Upcoming 2021 Nature Photography Workshops
For more information on any of these upcoming events please visit my About Tom Dwyer’s Photography Workshop page or send me an email or drop me a note through my online contact form.
Rethinking Photography Workshops
Here’s an understatement for you. “There’s a lot about the Covid-19 Pandemic that we all want to forget.” Here’s another, maybe not so obvious. “These months have caused many of us to rethink how they spend our time.”
I found myself bemoaning the fact that so many of my workshops had to be canceled because of Covid. I entertained offering “virtual workshops.,” presenting my first virtual workshop with the sponsorship of the Everson Museum of Art. Subsequently, I subscribed to Zoom so I could continue offering virtual photography workshops independently. They never happened.
For months I kept telling myself that I needed to get to work. Certainly, I could use the money such workshops could potentially generate. Then one day, why I wasn’t getting on the ball struck me. Virtual anything seems sterile to me. What I like about leading workshops in the first place is the interaction with “students,” seeing and helping them learn, witnessing ah-ha moments. Sure, the income workshops create is important but it’s not what they’re about.
What I have always enjoyed about leading workshops is the interaction with students, the opportunity to help them enjoy photography, to enhance their ability to create meaningful photographs. Simply put, I’m passionate about my photography, and helping others feed their passion for photography is rewarding.
For me, recognizing all this may be the silver lining of having experienced the pandemic because it led me to rethink my whole workshop program.
INTRODUCING: Photography Is Personal Workshops
Over the past months, questions and thoughts about my workshop experiences have never been far from top-of-mind. Ideas began to conspire with those thoughts from two different directions. How can I better serve the needs of students in my workshops? And, what is it about workshops that I enjoy the most?
Photography is personal, so the answers to both questions came to me quite quickly. How to better serve the needs of students became obvious. Focus on each student’s specific needs and interests. What do I enjoy most about leading workshops? Again, the answer was right there in front of me . . . working with individual students to identify their unique needs, in order to help them learn about and enjoy photography.
Click here to find out more about my Photography is Personal (PiP) workshops.
Because I recognize that some folks are quite happy, indeed prefer the more traditional, large group workshops. I will continue to put a couple of these on the calendar each year. There are two such workshops below. While PiP workshops may be scheduled when and where individuals or small groups (always max 3 people) want them, I will also soon be posting dates for PiP workshops at venues I have found to be particularly fruitful to learning photography. Stay tuned.
Sept 29 to Oct 3, 2021 – Autumn Color – Adirondack Style
People travel from all over the country (indeed all over the world) to enjoy the colorful Adirondack Mountains in full autumn regalia. This workshop will offer easy access to mountain trails, magnificent waterfalls, wilderness rivers and streams, placid lakes, and awesome sunsets & sunrises, and we expect, all painted with the brilliant colors of autumn.
November 8-12, 2021 - Death Valley National Park
Death Valley has been attractive and mysterious since long before the first prospectors arrived in the middle of the 19th century. In Death Valley National Park, “Your mission, should you decide to accept it . . . .” is all about creating images that capture the desert’s attractiveness and its mystery.