Cultural Mirages Route 66 and the Mojave Desert - A Photography Workshop
The Trip: Yes, yes - stay home. Sit on your couch, watch your television television. Limp along, during the first days of 2013, in the slow lane of your life. Or grab your photo gear and your sense of adventure, and travel with us to a melange of fascinating locations along Route 66, from the Mojave desert to the Pacific Ocean.
Chemical Plant, Amboy
Transportation: Private vehicles, carpooling where possible. Accommodations: Instructors are staying at the Holiday Express Inn (on Main Street), in Barstow, California. Participants may stay anywhere - there are many motels in Barstow - however, the Holiday Inn Express is clean, the rooms are comfortable, there is a meeting room, and breakfast is included both mornings. If you plan on staying with the instructors, check with Dave first, as we are working on a group rate. (Note: instructors will arrive in Barstow by early evening, Sunday, and everyone should be ready for an early morning session on Monday morning).
Trip difficulty: None, conducted at a photographer's pace. While we will have to do a bit of walking, most of our photography can be accomplished just yards from the car, along Route 66 and adjacent roads we'll travel over.
Contact Dave Wyman if you need help with travel arrangements/transportation to Barstow.
Trip Instructors:
Dave Wyman has conducted photography tours and workshops since 1982. His photographs and articles have appeared in various publications, including Backpacker, Cross-Country, Outdoor Photographer, Outside, and Sierra magazines. Dave, who lives in Los Angeles, is the author and photographer of two pictorial guidebooks, Backroads of Southern California and Backroads of Northern California. He's conducted workshops to Route 66 each winter for nine years. Weather: Should be mild, but be prepared for warm and cool temperatures, and although we'll be in the desert part of the time, even rain. Dramatic weather, if it comes, can enhance photography, and if rain comes, we won't cancel the trip.
The desert is littered with the haunting presence of failed dreams and lives unfulfilled. Our photography field sessions, centered along old Route 66 east of Barstow, will include the detritus of human incursions in the harsh, desert environment - sleepy or even abandoned communities (and their attendant architectural details), junked cars and tin cans, maybe even a two-legged desert rat, and of course those sun-blasted highways.
Chevy Grille
Meanwhile, the natural scene is home to volcanic craters, mountain vistas, unexpected pools of water, and bizarre salt flats. Over the course of our weekend, we will explore a landscape that exists as much in the mind as it does in any physical sense, a landscape that we will transfer onto film and into digital images. The instructors will probably haul along their beloved medium format film cameras, as well as digicams and DSLRs. Participants are invited to bring digital, 35mm and medium format cameras, and color or black and white film. Photographers of all levels will benefit from this hands-on learning experience in travel, nature and documentary photography.
What Image Quest Photography Will Provide: - Instructors - Guided field sessions to a variety of public and private locations - Lunch Monday afternoon - Dinner Tuesday evening - Evening slide shows (bring some of your own slides, digital images and/or prints) - Help with carpooling
Camera Equipment: This is the trip to bring it all along - super wide angle lenses, telephoto optics, filters galore, CF or SD cards, three kinds of film and at least two camera formats. Digital or film cameras (35mm and medium format) are all welcome. However, if the truth be told, a basic digital or 35mm camera with one lens will work just fine during most of this photography workshop.Two filters for aficionados: the polarizer, and the 81A or 81B warming filter (the latter more for film photographers) will allow saturation of colors and keep a blue tone out of photographs made in the shade or under cloudy skies. Bring enough CF or SD cards for digital cameras, as well as a battery charger; some cameras require more than one battery to last through a day, some survive on a single battery. Make sure you have enough battery power.
Abandoned Homes
Bring Your Own Photographs: If you like, bring your own photographs for critique, or simply to be enjoyed by the group. If you have digital images, you can bring them on a CD and we'll show them on a digital projector or a computer monitor. Or show them on your own laptop. If you have prints you would like to share, bring them.
About our accommodations: Dave
Meals: We'll enjoy a couple of meals in some enjoyable and memorable locations.
Cost: $290. Deposit: $100 will hold a space. Full payment is due by January 15.
How to register: Send payment to Image Quest, 1164 Alvira Street, Los Angeles, CA 90035. Or you can use the services of paypal.com, should you prefer to register via the Internet (if you need help using paypal, contact Dave Wyman) - make sure space on the trip is still available before using paypal.
Contact Dave Wyman with any questions.
The photographs appearing on this webpage were made on Image Quest photography workshops.
The Image Quest Home Page | Backroads of Northern and Southern California Pictorial Guidebooks
Barstow "Mother Road" Route 66 Museum
Shot Count Totals by Participants - 2007 Route 66 Workshop