Tom and Cree just returned from theirCosta Rica Photo Workshop and are sharing the highlights with you. We had terrific mammal sightings this year. We photographed two species of sloths, two species of Dolpins, a mother Northern Tamadua Anteater with a baby and 4 species of monkeys. This is a great location for animal lovers.
What’s Next: Tom and Cree are headed to Louisiana and then South Texas next. We have one space available on our Texas Birds in Spring Workshop if you would like to join us on May 11-16, 2026. Great way to improve your bird photography skills.
FREE EVENT: Join us for our free online Spring Image Celebration: May 19 at 6 pm Denver time. Send in three of your best images from this spring and see what everyone else has been photographing. Everyone is invited! Send us a note here for the invite, or leave a comment below requesting the link.
Tom and Cree just returned from their Costa Rica Workshop and are sharing the highlights with you. Ten photographers joined them in the rainforest of Southern Costa Rica to photograph spectacular mammals, birds and reptiles. Highlights of the workshop were photographing the Fiery-billed Aracari and seeing a Northern Tamadua Anteater.
What’s Next: Cree and Tom are off to Tucson next week for their Tucson and Saguaro National Park Workshop. They will be joining 10 photographers to photograph the Sonoran Desert and it’s magnificent backlit cacti at sunset.
Any upcoming openings?
Just one space left on our Louisiana Bayous Workshop May 7-11, 2025. Explore the cypress swamps by boat looking for herons, egrets, spoonbills and alligators. Photograph nesting Great Egrets chicks at a private rookery. This trip is already full in 2026.
Ouray Fall Colors : September 28-August 2, 2025 1 Space Available. The best of Colorado’s aspen forests just in time for brilliant yellow foliage.
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.
At Tom Bol Photo Workshops, we celebrate great images created on our workshops by selecting a Photo of the Month. For April we chose an image from our Costa Rica Rainforest Workshop created by Joe Campbell. We hope you enjoy Joe’s images as much as we do!
Congratulations to April 2022 ‘s featured photographer – Joe Campbell
Costa Rica
The Story …
I had been sitting on a log having lunch by myself. I looked around and asked myself, “Where is everybody?” The guides said there was an anteater down the road so I decided to mosey down there.
I went down the road and everyone was shooting from the side by the road. Tom was on the beach side so I went and started shooting near him.
The anteater was climbing down the tree and sat down to rest for awhile. It was like I asked him to pose like that – sitting and enjoying the ocean breeze.
I was telling myself, “This is a damn good shot” How can you miss with a pose like that.
April 2022 Photo of the Month
I like using the ring to set the exposure compensation. With the Nikon Z9 you can see it happen right in the viewfinder.
The ISO on the anteater was 2800. I used Topaz Denoise and it worked fine. It does a great job of removing noise most of the time.
EXIF Data:
Nikon Z9 with a 500 mm pf lens
F8, 1/640 sec, ISO 2800, Exposure Compensation +1.3
Manual Mode, Auto Focus Pattern wide-area small
Eyelash Viper shot with a 500 mm pf lens
This was the best shot I got from the eyelash viper shoot. Eduardo was using his hook to place the snake on the heliconia. I used content aware to remove the hook from the photo. I try to walk around the subject to get different angles and shading.
I recommend changing your position until you find something that works.
I had never really shot snakes before. I plan to do it again.
About photographing in the Costa Rica jungle
It’s hot. It’s sweaty. And it’s worth it.
I like the variety. Without the guides I would not have seen anything. I do not know how they drive and see things way up in a tree at the same time.
The same was true of the river guides. The boat driver would stop and say, “There is a boa in the tree.” How the hell did he see that. I look over and it looks just like a bee’s nest.
The Sierpe River is where I learned that toucans eat more than fruit. We heard a lot of noise up in a tree. We saw several great-tail grackles chasing a toucan. We saw that there were actually 2 toucans. One was distracting the grackles while the other stole a baby grackle from the nest.
It flew off and I was lucky enough to get a shot of the chick in its beak.
I thank the Z9 for that.
A Bare-throated Tiger Heron in the Jungle
On Changing Positions:
We got a lot of shots of the Tiger Heron from right below the tree branch. Jose, the guide, suggested we move to the other side of the tree.
It popped. That was the place to be.
On Joe’s Horizon
Rookeries in New Jersey at Ocean City and Cape May (great egrets, white ibis, night herons)
Machias Seal Island for puffin
Alaska for Grizzlies
Norway for Northern Lights
Joe in Fairbanks – not dressed for the Costa Rican jungle
We are off to South Texas next for two bird workshops at Laguna Seca and Santa Clara Ranch. After that we are headed to to Southern Spain with Strabo Photo Tours – space still available.
We will add another trip to Costa Rica in April 2024 and have a similar workshop in 2023 in the cloud forest of Ecuador, click here to learn more.
Enjoy your spring and thanks for reading our posts!
We just returned from the rain forest of Costa Rica after two successful photo tours. We had a wonderful experience amongst the monkeys, macaws and three-toed sloths. We will be heading back in 2024. , If you would like to join us, click here and ask to be on the interest list.
Click on this link to see the trip report images and read about our adventures in Costa Rica
