Join Image Quest on a photographic outing to Point Reyes National Seashore and Tomales Bay, north of San Francisco. Our tour will encompass forested highlands, headlands and beaches, historic towns, people, and we will have a chance to photograph a variety of wildlife, including the the elk at Point Reyes.

Dates: Thursday afternoon through Sunday morning, August 26-29, 2010.

Cost: $425

Level of Experience: Photographers with intermediate and above skills. 

Trip difficulty: None, conducted at a photographer's pace. There will be some walking. Participants should be able to walk at least a mile over the course of a a day (and we will walk far less than that distance at any one stop).

Transportation: via private vehicle; trip leader will help make carpooling arrangements between those who need rides and those who can offer rides. 

Trip leaders will do their best to insure that we balance the need to spend enough time to enjoy a location, but not at such length as to bore our group.

Trip Leaders: - Ken Rockwell is known internationally for his website, kenrockwell.com. He is a walking encyclopedia of knowledge about photography and cameras. He can answer any question about any point-and-shoot digicam, all film cameras, and the latest digital cameras. He is particularly well versed in the use of Nikon and Canon equipment. His loyal readers - who number in the thousands each day - enjoy his often iconoclastic and sometimes controversial essays and detailed reviews of camera gear. A Southern California resident much of his life, Ken has explored  California and the Southwest with his camera, including recent explorations of Death Valley, northern New Mexico, and stretches of historic Route 66. Ken is conversant with a wide variety of camera equipment; he works with both with film and digital images. Visit Ken at kenrockwell.com. - Dave Wyman - his photographs have appeared in Outdoor Photographer, Cross-Country Skier, the California State Parks Guidebook and his books, Backroads of Northern California, Backroads of Southern California, and Yosemite in Photographs. Dave has conducted photography tours since 1982, for the San Diego and Los Angeles natural history museums, the Sierra Club, the University of Southern California, the Yosemite and Death Valley natural history associations, and the Los Angeles Zoo. His unbridled passion for travel and photography have led him and the groups he conducts to locations throughout California, the Southwest, Oregon, and Yellowstone. He enjoys photographing landscapes and wildlife, and he is able to establish a rapport with his human subjects. Dave takes his camera up onto mountains summits, down to rugged coastlines, and along remote roads in the western U.S, both by car and on a bicycle.

Third Instructor: depending on group size, we may add a third instructor.

The trip: This will be a hands-on workshop. That is, we won't spend much time behind a computer, certainly not during daylight hours, and we won't spend lots of time discussing f/stops and shutter speeds in classroom-like settings. Instead, we will be out and about making photographs, learning by sharing ideas and by example, and learning seeing what other people are coming up with through their viewfinders and on the LCDs on cameras.

Since we are heading up a week before the mad Labor Day weekend, we will have much of what we visit relatively largely to ourselves, and this will be especially so in our morning and sunset sessions, whever we find ourselves.

Carpooling: We encourage everyone to carpool when and where possible. We'll send around, with your permission, a list of participants as the trip date nears, for those who want to carpool to our meetins place.  Weather: Expect cool morning and evening temperatures, and mild to warm days.  Who is this trip for? No matter what level of knowledge, all participants need only have a love of photography, and a desire to make photographs throughout the course of a few days, from dawn to sunset. Our purpose will be to visually explore the world around us, with an additional benefit: we will explore who we are too, in relation to the world around us, expressed through the creative artistry we will learn to bring to our photographs.

Accommodations: Dave and Ken will stay in a pleasant motel in the town of Petaluma, minutes from Tomales Bay and Pt. Reyes. You are invited to stay in the same accommodation, or you may make your own. Contact Dave by email or phone for information.

We'll send a list of participants around to help match up potential roommates.

Meals: A group dinner on Sunday night, and a picnic meal are included.

Itinerary: on Thursday, the group will meet for dinner in Petaluma. Friday: explore Tomales Bay. Saturday: Point Reyes area. Sunday: Dawn near Petaluma; farewells after breakfast. We'll send out a more specific itinerary to participants when we are closer to the trip itself.

What you need to Bring: - A sense of adventure - Clothes for cool and warm conditions - Shoes (tennis shoes or boots or any comfortable walking shoes; consider bringing along an extra pair of shoes, just in case) - Money for for meals not provided (there are restaurants and markets in the little towns around our photography locations that we'll visit at meal times) - Camera gear (see below) What is Provided by Image Quest: - Trip leaders - Two Meals - Guided field sessions - Photographic instruction - Help with accommodations - Any entry fees

Camera Equipment: a basic digital or 35mm camera will work well. Don't feel the need to purchase special equipment. However, for those with more gear, bring it along - this is the time to use it. A good accessory: a tripod (along with a remote or wired shutter release) will allow photography early and late in the day. Good filters, particularly for those with film, would include an 81B (to warm up images made in the shade) and a graduated neutral density filter (digital photography has made the latter filter somewhat obsolete). All photographers might want to bring along a polarizing filter.

Medium format photographers are welcome, too. The instructors will probably bring along both film and digital cameras; digital images - from the instructor and participants - will be shown during the workshop during the evenings, if time and stamina after a day in the field permits.

For print (negative) film, Fuji's basic Fujicolor films are excellent. A good ISO/ASA film speed rating for print film is 200 to 400. For transparencies (slides), the instructors prefer Fujichrome's stable of slide films, and the Kodak Ektachromes work well, too. Memory and power: Bring enough CF or SD cards to contain several hundred photographs. Cameras will be working all day, so sufficient battery power is important. Don't forget a battery charger. Your Photographs: Feel free to bring along your own images. Bring up to 20 digital images (on your laptop, on a CD, etc.) and/or as many prints, for the the group to view. To register: Send payment to Image Quest, 1164 Alvira Street, Los Angeles, California, 90035. Or use paypal.com and a credit card (check with Dave first, and let him know if you would like help using paypal).

NOTE: Dave Wyman, who is handling the registration, will be in Yosemite until July 25. Sign-ups will begin July 26,after Dave returns from Yosemite. For those who wish to attend the outing, please email Dave; or send in payment via check and on Dave's return from Yosemite, he will receipt checks and contact participants that they are on the trip.

We'll send back a receipt and any additional documentation, including directions to our accommodations, maps, itineraries, etc., that participants will need. Cancellation fee: $100. No refund for cancellations less than two weeks prior to the start date of the outing unless another particpant joins us.