We just got in from our 2015 South Dakota Badlands NP, Visual Artistry workshop. We love September in the Badlands and had a very talented and creative group for this trip. The temperatures this year were perfect, as were the conditions, which were widely variable. It drives home the importance and the great opportunity for growth which comes from visiting the same place frequently.
For most of the last 20 years that we’ve visited and taught at the park, I thought that I came away with some of my best work. Every subsequent year, I thought the same thing, including this year. And I’m sure next year, I’ll feel that will be some of my best work from the Badlands. That’s the process. I look at work on slides (what??), shot 20 years ago and I wince.
One of the great advantages of revisiting a location is that we naturally tire of taking the same image over and over (in most cases) and start looking deeper into the location, hence we begin to look deeper into ourselves. We begin to look for different subjects, different angles, different formats, different techniques, different lenses, and to shoot familiar locations at different times of day. This is precisely why we revisit many of our workshop locations. Aside from learning our locations intimately, we are able to help our clients look a bit deeper, also.
I finally decided to get serious about infrared on this trip, so I purchased a D800 from Ace Photo just before leaving. Ace sent it to LifePixel (scroll down page) for conversion. LifePixel sent it to our motel in Wall. I also purchased the great Nikon 24-120 to use with the D800. All of the infrared images were shot with that combination. The resolution and dynamic range was immediately apparent, making me wonder what took so long…
Here’s an extensive gallery from our image rich South Dakota Badlands 2015 Visual Artistry workshop:
Here’s a few event notes:
Contact Susan to be placed on our 2016 South Dakota Badlands workshop notification list.
Our New Hampshire fall color riot instructional tour is coming soon and we just had an emergency cancellation, so we have ONE SPOT available for this great trip. Please contact Susan for more information and to register.
Our entire 2016 Visual Artistry workshop series will be online shortly.
The 1st annual Smoky Mountains Photography Conference is coming, Oct. 28 – Nov 1.
I’ll be presenting on the Nikon School stage at PPE in October (landscape/macro). Details TBA.
That’s about it for now. We have tons of office work to get done in a few days before heading up to our Maine Lighthouse Tour, NH, then Cape Cod, etc!
To our West Coast friends, we’ll be conducting Creativity Seminars in San Francisco and in San Luis Obispo following our Santa Fe workshop with the great Bobbi Goodrich (ONE space remaining).
Have a great fall everyone and we’ll see ya online!
Tony
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New blog post from Tony Sweet Photography: South Dakota Badlands 2015, a 20 year journey
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