Thanks to Ken Rockwell for serving as co-instructor on the 2007 trip. Ken will join us on the 2008 trip.
Cultural Mirages Route 66 and the Mojave Desert - A Photography Workshop
Roster Filled - Wait List Available
The Trip: Go ahead - stay home. Sit on your couch and watch television. Limp along, during the first days of 2007, in the slow lane of your life. Or grab your photo gear and your sense of adventure, bring along a road map, and travel with us on our annual visit to a remote stretch of 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.
Dates: Friday through Sunday, January 25-27, 2008
Chemical Plant, Amboy
Transportation: Private auto - trip leader will try to arrange carpooling where possible; we'll try to carpool once we're in Barstow, too. This will keep down cost of driving and will make us more mobile. Accommodations: We will stay at the picturesque, clean and comfortable Route 66 Motel in Barstow, one of the first motels in town (Barstow was founded as a railroad junction and today it's still a major intersection both for the railroad and for Interstates 15 and 40, and Highway 58. 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.
Richard Nolthenius lives in Santa Cruz, California. He teaches astronomy for Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz, California and is a wonderful night sky photographer as well as a nature photographer. He will teach us techniques for photographing the desert night sky (weather permitting), with basic camera equipment. He has, for many years, conducted photography and astronomy field trips in California. Richard's images from last year's Route 66 trip are 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. This is his sixth annual photography workshop to Route 66. Weather: Should be mild, but be prepared for warm and cool temperatures.
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, National Chloride Company
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 - Dinner Friday evening - Lunch Saturday afternoon - Accommodations for two nights in Barstow, California - 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
Other excellent films include Kodak's Kodachromes and Ektachromes, the latter designed to give Fujichrome a run for its money. Both Kodak and Fuji have excellent print films. Bring Your Own Photographs: If you like, bring your own photographs for critique, or simply to be enjoyed by the group. If you would like to share slides, bring up to 20 and we'll display them with a slide projector. If you have digital images, you can bring them on a CD and we'll show them on a digital projector or a large LCD monitor. (If you scan your 35mm or MF slides onto a CD, we'll show them on our digital projector and you can leave the originals home.) If you have prints you would like to share, bring them.
Cost: $425. Deposit: $100 will hold a space. Full payment is due by January 3. Limited to 20 participants, plus instructors. Cancellations: $25 fee. No refund if you cancel three weeks or less, prior to the departure date, unless another person takes your place.
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.
More Photographs: Eric Reid (2003 instructor) has a terrific portfolio of images of Route 66. Click here to view them.
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