Tom and Cree just finished their Texas Birds in Spring Workshop and are sharing the highlights with you. They traveled with their group to the South Texas Plains of the Rio Grand Valley. They spent 4 days photographing songbirds and raptors from bird blinds. The group was delighted to photograph abundant Painted Buntings, several types or warblers and several types of orioles.
To see photos from our Texas Birds in Spring Workshop, check out our trip report by clicking here
What’s new:
Tom and Cree sold their house in Colorado and will be moving back to Palmer, Alaska during the first week of June. They are driving all the way up the Alcan over a period of 6 days. Expect us to have more limited communication during that time. Our new address will be:
Tom Bol Photo Workshops
6342 N Mountain Meadow Trail
Palmer, Alaska. 99645
Any upcoming openings?
Yes! Our schedule was full before but due to a few cancellations, we have 4 workshops with space available this year. Check out our Upcoming Openings Page
We also added some new workshops for 2026 including:
Tom and Cree are headed to Badlands National Park in South Dakota for landscape and wildlife photography. They are hoping for stormy skies in order to photograph lightning using the new Pre-Release technology.
Tom and Cree just finished their Louisiana BayousPhoto Workshop and are sharing the highlights with you. They traveled with their group to the swamps around Lafayette, Louisiana to photograph the reptiles, trees and birds in the Bald Cypress bayous. Our group were delighted to photograph Barred owls, nesting egrets and Roseate Spoonbills in flight.
To see photos from our Louisiana Bayous Workshop, check out our trip report by clicking here
What’s next:
Tom and Cree are headed to Badlands National Park in South Dakota for landscape and wildlife photography. They are hoping for stormy skies in order to photograph lightning using the new Pre-Release technology.
What’s new:
Cree just had a two page spread of her Bohemian Waxwing image published in the Spring 2024 Living Bird Magazine. It was the background for a Nikon ad promoting the Z8 camera.
Any upcoming openings? Yes! Our schedule was full before but due to a few cancellations, we have 4 workshops with space available this year:
Tom and I celebrate great images from workshop participants by selecting a Photo of the Month. For April we chose an image taken on our Costa Rica Rainforest Workshop. The image was taken by Jason Fox during our macro photo shoot near Corcovado National Park. Jason is a wildlife and travel photographer from Ontario, Canada.
Congratulations to April 2024 ‘s featured photographer – Jason Fox
Photographer Jason Fox
The Story…
I was looking for an angle with the right light. I remember Cree was right next to me. I was also looking for just the right angle for the background. The frog wasn’t going anywhere. So I was looking for the right expression as well.
I chose the Nikon Plena lens because I don’t really have a macro lens. I do not photograph macro that often. The minimum focus distance is quite short on the Plena. I figured this lens would give me good separation form the background. It also has legendary bokeh. Everyone goes on and on about the bokeh with this lens. I’m not quite sure why it is so unique, but it seems to do quite well.
My daughter absolutely loves frogs. This one of the reasons I chose to go to Costa Rica. I took the photo for her. I want to make a print of this one for her wall. This frog is a bit on the plain side. I thought it worked well with the muted background.
The editing for this image was pretty light. I wanted to leave some of the natural gunk on the plant because I didn’t want it to look too staged. I wanted the image to look natural. I did very little to the frog because it was so sharp, right out of the camera. I increased the vibrance on the frog just a bit and desaturated the background about 10%.
Photo of the Month – Gladiator Tree Frog
EXIF Data:
Camera: Nikon Z9
Lens: Nikon Plena 135 mm
Aperture: f2
Shutter: 1/160th seconds
ISO: 180
Exposure Comp +.7
About Photographing in Costa Rica
The critters and the locations are fantastic. I have shot in a lot of jungles. I was just in Borneo with Tom and Cree the month before. I found the lighting in Costa Rica to be challenging. The light seemed to change more frequently then in other places I’ve photographed. It was an exposure compensation workout.
I really enjoyed the macro subjects.. The Yellow Eyelash Viper was really striking. The anteater was also very cool. It is a rare critter and I felt very fortunate to be able to photograph it. I was next to Tom in the right place at the right time.
I have been to Costa Rica a few times before. This particular part (the Osa Penninsula) feels more wild and less developed. It was wilder than I would have expected for Costa Rica.
The sloth shoot was pretty phenomenal. I love sloths. We were much closer than I expected. In the past they always seemed to be way up a tree and hard to photograph. Usually they are just furry lumps in trees. But not on this shoot.
Three-toed Sloth in Costa Rica
Jason’s Tips for Wildlife Photography
Tip 1
Patience. It all comes down to finding different angles than everyone else. For the sloth image above, everyone was trying to get the clear shot from straight on. I looked at the direction that it was headed and moved over to the side. I like that he is partly covered by the leaves. This is a critter that is designed to hide and the image shows that.
Tip 2
Generally I like slower shutter speeds. Digital cameras are almost too sharp. I like to shoot slow and have the image be a little softer in the background or in the foreground.
Baby sloth in Costa Rica
On Jason’s Horizon:
Everywhere is on my bucket list
Canary Islands
South Africa and Madagascar
Bhutan
Antarctica
Indonesia
Jason getting to know his macro subject
Interested in joining us in Costa Rica next year?We have space from March 22-29, 2025 Learn more
Tom and Cree just finished their Costa Rica RainforestPhoto Workshop and are sharing the highlights with you. They traveled with their groups to the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica to photograph the animals, flowers and birds in the lowland rainforest. Our groups were delighted with the baby monkeys and abundance of Scarlet Macaws this year.
To see photos from our Costa Rica Rainforest Workshop, check out our trip report by clicking here
What’s next:
Tom and Cree are headed to the Bayous of Louisiana for their next workshop. They will be gliding through the bayous on pontoon boats in search of alligators and birds and then visiting a rookery with nesting Great Egrets and Roseate Spoonbills.
Tom and I celebrate great images from workshop participants by selecting a Photo of the Month. For March we chose an image taken on our Iditarod and Northern Lights Workshop. The image was taken by Sherry Reese during a spectacular aurora photo shoot near Fairbanks. Sherry is a wildlife and travel photographer from Arcadia, Oklahoma.
Congratulations to March 2024 ‘s featured photographer – Sherry Reese
Photographer Sherry Reese
The Story…
When we got out of the van, the aurora was already going off. We ran to the edge of the field and I threw my backpack in the snow. We set everything up as quick as we could in the dark and we started taking pictures.
I had never seen the aurora before. I was amazed by all of it. I didn’t realize that it is not as colorful with the naked eye. It takes a longer exposure to bring out all of the colors. This style of shooting was completely new to me.
I listened to Tom and Cree and their setting recommendations to get in the ballpark. I used minor changes to ISO and shutter speed to tweak my settings as the aurora changed.
The aurora never looked the same. Second by second it changed. It went from a roman candle type formation to minimal to the whole sky blowing up. The trick is to take as many pictures as you can and just keep shooting. It changed so fast that you will get a new photo every few seconds.
You don’t really know what you are going to get till you get it out of the camera. When I was reviewing my images, I realized how important it is to keep infinity focus. Some of them were blurry because the camera would get bumped and the focus would shift. Next time I will use a Z lens because it makes infinity focus way easier. I was using manual focus to keep the stars sharp.
I got extra help from Cree to learn how to edit aurora. Enhancing to remove noise is the first step. Then I used a little bit of clarity to bring out the stars and increase definition in the aurora. I opened up shadows in the foreground and color corrected the snow to remove some of the green cast.
It was magical. I think most people say that about the aurora. People come from all over the world to see aurora in Fairbanks. It doesn’t always happen. But when you see it, it is just magical.
Photo of the Month – Northern Lights in Fairbanks
EXIF Data:
Camera: Nikon Z9
Lens: DSLR 20mm 1.8
Aperture: f1.8
Shutter: 2.5 seconds
ISO: 3200
Mode: Manual, on a tripod
About Photographing in Alaska in Winter
The snow is beautiful. It accentuates the terrain. It was not nearly as cold and dark as I expected. In March there is an even split between dark and day light ours. When we were lucky enough to get a snowy day, it made the photos even better.
The beauty of this trip is that it is such a mix of things to see, do and expect. The dogs, the iconic Iditaord, the snow, the aurora. There wasn’t just one thing, there were so many different things to shot.
This trip is going to be amazing even if the aurora never shows up.
Sherry captures Ryan Redington’s team on 4th Street
Sherry’s Tips for Aurora Photography
Tip 1
Practice using your camera in the dark ahead of time. This will help you to make minor exposure changes quickly when in the field.
Tip 2
Have the right cold weather gear. For me, keeping my hands warm was the hardest. It was a challenge to change my settings with the overmitts on. I ended up using an electric handwarmer in my pocket. I used just my liner gloves when changing settings. When I switched to a cable release, it was easier to use my overmitts.
Tip 3
When the aurora is really strong you need to reduce exposure time and ISO to not blow out the green channel. I had blown out areas on some of my images. It really changes second by second with aurora photography.
Tip 4
Bring your heavy tripod. You will need a stable platform in deep snow with uneven ground.
Sherry’s work at the Dallas Seavey Kennel
On Sherry’s Horizon:
South Africa’s Skeleton Coast
Grand Canyon River Rafting
Kenya
Switzerland
Sherry and Ned share a moment in the snow
Interested in joining us in Alaska?We have space on three Alaska trips:
Tom and I celebrate great images from workshop participants by selecting a Photo of the Month. For February we chose an image taken on our Indonesia Workshop. The image was taken by Richard Epter during a photo shoot in a rice paddy near Malang on East Java. Richard is a wildlife and landscape photographer from Augusta, Georgia.
Congratulations to February 2024 ‘s featured photographer – Richard Epter
Richard Epter in Indonesia
The Story…
I remember that we got to sleep in. We left at 4am which was later than the days before. I had no idea what we were going to see because I had never been to a rice paddy before.
When we got there, we walked through some fields and then the view opened up. It was twilight and we were just starting to see light. In the distance I could see terracing. I could’t see much beyond that because it was cloudy and too dark.
There was a short wall made of mud on our right. The walls were a foot think. I thought it was gorgeous to see that. Terracing has always been fascinating to me. Earlier on the trip we saw terraces on the sides of mountains and I was amazed at how steep they were.
During the shoot, I learned how the local men in the rice paddies make the walls. They dig up mud, push it to the edge of the paddy and manually build up the the walls, layer by layer. It all happened right before us.
In my photo there are tiny rice plant shoots in the foreground. Rice is one of the few aquatic crops other than taro. The image shows a lot of water with the rice plants just starting to grow. As they grow they don’t need as much water.
I found it very interesting that on the downhill edge of each paddy, there was a small 6 inch gap that drained the terraces. This allowed the entire field to drain slowly throughout the day.
As the sun rose I could see a huge mountain in the background. I was so surprised to hear that it was Mt Semeru. Semeru is the the same mountain we had photographed days early with volcanic gases escaping. We were on the opposite site of the volcanic massif. It was not just a coincidence. That was fantastic to see and photograph both sides.
When we were walking back from the shoot, I was looking for an angle that really accentuated the lines of the terraces and the reflection of Semeru. I used a low perspective to get the entire mountain in the reflection.
It wasn’t until I got on the computer that I realized what I had. I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was,
Photo of the Month – Malang Rice Paddy with Mt Semeru by Richard Epter
EXIF Data:
Camera: Nikon Z9
Lens: Nikon 24-120
Aperture: f11
Shutter: 1/13 sec
ISO: 64
Mode: Manual
About Photographing in Indonesia
This was my first time to Indonesia. It has so much natural beauty. The people were so nice everywhere we went.
The only volcano I had ever seen was Haleakala in Hawaii a long time ago. All of my pictures were blown out then. I did a much better job this time around.
Our sunrise shoot at Semeru was very impactful for me. It was interesting to be so close to an active volcano. You never know what it is going to do. That is exciting in and of itself.
This was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. The gases were spewing perfectly to catch the colors of sunrise in the clouds. The sun started strolling down the sides of the volcanos and brought out all of the volcanic ridges.
Every day in Indonesia was exciting. We never knew what we were going to see.
The monkeys and orangutans in the wild made it feel like we were on the set of Tarzan. The skills of the guides were terrific. They could see and hear things that none of the rest of us could. They were fantastic. They would point out a kingfisher on a limb and I couldn’t even see the limb! It helped me learn to train my eye.
This was one of the most adventurous trips I’ve ever taken.
Mt Semeru at sunrise
Richard’s Tips for Travel Photography
Tip 1
Take an extra minute or so to access the angle of view. Try moving up and down to change your perspective. A foot to the left or right can also make a hug difference. When I squatted down, I was able to get the entire reflection of Mt Semeru in the photo.
Tip 3
Don’t worry about taking too many frames. Shoot at a high frame rate, especially if you are on a moving boat. I tend to shoot wildlife at 20 frames per second. This really helps capture more images where the animal is looking right at you. This makes a more engaging shot.
Tip 4
Use the lowest ISO that you can. I learned this from Tom in Indonesia. Now I try to use ISO 64 when I can to keep the noise low. Noise reduction software can make a big difference, but it’s even better to start with a low ISO.
Tom and Cree just finished their Iditarod and Northern LightsPhoto Workshop and are sharing the highlights with you. They traveled with their group to Alaska to photograph the action and pageantry of the Iditarod and then on to Fairbanks for Northern Lights. Our group was surprised how caught up they became in the ongoing race standings. It was also a great year for aurora, with the lights showing up 4 times on the workshop.
To see photos from our Iditarod and Northern Lights Workshop, check out our trip report by clicking here
What’s next:
Tom and Cree are headed to Central America for their Costa Rica Rainforest Workshop. We will be photographing tree frogs, macaws and 4 species of monkeys in Osa Peninsula.
What’s New:
It’s official! Tom and Cree just bought a house in Palmer, Alaska and will be moving in June. They will continue to offer workshops in the Lower 48 and abroad, just from a different home base. New address coming soon.
Want to join us in Alaska this summer? We have a few openings:
Nome: Arctic Birds and Musk Ox: June 17-22, 2024 – 2 spaces available Click here
Brown Bear Safari: August 13-19, 2024 – 2 spaces available Click here
Tom and Cree just finished their Indonesia Workshop and are sharing the highlights with you. They traveled with their group to Borneo and East Java in Indonesia to photograph the colorful people, places and animals of the area. Our group enjoyed the interactions among orangutans and were astonished at how human-like they were.
To see photos from our 2024 Indonesia: Orangutans and Volcanos, check out our trip report by clicking here
What’s next:
Tom and Cree are headed to Alaska for Northern Lights and the Iditarod. We will be photographing the “Last Great Race” in three different locations and then searching for aurora in Talkeetna, Healy and Fairbanks, Alaska. As part of our route, we drive right by the entrance to Denali National Park.
Tom and I celebrate great images from workshop participants by selecting a Photo of the Month. For January we chose an image taken on our Oaxaca Mexico Workshop. The image was taken by Monica Whitt during our Dia de los Muertos photo shoot. Monica is a commercial and portrait photographer from Anchorage, Alaska. Check out her work at Monica Whitt Photography
Congratulations to January 2024 ‘s featured photographer – Monica Whitt
Monica in agave fields of Oaxaca
The Story…
The way the lights were set up was amazing. The Clam Shell format is pretty cool. It really highlights the face.
The background light was also convenient. The wall was already red. The background light with the red gel cap accentuated the color and added mood.
It was great to have the strobe trigger and be able to direct the model. I tried to get as many expressions in the face as possible. I asked her to turn around and to tilt her face a bit.
I also shot in portrait and landscape. I zoomed in and out. I was using my Canon 28-70 2.0 lens. This worked well for zooming. I just kept experimenting to see what worked best.
The villa was amazing. The arches, the color, the flooring. The whole place helped the mood and the vibe. It was comfortable and not at all hot. So colonial. I loved it!
Photo of the Month – Sofia - Day of Dead
EXIF Data:
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
Lens: 28-70 2.0
Aperture: f8
Shutter: 1/100 sec
ISO: 100
Mode: Manual
About Photographing in Oaxaca
It was my first time in Oaxaca. Photographing people was a highlight of the week. This is why I signed up for the workshop.
I was also fascinated by the murals all over town. Then adding the couple (of models), this made it so much better.
I frequently had to decide what angle to photograph. Literally in a 360′ view, there would be 1000 photos right there. The people were just wonderful.
Chef Alejandro Ruiz at the market
Monica’s Tips for Travel Portraits
Tip 1
I recommend environmental portraits in Oaxaca. They showcase where the person works and the area.
Tip 2
Shooting in shade makes for even lighting. If there is no shade, try putting the sun behind the person.
Tip 3
Depending on their comfort level – tell the models to do whatever they want. They feel free and really show more natural expressions and genuine smiles.
Tip 4
I try to get a variety of expressions. When I work with high school seniors I ask them funny questions like, “Are you the smart one in the family?” They laugh and I get great expressions.
Working the agave fields
On Monica’s Horizon:
Patagonia
Germany – to visit family
Portraits of Native Alaskans
Interested in joining us in Oaxaca in January 2025? Learn more
Tom and Cree are headed to Borneo with a workshop this weekend. They will be photographing an area with the largest population of Orangutans in the world. After that they join a group in Alaska for Northern Lights and the Iditarod.
Tom and Cree just finished their Oaxaca Mexico Workshop and are sharing the highlights with you. They traveled with their group to Oaxaca de Juarez in the mountains of Mexico to photograph the colorful people, places and food of the area. They loved the photo opportunities there so much that they decided to return for another workshop in Oaxaca in January 2025. We hope you will consider joining us.
To see photos from our 2024 Oaxaca Mexico Workshop, check out our trip report by clicking here
Note about covid on this workshop:
On the fourth day of the workshop Cree tested positive for covid. We want to share this experience to help you understand what that looks like on a workshop. As soon as Cree felt a sore throat she used a rapid test and it was positive. She immediately isolated from the group and spent the next 3 days in her room watching Netflix and learning online Spanish. Because she isolated so quickly, no one else on the group came down with covid. Tom tested negative and was able to continue teaching. He decided to wear a mask for the remainder of the workshop to protect others.
A few take aways from this experience:
Realize that covid is still going around and as a traveler you could catch it. If you have any syptoms that could be covid, notify the trip leaders immediately.
Always travel with several rapid tests, masks and extra medication in case you need to stay longer. We recommend talking to your doctor about bringing covid medications.
Realize that if you test positive you cannot travel with the group and will need to isolate yourself. You will need to pay for any extra rooms, meals or transportation required for your isolation. We strongly recommend travel insurance for all of our workshops for that reason.
Fortunately, the recent strains have been fairly mild and most people recover quickly. Preparation and early detection are key to keep the group protected. Keeping everyone healthy is a top priority at TBPW.
What’s next:
Tom and Cree will be heading to the jungles of Borneo and the volcanos of Java for the Indonesia Workshop. Then it is off to Alaska for Northern Lights and the Iditarod. Very different packing for those two workshops!
