The Creative Spark: Making Art with Your iPhone
• January 31st – February 2nd, 2020
• Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
• Focus: Field and Classroom
• Maximum 15 Participants
• Tuition: $695
• Workshop FAQ
This workshop is full!
Please email us to sign up for the waiting list.
In this workshop we’ll show you how to get creative with your iPhone, how iPhone image-making can expand your photographic horizons, and how iPhone experimentation can enrich and improve your overall photographic expression. Perhaps best of all, we’ll show you how to create wall-hanging-worthy photographs with nothing but your iPhone.
This three-day workshop will cover iPhone photography from beginner to advanced and everything in between, including:
• How to get sharp images when shooting hand-held
• Often overlooked but powerful features of Apple’s Camera app
• Camera replacement apps, their advantages and disadvantages
• Image file formats, which ones to use, and when
• Basic image editing workflow
• Advanced image editing with third party apps
• Skillfully correcting alignment and distortion issues and removing distractions
• Using filters and filter apps to create atmosphere and mood
• Blending two or more images together to create something entirely new, or just subtly different
• Adding textures for greater visual interest
• Finding off-the-shelf textures and creating your own
• Morphing an image into a watercolor, a pencil sketch, or a graphic using painterly conversion apps
• Working directly on an image with digital brushes to create your own painterly style
• Big, high-resolution panoramas and how to capture them
• Using HDR (high dynamic range) to manage high-contrast scenes
• Shooting at slow shutter speeds (yes, you can!)
• Creating your own look and style, and applying it consistently to multiple images
• Better backup and organization strategies
We’ll look at how hardware advances and iOS updates continue to improve iPhone photography. We’ll talk about HEIF, Apple’s new image file format, compare it to RAW and JPEG, and discuss the pros and cons of all three. We’ll also cover accessories such as add-on lenses, tripods, battery boosters, lens cleaning tools, and styluses. We’ll talk about how to share your work online directly from your phone, and discuss printing and displaying iPhone images.
During the workshop, we’ll be making several forays each day into Carmel town to practice different iPhone techniques. We’ll also take a field trip to a nearby location to practice what we’ve learned. And on Friday evening we’ll have an optional photo walk around Carmel to experiment with night and low-light image-making.
Any level of iPhone experience is welcome in this workshop. Some basic knowledge of photography and composition is helpful. An iPhone 7 or 7 Plus or more recent model is recommended. (See the workshop FAQ page for more information about equipment.)
You have a complete photography darkroom, start to finish, in your iPhone. It has everything you need to shoot, organize, process, display, and share your photographs. I hope you’ll join us as we show how to do all these things, and especially, how to spark your creativity with the one camera you always have with you.
Photoshop for Lightroom Users: An Online Workshop
January 6-7, 2024
(Waiting List)
Advanced Composition and Storytelling: An Online Workshop
January 20-21, 2024
(Waiting List)
Advanced Composition and Storytelling: An Online Workshop
February 17-18, 2024
Death Valley (through Visionary Wild, with co-leader Jerry Dodrill)
March 4-8, 2024
(Waiting List)
Winter Speaker Series presentation for Nature Photography Classes: "A Sense of Mystery"
March 11, 2024
Out of Big Sur Photography Conference
March 24-28, 2024
Grand Canyon by Raft (through Visionary Wild, with co-leader Jerry Dodrill)
May 2-13, 2024
(Waiting List)
The Mystic Forest: Redwoods Along the Northern California Coast
June 2-6, 2024
(Waiting List)
Out of Grand Teton Photography Conference
June 16-20, 2024
Starry Skies Adventure: Yosemite and the Eastern Sierra
June 30 - July 3, 2024
(Waiting List)
The Range of Light: Yosemite and the High Sierra
July 15-19, 2024
(Waiting List)
Nightscaper Photo Conference
September 26-29, 2024
Antarctica (through Visionary Wild, with co-leader Chris Linder)
January 14-30, 2025
Hokkaido (through Visionary Wild, with co-leader Toshiki Nakanishi)
February 10-21, 2025