 Bull Elk, Yellowstone |
 Stoneman Brige, Merced River, Yosemite |
Image Quest offers inexpensive photography tours and workshops with deluxe features, in California and beyond. Photographers with digital, 35mm and medium format cameras are welcome. Each trip offers the opportunity to join with people interested in travel and nature photography. The current calendar offers a variety of locations and themes. The director, Dave Wyman, has conducted photography workshops since 1982.
Several Image Quest Photo trips include meals, some
prepared by trip leaders. Airfare and van transportation are offered
on trips outside of California, while most trips in the Golden State
involve carpooling. Call, write or e-mail for more information. Or,
click on those workshops with underlined trip titles for more
information.
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- Cultural
Mirages: Route 66 and the Mojave Desert - Friday-Sunday, January
25-27, 2008 - Friday through Sunday, January 25-27,
2008 Explore the cultural icons left behind by those who had a love affair with desert highways. Field sessions, centered along old Route 66, east of Barstow, will include the detritus of failed human incursions in the harsh desert environment. Cost: $425, includes accommodations and a group dinner our first night. Field sessions begin Friday afternoon, in Barstow; our base of operations will move to remote Amboy, east of Barstow, to view the famous Roy's Cafe and Motel, a classic roadhouse straight out of the middle of the last century and about to undergo restoration. Click here for images from a prior trip. Guest instructor: Ken Rockwell will join us for the third year in a row. Astronomer and night sky photographer Richard Nolthenius will, weather permitting, teach our group the methods for photographing the night sky with normal camera equipment and Ken and Dave will take the group out for neon photography. |
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Yosemite
in Winter and Gold Country - Thursday
through Sunday,
February 22-25, 2008 Our group will stay in El Portal, just outside the park, giving us easy access to Yosemite Valley, the historic barns at Foresta, and the snow-covered meadows and forests at Crane Flat. Will we need snow shoes or skis? No. For this workshop will rely on private autos for transportation and our forays out of the car will be easy-paced strolls; just bring your camera gear and clothing for cold to mild conditions, plus a comfortable pair of walking shoes or boots. We may find ourselves in the middle of a soft Sierra Nevada snowfall at the base of El Capitan, or in full sunlight at ice-rimmed Bridalveil Fall. Whatever the weather, the low-angled light and winter conditions will reveal shapes, shadows and textures otherwise unseen during other seasons. Note: If conditions are good, we will photograph a waterfall which turns to fire at the end of each day during the last two weeks of February. This trip includes, on our way home, a farewell brunch in the Gold Country town of Mariposa. We will also explore some of Gold Country's old highways and the little town of Hornitos, before the trip officially ends on Sunday afternoon. Cost: $475, limited to six participants. |
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Steinbeck Country (NEW) - Friday through Sunday, March 28-30, 2008 |
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- Death Valley - Thursday through Sunday, April 3-6, 2008 Death Valley is famous for laying bare a wildly rugged and colorful geology. Yet there is much more to see and photograph, including the imprint of human occupation on the land. Co-sponsored by the Death Valley Natural History Association and the San Diego Natural History Museum, our workshop will explore Death Valley's premier locations - the giant sand dunes, the oasis at Salt Creek, Badwater, Scotty's Castle, Zabriskie Point - as well as less known yet equally interesting places. We'll stay in comfortable rooms at the Stovepipe Wells Motel, near the giant sand dunes. Cost: $450. |
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- Yosemite
Waterworks - Monday through Thursday, May 12-15, 2008 |
| - Land of Fire and Ice - Mt. Shasta, Lassen Peak and Burney Falls (NEW) - Tuesday through Sunday, July 8-12, 2008 Come photograph the spectacular Cascade Mountains of Northern California, and escape the heat of summer. We will visit Lassen Peak (which last erupted early in the 20th century), and the quintissential Cascade volcano, Mt. Shasta, whose summit, covered with glaciers, stands more than 14,000 feet above sea level. We will also photograph the weirdly beautiful MacArthur-Burney Falls, where water blasts over the top of the falls, and oozes, sponge-like, out of a layer of lava below. Additional locations will include the Dunsmuir train yard and Castle Crags State Park. Cost: $975, will include accommodations, transportation in a comfortable van, and a group meal or two, entry fees, McCloud Railway train ride, and a variety of photographic locations. - In the Realm of the Mountain Gods and Dogs - Giant Sequoias and Our Dogs, Friday through Sunday, August 8-10, 2008 More information to come - click on the above link to see photographs from a few years ago. This is a three-headed weekend: it's an old-fashioned camping trip, a photography outing, and a chance to bring our (friendly and leashed) dogs along with our cameras. We'll photograph giant sequoia little wildflowers, bizzare, behemoth, unexplained "Indian Bathtubs," and spend quality time with our dogs and each other. It's a trip I haven't conducted for a while, but it was a lot of fun the last time out. You don't have to bring a dog, by the way, but you do need to at least like dogs. We'll camp in the little known, but achingly beautiful, Mountain Home State Park, in the Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains above Porterville, California. Bring your dog, dog food, a sleeping bag and a tent, lunch for a couple of days, and I'll take care of the rest - photography locations, evening slide shows, campsites in the midst of a grove of giant sequoias, and breakfasts and dinners. Cost: $200. |
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- Autumn in Yellowstone
and the Tetons -
Monday through Sunday, October 5-12, 2008 As it has been for Image Quest each year for more than a decade and a half, our autumn subjects in Yellowstone country will include geysers, wildlife, and the rugged Wyoming landscape. We'll also photograph the historic Mormon barns and tour the Jackson Hole area, travel beautiful backroads in Utah and Idaho, and explore the Tetons. Cost: $1,500. The tour includes accommodations in Yellowstone, Jackson Hole, Montana and Utah, van transportation, a group picnic, and an amazing array of field locations. Our visit should coincide with the colors autumn; mountain peaks might even be topped with a mantle of snow. Expect to photograph bison and elk and moose, with chances to see and photograph bears, beaver, and a variety of birds. We'll also look for wolves (although they are usually not easy to photograph). View photographs from the 2007 outing here. |
- Bodie,
Mono Lake & The Sierra Nevada East Side
- Thursday
- Sunday, Mid October, 2008
Bodie, the best preserved ghost town in the old west, lies
east
of Yosemite, as do the strange wonders of Mono Lake. We can expect,
as we have the past few years, to enjoy the colorful autumn that will
turn groves of aspens into flaming torches of yellow and gold. Our
travels will also take us into the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains,
including Lundy Canyon with its aspens and beaver dams, and we'll
make at least one stop at the famous Mobile gas station in Lee Vining
for dinner. We'll stay in Lee Vining, next to Mono Lake. Cost: $375.
Click here
for photographs made on the 2006 field trip. Note: Trip
will include special entry to the park for split sessions at dawn and
dusk.
- Autumn
in Yosemite -
Sunday through Wednesday, Mid- October,
2008
Photograph Yosemite when the colors of autumn will be on
display,
and people in the park will be few. We'll photograph classic and
novel locations in the Valley. Also enjoy
a farewell brunch at the Ahwahnee Hotel. Dave Wyman is teaching this
course for the Yosemite
Association. Click here
for images from 2006. Co-instructor: Ken Rockwell (kenrockwell.com). Cost: TBA.
Urban Photography in the Bay Area:
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- Day of the Dead in San Francisco (NEW) - Saturday through Thursday, November 2, 2008 |
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The
Image Quest Director - Dave
Wyman: Dave created Image Quest in 1982, while serving as the
wilderness resource coordinator at the University of Southern
California. He has conducted photography programs for natural history
associations in Yosemite and Death Valley, and periodically conducts
workshops and classes for UCLA. Dave also conducts trips and
workshops for the Los Angeles Zoo. His book, Backroads
of Northern California,
was
published in 2000. A companion volume, for southern California, was
published in 2005. Dave's photographs and articles have appeared
in Backpacker, Outdoor Photographer, Cross-Country Ski,
Outside, and several other magazines. His work also appears
in
the new Sierra Club Guidebook to National Parks of
California, the California State Parks Guidebook,
in
various places in cyberspace, and in private and corporate
collections. He is also the author of Yosemite in Photographs.
Questions or comments and/or requests for information about specific trips? E-mail to Dave Wyman
