What’s Coming Up at TBPW

Greetings Photographers!

We hope you are enjoying the cooler temperatures like we are in Fort Collins, Colorado! Tom and I have been busy teaching online workshops these last few weeks. As we move towards the holidays we wanted to let you know what is happening at Tom Bol Photo Workshops

Holiday Gift Guide

We always get questions about what to buy for photographers this time of year. To make it easy to answer all of your questions, we are offering a free online Holiday Gift Guide on Tuesday, November 24 at 5 pm SMT. Join us for a list of cool items to buy for photographers and we will save plenty of time for your questions as well. Tom just bought the newest Nikon Z6 II camera. I am sure he will have plenty to say about it online. To receive a Zoom invitation to the session, just leave a note in the comment section below.

New and Upcoming Online Classes

New Class: 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 Nov 30, Dec 2, Dec 4 MWF from 5-6:30 pm Cost $249

New 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.  Nov 30-Dec 4 from 10-11:30 am Cost $349

Cardinal in the Texas bird blinds at Laguna Seca

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 $329

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. November 16-20 from 10-11:30 am SMT Cost $329

See all of our online classes by clicking here

Update on Workshops in the Field

We were very pleased to be able to run three field based workshops in September and October. Unfortunately we had to cancel our November and December Workshops due to rising covid numbers. We are optimistic about our workshops in the begining of the next year. We will continue to monitor the news and make decisions on a trip by trip basis. We will continue to hold meetings on Zoom before trips to discuss our safety guidelines and recommendations before trips depart.

Click here to see our trip report for The RMNP Elk Rut Workshops

2023 Workshops

We have started getting inquiries about our 2023 schedule. It is wonderful to hear that people are eager to sign up so far in advance. We have already begun working on the schedule and hope to have it posted before the end of the year. Continue to check these newsletters for more information. If you are receiving this newsletter, then you are already on our most current mailing list. This means you will receive updates before anyone else. We appreciate you following us!

Camera Club Presentations

Camera Clubs across the country are busy looking for online content for their members. Tom recently spoke with Carl Volpe’s Camera Club in Southern California and will be speaking to Roberta Kanye’s club in Ohio in January. Send us an email if you are interested in having Tom present to your club. We can also set up an online class exclusively for your club.


We always love hearing from you! creetbp@gmail.com or (970) 631-9383  

Warm regards to all of you!

Cree and Tom

October 2020 Photographer of the Month

Tom and I celebrate the great images being created by our community of photographers each month by selecting a Photo of the Month. For October we selected Kim Turner’s image of Pemaquid Lighthouse from Creative Camera Craft Class. We hope you enjoy Kim’s images as much as we do

Congratulations to October’s photographer – Kim Turner

Spring Yellowstone Workshop 2019

The Story … 

This is Pemaquid Lighthouse. We were in Maine three or four years ago. This lighthouse is photographed by everybody.It’s a great stopping point when you are photographing on the Maine coast.

We were up by the buildings and a woman said to me, “Go down there, there is a great reflection.” I said “Thank you,” but I don’t usually listen to people. I don’t like to be told what to take photos of. But this sounded like it was worth listening to.

The October 2020 Photo of the Month

I was so happy I listened to her. After walking down the hill, I turned around and there it was. I took numerous images and was so happy with the result I made both a color print and a black and white print for an art show.

After cropping the image in your online class (Creative Camera Craft) I want to throw both prints away. The cropped version is so much better.

I learned about the Fibonacci crop overlay in PhotoShop 1. For this image I tried all the crop overlays for this image. At first I wasn’t comfortable making the crop with the overlay because it cut off a lot of details that I thought were vital to the shot, like a red outbuilding and a tree. Once I cropped it, the people in the scene bothered me, so I used PhotoShop to erase them too.

In the final image with the Fibonacci crop, the lines in the rock were so much more distinct. That, to me, is what the image is about. Not the lighthouse, the line in the rocks.


The Data: .

ISO 200 24mm 1/100 f 7.1 in manual mode

The Gear: Canon EOS 5D Mark III with a 24-105mm f4L

Kim converted this image to black and white for an online class assignment

About learning photography online:

It has changed my world! We are working so much on software and editing. I have stayed away from PhotoShop in the past. It was so intimidating for me. Now I cannot wait to find a reason to open an image in PhotoShop.

The video recordings are really helpful. I watch them over and over and pick up something new every time.

Kim Turner took this using her infrared camera

Tip from the Photographer

Try different things when you are cropping. You can always undo it. I usually go through all the crop overlays and end up using the Fibonacci crop.

Kim getting excited about photography at Old Car City in Georgia

On Kim’s Horizon

All I do right now is ride my bike and take pictures. I am really excited about upcoming workshops:

Route 66 East Workshop – I am excited about trying motion blur and multiple exposure on this one.

If you would like to learn more about our online classes like Bird Photography, PhotoShop 1 and 2, Advanced Landscapes Click Here or join us for an online Happy Hour on Friday Nov 6 at 6:45 SMT to see a virtual gallery of images from our latest classes. Leave a comment below to receive an invite.

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