• Weekend Workshops Just Added
• Featured Workshop: Horses and Cowboys
• Featured Participant/Volunteer Images
Quick Reference Links
Featured Participant/Volunteer Images
© Suzanne Mathia
Bosque and White Sands Workshop
© Alexa Walker
Slot Canyons Workshop
© Tina Chaleki
Desert Botanical Garden Workshop
Featured Partner
Desert Botanical Garden is a living museum featuring more than 50,000 plants, including rare, threatened and endangered species. Enjoy specialized tours, workshops, seasonal exhibits, special events, concerts and the opportunity to shop for unique items in our gift and plant shop. Visit Web site...
Would your organization consider being a partner? Please call us toll free at 1.888.790.7042.
What Our Participants Say About...
Yellowstone in Winter Photo Workshop
with Henry Holdsworth, January 2009
“Our instructor, guides, and escorts provided a truly wonderful experience inside a jewel of the park system. Their experience and teamwork was exceptional, exceeding all of our expectations.”
— Dan Haun
“Well planned events with just the right amount of flexibility with congenial folks.”
— Mark Frey
“Henry Holdsworth is a great instructor; friendly and very approachable. His critiques helped me be a better photographer.”
— Dixie Pearson-Shute
“The Yellowstone workshop is the most magical workshop I ever attended.”
— Robert McGee
“Forget the crowds of summer in Yellowstone, try seeing its beauty and splendor in WINTER. Hate crowded resorts, long lift lines, try Yellowstone and get back in touch.”
— Teresa A. Feldmayer
More about 2010 Yellowstone Winter workshop...Request a Brochure
For a free printed color brochure or to have one sent to a friend, visit our Web site to fill out a mailing form.
Our brochure is published yearly. Please visit our Web site for the most current information available about each workshop.
Weekend Workshops Just Added
 © Morey Milbradt |
Wildflower Workshops
by Lori Lause
It's a favorite time of year for hikers, photographers and botanists in Arizona when winter rains pay off with an abundance of wildflowers blooming throughout our deserts and mountains! Rainstorms over the past few months should produce a good spring wildflower season for 2009 and we're already seeing reports of a healthy variety of plants starting to flower along the hiking trails that traverse our state parks. A green desert dotted with Covena, Fleabane Daisies, Desert Marigold, Mexican Gold Poppies and Brittlebush are merely a prologue for the tapestry of colors to come. Whether along hillsides, on the banks of desert washes, embraced by Palo Verdes, or protected by cholla and saguaro thorns, you'll be amazed at the variety and color the Arizona desert has to offer.
We've designed two wildflower workshops to take you to see some of the best flowers near Phoenix. Workshops on March 14 (one day with Morey Milbradt), and March 21 (one day with Colleen Miniuk-Sperry) have been planned, with prime locations for shooting to be determined closer to the workshop dates. Our photographers, through their work with Arizona Highways, have sought these flowers out for many years and know where some of the most verdant spots will be. They'll be scouting your workshop location in the few days before the workshop begins to give you the best possible experience. Locations we are considering include: Lake Pleasant, Eagletail Mountains, Boyce Thompson Arboretum, Peralta Trail, Picketpost Mountain, Usery Mountain, Lost Dutchman State Park, and more. The cost for each one day workshop is $180. Each has a classroom teaching element, lunch and fieldwork included. Join us for what promises to be an extraordinary display of vibrant desert wildflowers!
 © Laura Montoya |
Chihuly: The Nature of Glass Photo Workshop
by David Halgrimson
Imagine... the artistry of Dale Chihuly and the beauty of Desert Botanical Garden, all captured by you and your camera. See the wonderful and vibrant colored glass sculptures throughout the Garden on a two-day photo workshop. Chihuly is known worldwide for his glass sculptures and glass art pieces. He has many Garden exhibitions and museum showings in progress and this is Chihuly's first exhibition in an outdoor desert.
Come join us April 16th and 17th for a truly unforgettable experience as you receive expert advice from Arizona Highways Photography Editors, Peter Ensenberger and Jeff Kida. Then enter your photos to become eligible to win an Arizona-based photo workshop from Friends of Arizona Highways. The contest is proudly sponsored by Desert Botanical Garden, Arizona Highways Magazine and Friends of Arizona Highways. Space is limited, so call early to reserve your place in this unique workshop! Find out more...
- Visit CHIHULY: The Nature of Glass exhibit through May 31, 2009 by making reservations at Desert Botanical Garden.
- Enter CHIHULY: The Nature of Glass Photo Contest by June 1, 2009 at arizonahighways.com.
 © Colleen Miniuk-Sperry |
Rails and Tales of the Verde Valley
May 2-3 with Colleen Miniuk-Sperry
Cost: $390
Join photographer Colleen Miniuk-Sperry on an exciting weekend workshop, sampling the most intriguing, story-telling sights in the Verde Valley and learning special travel photography tips and techniques along the way.
We’ll first board our first-class cabin on the historic Verde Canyon Railroad, which will take us through the rugged Verde Canyon (accessible only by railroad) along “Arizona’s Longest-Running Nature Show.” With access to an open-air car, ample photography opportunities await as bald eagles circle overhead, panoramic views inspire, and with Mother Nature’s help, spring wildflowers bloom in the high desert.
After an exciting 4-hour train ride, you’ll be treated to a wild evening of cowboy dining and fun at the Blazin’ M Ranch as Colleen shares techniques for capturing effective images in the low-light situations we’ll likely encounter. We’ll then explore the historic mining town of Jerome, where about 450 people call this ghost town home. The streets are lined with historic buildings and filled with people waiting to tell their stories and legends about more prosperous times.
Featured Workshop: Horses and Cowboys
 © Participant Lana Shpiar |
Cost: $2,295
Volunteer Trip Leaders: Art Foxall, Jack Jordan and Ashley Schutt
View Itinerary...
To think of the Southwest and its cowboy past is to conjure up pictures of wranglers in dusty jeans and jangling spurs, driving horses through desert arroyos studded with magnificent saguaros. It’s still possible to capture such classic American scenes, and we’ll help you do just that at the picturesque White Stallion Ranch.
The ranch encompasses 3,000 acres of pristine Sonoran Desert bordering the Saguaro National Park near Tucson, and offers a relaxing escape surrounded by bubbling fountains, blooming palo verde trees, chile ristras and rustic wagon wheels. Here you’ll have outstanding opportunities to photograph working cowboys up close. Ranch activity includes cattle penning, horse drives, barrel racing and small-arena rodeo events.
And, of course, with his extensive skills as a photojournalist, Arizona Highways Photo Editor Jeff Kida will also help you craft remarkable photos of cowboys and cowgirls at work around the ranch during both spontaneous and planned portrait activities. You'll have ample opportunity to study the use of natural light and how it can often be improved with such aids as flash and reflectors, and fieldwork will be supplemented by illuminating photo critiques aimed at improving compositional technique.
At the White Stallion Ranch you'll experience "true" hospitality, from the True family that own and operate this magnificent property. You'll immediately feel at home here, as you stroll from your cottage to the corrals, past cactus gardens and farriers at work. We'll keep you busy taking great photographs, but just in case you want a change of pace, horseback riding, basketball, swimming and tennis are also available between shoots, or you can relax in the activity center or fitness center.
The price of this workshop is all-inclusive, and covers transportation, meals, model fees and accommodations during the workshop.
 © David Muench |
Photography Tip
by Jeff Kida, Arizona Highways Photography Editor
Shooting the Moon
A simple way to begin photographing night skyscapes is to experiment with the moon. Prime photographic opportunities occur daily at sunrise and sunset, and some of those opportunities are directly related to the phases of the moon. The moon, whether it’s at its full, crescent or quarter-moon phase, can evoke a sense of romance, whimsy or mystery, adding a lot to an image.
First, determine when the moon rises and sets each month — the information is easily found online. Next, choose an interesting foreground. Because the moon is the brightest object in the night sky, shoot several days before the full moon to maintain the detail in both the moon and the foreground of your image.
 © Ralph Lee Hopkins  © Kerrick James |
Alaska Workshops
Visit Alaska with Ralph Lee Hopkins or Kerrick James on one of our spectacular Alaska workshops!
Denali and the Grizzlies of Hallo Bay
Embark on a memorable journey to America’s last frontier – Alaska! Learn how to photograph using the ever-changing light and colors in Denali National Park, with guidance from renowned Arizona Highways photographer and instructor Ralph Lee Hopkins.
Find out more about this workshop...
SPECIAL OFFER: If you book by March 13, we’ll offer you a one time 10% discount on the Denali/Hallo Bay workshop. Please mention this offer when booking your reservation.
Wild Alaska
Explore the wild lands of south-central Alaska on this one-of-a-kind workshop combining landscape and wildlife photography; along with boat trips, scenic flights and wilderness hikes. Kerrick James will be our instructor on this Alaskan journey. Kerrick is an adventure, travel, and destination photographer with over 200 book and magazine covers to his credit. His passion is traveling the world’s wild places creating compelling images, and he has led many Arizona Highways workshops.
Find out more about this workshop...
© 2009 Friends of Arizona Highways Foundation
All rights reserved. Copy/transfer of any image without permission is strictly prohibited.