Arizona Blooms, Wildlife & Milky Way Photography Workshop (2025)
Grab your camera and join Jess Santos & Ryan Oswald for a Colorful Photography Workshop in Arizona from April 22nd to 27th, 2025. Every spring the desert cacti erupts in unique wildflower bloom this is the best time to caprure life in the Arizona desert. As the sun sets and the clouds clear we will photograph the spring Milky Way shimmering over these jaw dropping location.
The flowers aren't the only life to be found in the Arizona desert though, wild horses, burrowing owls and even bald eagles call this landscape home, and you will have the unique opportunity to photograph wildlife during this workshop. During the night hours in this otherworldly landscape, you will feel like you are photographing water on the moon. In addition to mastering techniques for photographing these unique scenes, you'll also learn how to capture the drama of epic weather systems and dazzling night scenes
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We will be including a Post Workshop Group Zoom Editing Session to cover putting it all together in the digital darkroom, this will be screen recorded for you to be able to finish your images at your leisure.
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⛰ All experience levels are welcome.
We are limiting this photography workshop 8 students with 2 instructors to ensure that everyone receives our attention and to keep compositional possibilities uncluttered.
This workshop is very much weather based so we have kept the itinerary flexible to be able to pursue the best light available during the day and clear skies at night. If it rains or conditions prove unsafe to venture out we will work on post processing, image critiques and in classroom sessions, there's always so much to learn both in field and in the classroom!
This workshop will require moderate hiking (no more than 3 miles) through rocky or sandy terrain.
Planning your shoots
- Scouting and evaluating conditions
- Composing an image to grab the viewer’s attention
- Composing an image with a person in frame to show scale and tell a story
- How to work with light and how to find the best light for the scene
- Utilizing apps, such as PhotoPills, for more efficient planning
- Choosing the right lens, find your focal length
- How and when to use filters
- How to shoot with a plan or vision for editing
Capturing your image
- Histogram: How to read for perfectly exposed images
- Exposure control: How to use ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed in different scenarios
- Creative ways to use lens distortion
- Focus stacking & Focal Length Blends
- Bracketing and exposure blending
- Focusing at night to capture pin sharp stars and foreground
- Blue Hour Blending: How to capture blue hour & Milky Way
- Stacking for Noise Reduction: how to shoot the proper frames to stack
Bringing the image to life
- Lightroom and Photoshop: Learn our post-processing workflow
- How to blend multiple images together in Photoshop (Blue Hour Blends, Focal Length Blends, Exposure Blends, Composites)
- Luminosity Masks
- Dodging and Burning
- Blue-hour Blends
- Star-stacking: how to edit starry night skies with Starry Landscape Stacker (or Sequator)
- Understanding layers and masks
- Finishing touches using clone stamp and removing distractions
- Creating Orton glows and painting with light
- Sharpening: Creating sharpness in your final image
