BRAND NEW class for March: Travel Photography: learn tips for unique street photography, food photography, the travel story, working with architecture and more. Click Here
Brrr it’s cold! Places all over the country are seeing record temps and we have been busy photographing winter. Between backyard birds puffed up from the cold, ice crystal macros and our local eagle tree, Tom and I have been on the go. Here is what is coming up at Tom Bol Photo Workshops….
We have posted our last three online classes in March. We are so impressed with the learning and images that have been created by you during these classes. After March we plan to be scouting new locations and offering workshops in the field.
Here is what we are offering in March:
New Class: Travel Photography Details: Ready to take your travel photography to the next level? Can’t wait to hit the road this summer? Join Tom and Cree for five days of creative ideas and techniques for travel photography-all online. After photographing over 80 countries and frequently shooting assignments for tourism bureaus and travel publications, we have some tips to help you learn new techniques. March 15-19 M-F from 10-11:30 am or 5-6:30 pm. Cost $349
Last Class: Bird Photography: If you have traveled with us in the field before, you know that Tom and Cree have a life long fascination with birds. We have been photographing birds ever since we first picked up a camera. We want to share with you what we have learned through the years about photographing birds from the Arctic to the Antarctic and all points in between. March 8-12 M-F from 3-4:30 Cost $349
Adobe Portfolio: Are you an Adobe Lightroom or PhotoShop user? Did you know you have a free portfolio program included in your subscription? Move beyond posting on social media and create a portfolio to share your best photos with friends and family. This class covers everything you need to know including writing an artist statement, creating galleries, setting up a contact form and choosing an overall theme. March 13 and 16 from 10-11:30 am. Cost: $249
One of our favorite parts of running a workshop company is scouting our new locations. We continually offer new destinations and want to be sure that our new locations will be perfect for you. With all the interest in bird photography we will be heading to Madera Canyon in Arizona to photograph hummingbirds in the next few months. We also plan to visit the swamps of Louisiana to look for nesting herons and egrets among the cypress trees.
Last summer we scouted the Colorado high country for a wildflower workshop with jeep access to the higher alpine bowls. Look for that workshop based out of Silverton in July 2023.
Interested in whales and calving Glaciers? We plan to visit Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska to scout for an early June trip.
Check out Tom’s recent blog for Singh Ray Filters on using their Gold N Blue filter to create dramatic winter images: click here
Are you signed up for Tom’s tri-weekly blog? He writes about everything from the warmest socks around, to customizing camera buttons. This is a great place to learn about the newest mirrorless lenses and shooting techniques.
Join us for our Happy Hour Image Celebration on February 19 at 7:00 SMT to see the best images created in February’s Macro for Cabin Fever, PhotoShop 2 and From Lightroom to PhotoShop. classes. See our latest portfolios from our current Adobe Portfolio class. Contact Cree at creetbp@gmail.com for a Zoom link.
Tom speaks online with the Evergreen Camera Club in Colorado on 15 Tips to Improve Your Photography on Wednesday, March 10 at 7 pm.
Tom will be presenting online to the Loveland Photographic Society on 15 Tips to Improve Your Photography on Monday March 8.
We always love hearing from you! creetbp@gmail.com or (970) 631-9383
Warm regards!
Cree and Tom
Welcome to the new year! Our friend Phil Bartlett from New Zealand is calling 2021 the Year of the Camera and we are out photographing almost daily already. Change is coming and we are looking forward to getting back into the field as new vaccines start to roll out and become more widely available. We hope your new year is also off to a good start. Here is what is happening at Tom Bol Photo Workshops….
We have started posting workshops for 2023 on our website. Our first session for the Chilkat Eagles Workshop has already filled and the second one is filling fast (read more). We added several workshop that filled quickly in 2021 like our Utah Landscapes and Spring Birds in Texas and brought back some of our favorites like the Redwoods and Rocky Coastlines.
We will continue to add more workshops in the next few months as we finalize trip logistics. Look for new workshops with Strabo Photo Tours to Tanzania and to France, where we will visit Monet’s gardens at Giverny!
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We hope to be winding down our offerings on online classes in the next few months. We have really enjoyed teaching photography and editing skills online while staying home. We are already getting questions about whether we will continue offering online classes after we begin our regular workshop schedule.
It is not too late to sign up for these classes in January and February:
New Class: Macro for Cabin Fever: Details: Ready to get creative this winter with macro photography and not even leave your home? Join Tom and Cree for a three day macro photography class that picks up where our spring classes left off. The focus for this class will be everything but flowers. Dust off your Studio in a Box, charge up your Lume Cubes and get ready to try something new. Feb 8, 10 and 12 MWF from 10-11:30 am Cost $289
Power Workflow: Overwhelmed with your photography workflow? Want to learn how to get your images from the field to “ready to use” as efficiently as possible? Join Tom and Cree for three ninety minute sessions of tips and techniques for maximizing your workflow efficiency. We will cover 1) Workflow Overview and Shooting Habits 2) Reviewing and Choosing Images and 3) Editing and Backup Strategies Jan 25, 27, 29 MWF from 3-4:30 Cost $249
All About Speedlights: Whether you own a dedicated speed light or are brand new to flash photography, we will teach you all about speed lights! Transform flat gray urban scenes into moody, compelling photos using a single speed light. Create a compelling travel portrait in 5 minutes. Learn to use flash to enhance landscapes and nature photography all in 5 daily sessions. February 15-19 from 5-6:30 pm Cost: $349
See all of our online classes by clicking here
Just after the new year, we took advantage of cold winter temperatures to drive up the Poudre Canyon near our home in Fort Collins. We photographed ice and water using the Singh Ray Gold N Blue polarizing filter. Look for an upcoming blog post from Singh Ray with some of our images.
We continue to use our backyard bird blinds almost daily to photograph songbirds that live in our neighborhood. Spending time at the Laguna Seca Ranch and Santa Clara Ranches in South Texas last February inspired our new habitat. We have as many as 15 species of birds visit daily. Bushtits and Red-Breasted Nuthatches are two of our favorites!
Tom and Cree will be starting off a new Speaker Series called Adventures in the Wildest Places Travelogue Series for the Massachusetts Audubon Society on Friday, January 14 at noon ET. This series is organized by our friend and fellow NOLS instructor, Doug Lowry, Read More
Join us for our Happy Hour Image Celebration on January 29 at 5:00 SMT to see the best images created by our participants in January classes. Contact Cree at creetbp@gmail.com for a Zoom link.
Tom speaks online with the Evergreen Photo Club in Colorado on 15 Tips to Improve Your Photography on Monday, February 8. Thanks to Sam Rush for the referral!
Tom will be presenting online to the Santa Clarita Valley Photographers Association on 15 Tips to Improve Your Photography on Tuesday February, 9. Thanks to Jeff Barlow for organizing this.
We always love hearing from you! creetbp@gmail.com or (970) 631-9383
Warm regards!
Cree and Tom
We hope you are enjoying the holiday season! Tom and I are photographing every morning from our backyard bird blinds. We fill up a large thermos with coffee and wait for the birds to come in for their portraits! We took the cover photo of the finch with snowberries just this morning. As we move towards the New Year we wanted to let you know what is happening at Tom Bol Photo Workshops….
Everyone seems to be signing up for classes in the last few weeks. And we appreciate it! Online classes are filling quickly. Several of you will be receiving a class from a loved one as they have been popular Christmas gifts this year! We have added new sessions for existing online classes and will continue to create new classes to help everyone stay creative in the next few months.
New Class: Macro for Cabin Fever: Details: Ready to get creative this winter with macro photography and not even leave your home? Join Tom and Cree for a three day macro photography class that picks up where our spring classes left off. The focus for this class will be everything but flowers. Dust off your Studio in a Box, charge up your Lume Cubes and get ready to try something new. Feb 8, 10 and 12 MWF from 10-11:30 am Cost $289
Power Workflow: Overwhelmed with your photography workflow? Want to learn how to get your images from the field to “ready to use” as efficiently as possible? Join Tom and Cree for three ninety minute sessions of tips and techniques for maximizing your workflow efficiency. We will cover 1) Workflow Overview and Shooting Habits 2) Reviewing and Choosing Images and 3) Editing and Backup Strategies Jan 25, 27, 29 MWF from 3-4:30 Cost $249
Bird Photography: If you have traveled with us in the field before, you know that Tom and Cree have a life long fascination with birds. We have been photographing birds ever since we first picked up a camera. We want to share with you what we have learned through the years about photographing birds from the Arctic to the Antarctic and all points in between. Jan 25-29 from 3-4:30 SMT Cost $349
Advanced Landscapes: Ready to take your landscapes to the next level. This class targets advanced concepts that are not normally covered during our workshops. Learn to create emotion, meaning and purpose in your landscapes while also learning new technical skills like focus stacking and maximizing acuity in your images. January 11, 13 and 15, 2021 from 2-3:30 pm SMT Cost $249
PhotoShop 1: From Lightroom to PhotoShop: Learn the basics of PhotoShop for photographers in just 5 days. We will spend 1.5 days reviewing tools to remove objects. We also cover working with layers, layer masks and changing backgrounds. January 11-15 5-6:30 pm SMT Cost $349
PhotoShop 2: Applied Layers: Interested in moving beyond using simple tools in PhotoShop for your landscape and travel images? This class is the perfect progression from our ” PhotoShop for Landscape and Travel Part 1″ class. We will take your understanding of tools, layers and masking in PhotoShop and apply it to new ways to take on landscape and travel images. Think of this as an applied PhotoShop class. Feb 8-12 from 5-6:30 pm SMT Cost $349
Adobe Portfolio Create your own online portfolio of photographs and digital artwork. This two session class will cover the basics of using Adobe Portfolio to create a webpage with all of your best images. There are also two 1 on 1 working sessions with Cree to personalize the content. Best part: Adobe Portfolio is free for Adobe subscribers. January 24, 26 Sun & Tues from 10-11:30 am Cost $249
See all of our online classes by clicking here
We are looking forward to traveling again in 2021 and are optimistic about the new vaccines coming out. We have all had to put travel plans on hold this year and we know that it has been frustrating for everyone.
We managed to run six workshops in the field this year and felt very good about the safety of the locations and the conditions for each of those workshops. In addition we offered 14 new online courses to keep hundreds of you involved in learning more about photography and editing.
We postponed many of our workshops this year and will be offering them in 2021 and 2022 instead. We will continue this strategy of postponing workshops until travel conditions improve and vaccines are readily available to participants who want to travel. Instead of canceling our trips months ahead of time, we try to wait until two months before the workshop to evaluate the conditions for travel. If you have questions about upcoming trips, we always encourage you to contact us.
We are currently reaching out to photographers through local clubs and organizations. We can schedule a presentation for your club on a variety of topics.
Tom will be presenting on Bird Photography for the Westbridge Camera Club in Ohio on January 4. Thanks Roberta Kanye for coordinating this!
Tom and Cree will give a joint presentation on Bird Photography: Afar and Closer to Home to the Massachusetts Audubon Society on January 15 at noon ET.
We always love hearing from you! creetbp@gmail.com or (970) 631-9383
Happy Holidays!
Cree and Tom
