A Photography Field Workshop
$875
Enrollment limited to 10 people, Covid-19 vaccination required. There is one scholarship spot in this class.
I’ve been coming to Yosemite Valley since I was a boy. It became synonymous with the very idea of the natural world. As I fell in love with photography, it was the reality that I saw portrayed with such wonder and beauty by Ansel Adams and others. It was where I first had a long conversation with Ansel. I love this place. It feels sacred.
We'll spend three activity-packed days in the valley and nearbty, sometimes rising before dawn and lingering for the last moment of twilight. The trip is designed to be a complete immersion in landscape photography and its digital evolution. Film-based photographers are also welcome. Film is where I started here, first used the Zone Syetem, and it is where I made the first digital 4x5 photographs. It is not about the light recording material, it is about this place and your heartfelt reaction to it..
We will discuss technical and aesthetic issues, tapping into your emotional response to this landscape, working toward images that are uniquely your own. Individual problem-solving is a high priority in my workshop program. Classes are kept small to maximize individual attention. Plan to bring some of your work to give me an idea of how you see, what you are happy with, and photographs that indicate problems you are encountering.
The advent of the digital age of photography provides unique opportunities for field photography instruction, reviewing work on camera screens as it is made, examining exposure, composition, and emotional impact. Group evening reviews will also be conducted.
Digital exposure and dynamic range, color management, printers, papers, b&w and color, composition, and amazement-all will be part of our ambitious excursion into the evolving world of digital photography.
The Place
Winter in Yosemite Valley is a transformed world. Trees are wet and dark, the oaks are bare. The cliffs are blanketed with snow. Weather moves through in waves of clouds and mist. Ponds and river edges are frozen. There is usually snow on the valley floor. Visitors are dramatically fewer in number. Our three days together will likely be cold, but we will no doubt be warmed by the special beauty that winter brings to this grand valley. Although we will carpool to various locations, I hope our basic mode of transportation through the valley will be our feet. There is really no other way to come to know a place.
Details
A full agenda is planned for this workshop, including dawn and dusk sessions. We will be doing a fair amount of walking if weather permits.
Yosemite NPS Website
Yosemite Valley Map (pdf download)
Lodging is not included but a group discount has been arranged for at our motel headquarters in El Portal. Details will be sent on enrollment.
Stephen Johnson
Steve at Pebble Beach. Photo by Fiona McDonnell.
A photographer, educator and designer, Stephen has been teaching and working in photography since 1977. His books include At Mono Lake, the critically acclaimed The Great Central Valley: California's Heartland and Making a Digital Book. He runs his own photography, publishing and design company--scanning and designing his photographic books, pioneering the transition into digital photography including the field use of a Macintosh laptop and digital view cameras in the early 1990s. Stephen founded his Photography Workshop Program in 1978.
His work has included With a New Eye, his groundbreaking and historic all digital national parks project, the 2006 book Stephen Johnson On Digital Photography for O'Reilly, ongoing portfolio development and extensive lecturing. Current work features a concentration on the abstract and sensual qualities found in flora for his new project, Life Form.
Stephen's pioneering work in digital photography, desktop color and digital imaging has included software and product development for clients such as Apple, Adobe, Epson, Kodak, HP, Leaf, Ricoh and SuperMac. His work with Adobe includes the creation of the duotone curves shipped with their Photoshop software.
His photographic clients have included the Ansel Adams Publishing Trust, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Friends of Photography. Johnson's photographs have been widely published and collected internationally.
In 1999, Folio Magazine declared the publication of Johnson's digital photographs in Life Magazine to be one of the Top 15 Critical Events in magazine publishing in the twentieth century. Stephen Johnson was named as a 2003 inductee into the Photoshop Hall of Fame, recognized for his achievements in Art. Canon named Steve as one of their Explorers of Light 2006-2021.
In 1997, Life Magazine described Stephen Johnson as an artist that "...applies science to nature and creates art." His images create "...an intimacy that brings subject and viewer close in ways conventional photographs cannot."
The Photographer’s Gallery wrote in 1998: “Stephen Johnson's photography rides on the "bleeding edge" of photography's transition to a digital media. Schooled in the traditions of fine-art western landscape photography, Johnson has taken his understanding of traditional photographic processes and brought those skills to bear on the emerging technologies and aesthetics of digital photography. He has pushed technology companies to rise to the best of what imagemaking can be, and pushed his own vision of how we see and record light in the natural world. This has led him to conclude that the way we have traditionally captured images with silver-based photography has been a poor and distortive view of the real and rich world before our eyes. His photographs look almost "unphotographic" in their clarity and purity of color. He shows us a world we know, but rarely see on paper. His is a truly remarkable vision.”
Stephen Johnson Biography
Workshop Testimonials
Stephen has received numerous awards and grants for his photographic work, including an NEA for At Mono Lake, awards from the Bay Area Book Reviewers Association, the Commonwealth Club of California and the Golden Light Award for the Great Central Valley. The New York Times named the Valley book as one of the eight best photography books of 1993.
Refunds and Cancellation (note changes)
This workshop is financially dependent on adequate class registration. Where minimum enrollment requirements are not met, the class will be canceled, and a full refund given. You will be notified at least one week in advance if a workshop is not going to take place. Student initiated cancellations received prior to one month before the workshop will receive credit for a future workshop of similar value, a 50% credit will be given for notice received at least 2 weeks immediately prior to the workshop (a full credit less a $50 overhead fee will be given if another student is able to fill the spot from a waiting list). No credit will be given if cancelled less than 2 weeks prior to the workshop. Credits need to be redeemed within one year.
We recommend that you purchase refundable airline tickets as we cannot guarantee adequate enrollment to conduct the workshop.