Spring Wildflowers and Waterfalls Workshop 

April 10-14, 2019

Join us for 4 days of finding and photographing wildflowers and waterfalls in the beautiful Great Smoky Mountains National Park, home to the largest variety of wildflowers of any National Park in the country.  If you are passionate about photographing water, the Great Smoky Mountains (which is a rainforest) will be calling your name!

Brett, Mandy, and April will be guiding you to some of the best locations to find these beautiful blooms and helping you get the shots that you will want to preserve and share with others to enjoy these magnificent creatns.  There will be early morning sunrise shoots, some hiking, and we will try to sneak in some night time shooting as well if the weather cooperates.  During the middle of the day, we will focus on classroom instruction and image review.  The most strenuous hikes we might possibly do are to Abrams Falls or White Oak Sinks.  These are 5-6 miles round trip and are considered moderate in difficulty.  You DO NOT have to be able to hike these to attend this workshop!  If you are not comfortable with either of these distances, it is perfectly ok as we will split the group and take everyone who does not want to commit to the hike to an equally awesome location!  Most of the locations we shoot do not require a lot of hiking.  The Smokies are filled with fabulous water photography opportunities, however, most all of the waterFALLS (as opposed to the beautiful cascades like the one pictured below) are at least a mile hike, even if it is not a difficult hike.  However, that is the beauty of having multiple instructors, we can split the group when we need to and everyone still has a great day!

This group is limited to 20 participants so that you will receive plenty of individual attention.  The fee for the workshop is $449 per person.  This does not include lodging, meals, or transportation.  We will be based out of The Appy Lodge in Gatinburg, Tennessee (www.theappylodge.com).  If you would like to stay there for the workshop, please call 865-430-3659 to make reservations and be sure to tell them that you are part of the f/32 Photo workshop so that you will get a discounted room rate ($119 per night for a standard room before taxes).  If you make reservations online, there is not a way for you to receive the discount for the workshop.  You are not required to stay at the Appy Lodge to participate in the workshop, but it does make things easier for everyone if we are all in one place.  However, we realize that some of you may be traveling by RV and there are some RV parks nearby.  The Appy Lodge is brand new and located on the very edge of Gatlinburg, so we will be right next to the bypass and can skip all of the traffic in Gatlinburg to get into the Park!  Plus, there is pancake house, package store, and mini-golf course on all sides of the hotel, so what more could you need?

Cancellation Policy for the workshop - Full refund minus $20 administrative fee is available until February 15th, 2019.  A 50% refund is available February 15 -March 15, 2019.  After March 1 5, 2019, no refund will be available.

A little bit of info on our workshop leaders...

Brett Wells has a bachelor's degree in graphic design from Samford and a master's degree in Photographic Studies from the University of Westminster in London, England.  He was an instructor for the Atlanta Art Institute for seven years after completing his studies in London.  I often call him "Brettipedia" because yes, he is just that smart and informative about all kinds of things...just ask him most anything (especially to quote lines from Monte Python because those are just funny).  While teaching is still his passion, he now is a full time team member of Sigma Photo and travels the country educating people about their product and photography.  One of his favorite places to be though is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, so he says that any day in the Park with a camera in hand is a good day!

Mandy Lea has been a photographer and worked in the photographic industry for many years before she set out on the road full time to explore and photograph the country in her tear drop trailer.  Mandy first joined us in leading this workshop two years ago and we had such a blast that we are so thankful she has agreed to join us again this year!  Mandy tells her story much better herself than I ever could tell it here, so I'm just going to point you to her website where you can watch some of her video blogs and see her work.   She is teaching and photographing wherever she goes!  Check out her story...www.mandyleaphoto.com.

Kendrick Callaway is Mandy's partner in crime:).  An avid trail runner, mountain climber, and camping expert (among so many other things!), he has become quite the photographer in the last year under Mandy's instruction and example.  I have seen him scour rocks looking for the best vantage point, carry people's equipment for them back out the trail just to be helpful, and I am convinced that he saved me from cracking my skull open when he caught the loop of my backpack just as I was sliding off a boulder at a waterfall about a year ago...so, yes, he is handy to have around and we are happy to have him with us on this journey!

 April Love is me, so I'll admit that I'm not really an instructor, but more of administrative support for the awesome people listed above.  I am more one on one help in the field or the person who can find an answer to your question if I don't know it myself.  I spend most of my time running f/32 Photo in Knoxville, Tennessee, which is a professional print lab (yes, we even still develop film), camera accessory store, rental program, and small studio.  We also produce a few workshops like this one each year.  Another one that you might have heard of is The Great Smoky Mountains Photography Summit.  Nature photography and being out on a trail is my joy, so it is a blessing to get to do that with other like-minded people and get to call it work!

 

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