IMAGE QUEST PHOTOGRAPHY
1164 Alvira Street, Los Angeles, California, 90035
The Image Quest Home Page | Backroads of Northern and Southern California Pictorial Guidebooks

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Phone: 323 377-7565


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The Mother Road - Route 66 Photography #2

Route 66 From Santa Monica to the Mojave Desert - A Photography Workshop

Friday through Sunday, February 11-13, 2011

Click here to view images from a prior workshop

The Trip: Yes, yes - stay home. Sit on your couch, watch your television television. Limp along, during the first days of 2011, in the slow lane of your life. Or grab your photo gear and your sense of adventure, and travel with us on our annual visit to a remote stretch of a deserted highway. Yes, come explore Route 66, and prepare to lose yourself in a land of weathered cultural icons left behind by those who, once upon a time, had a love affair with desert highways, a love affair that went unrequited.

Dates: Friday afternoon through Sunday afternoon, February 11-13, 2011

Transportation: Comfortable passenger van.

Accommodations: We will stay in a clean and comfortable motel in the San Bernardino area on Friday and Saturday nights.


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.

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Trip Instructors:

Ken Rockwell is a talented photographer as well as the creator of his well-known web site, kenrockwell.com. Ken's website is an amazing and constantly evolving compendium of thoughtful and thought provoking essays (some would say controversial), photography galleries, Photoshop lessons and detailed test reports about camera equipment. Ken is engineer by training, he has an artistic eye, and he enjoys sharing his knowledge and definite opinions about photography. He has fully embraced digital photography, and is equally adept with 35mm, medium and large format cameras. Listen to a May, 2006 radio interview with Ken here.


Dave Wyman has conducted photography tours and workshops since 1982. His photographs and articles have appeared in various publications, including Backpacker, Cross-Country, Oudoor 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, 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. Cities still have remnants of the old route.Our photography field sessions, centered along portions of Route 66 from Lo Angeles, east to Barstow, will include both the detritus of human incursions into the desert, as well as modern attempts to keep the spirit of Route 66 alive in urban settngs, with restored hotels, neon signs, old diners, et


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 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
- Dinner Friday evening
- Lunch Saturday afternoon
- Accommodations for two nights
- Evening slide shows (bring some of your own digital images and/or prints)
- Help with carpooling

What You Need To Bring:
- Clothing for warm and cool conditions - a sun hat and a knit or ski cap might both be appropriate
- Comfortable walking shoes
- Money for meals
- A sense of adventure
- Camera equipment (see below)

What We Will Explore Beyond Route 66:
- Exposure techniques
- Creative composition, including when and how to break the rules
- What to carry in a nature and travel photographer's camera bag
- Lens selection, including zooms and close-up gear
- Techniques for travel and landscape and macro photography
- The truth about tripods
- "Must Have" filters and useful accessories

The Itinerary: A good itinerary is like a good light meter - just a starting point. We will meet Friday, at noon, at the home of Dave Wyman (where cars can be left for the duration of the weekend, in Dave's driveway, or on the street).  After a quick lunch at Dave's we'll depart for points east, heading first toward downtown Los Angeles, and then onto the quaint city of Pasadena, photographing a variety of locations along the way. After dinner in a diner, we'll finish the evening with a drive east into the San Bernardino area. In the morning, we'll motor up into the high desert, and spend the day poking around the old railroad town of Barstow. On Sunday, after a morning session and breakfast, we'll head back to Los Angeles, finishing up at the western end of Route 66, at the Santa Monica Pier. By early afternoon, we'll deposit everyone back at Dave's home.

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. Three filters for aficionados: the polarizer, and the 81A or 81B warming filter (the latter for film photographers) and a graduated neutral density filter.

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.

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Film Considerations: Bring any sort of film. The less sensitive to light the film (lower ISO numbers, such as 25 to 100 with slide film, 200 to 400 with print film), the better the color saturation and image sharpness.

Higher speed films, such as ISO 200 to 400, allow you to more easily hand hold your camera. But faster films, to a slight degree, do not as accurately record color or hold image sharpness. 

Tripods: Good for low-light photography, including our night sessions (weather permitting), and early morning and early evening, as well as any indoor locations where we might find ourselves. Tripods are also a way to ensure the sharpest possible images from our cameras.

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, or memory stick, 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: Shared accommodations (single supplement is available, approximately $100, check with Dave) in a comfortable motel. 

Meals: We'll enjoy a couple of meals in some enjoyable and memorable locations.

Cost: $550. Deposit: $100 will hold a space. Full payment is due by January 6. 

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"Suicide Bridge" - Pasadena

Note: this will be a hands-on experience. There aren't any classroom sessions. Participants, Ken, Dave and Richard will be able to spend some significant time together over the course of our travels along Route 66, and wewill  all learn from each other. When we are indoors, usually at the end of a day, we'll probably pull out the laptops, or an external monitor or digital projector, and look and talk about photographs. Above all, though, the emphasis is on making artistic, meaningful and contemplative photographs. And on this trip there is the ability to make photographs from dawn until well past dark, from the time when the first rays of the sun touch the landscape until we've explored ways to photograph the neon that lights up the darkness.

Cancellations: $75 charge. No refund if you cancel three weeks or less, prior to the departure date, unless another person signs up. 

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
 No special camera gear is necessary for this trip. If you know you want more gear, here are two good places to find equipment: 


and
Freestyle Photo
(Caters to students and teachers)

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Shot Count Totals by Participants - 2007 Route 66 Workshop