PHOTO WORKSHOP - Bosque & White Sands

with Tom Vezo
November 10 - 14, 2008
Cost: $1,725

Hal Tretbar Friends has blocked rooms in Albuquerque for the evening of November 9th to assure an early start on the 10th.

We'll load the vehicles at 7:30am in preparation for an 8am departure.
When we get to Socorro, Tom will give students a presentation on his own photography, highlighting techniques that work best when photographing birds.
We'll be out until past sunset at Bosque del Apache, putting Tom's techniques to the test.

Sunrise and early morning activities will center around the early morning flights at Bosque. The birds are quite active at dawn, so be prepared for early mornings. We'll provide breakfast snacks to keep your strength up.
We'll return to our hotel for an early lunch and a bit of rest and downloading time, followed by an image critique from about 1-3pm.
The rest of the day we'll either travel the farm loop or marsh loop road, which provide excellent viewing of the wetland wildlife that inhabits this spectacular refuge. We will also likely head down one or two of the various walking trails.
Tom says the farm loop, which has many viewing platforms, passes close to the foraging areas of the Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese. From that loop you can also view the migrating ducks, such as Mallards, Pintails, Widgeons, Shovelers and Teals. From both trails you will also see raptors, such as Bald Eagles Red-tailed Hawks, Northern Harriers, Merlins and Kestrels. Many birders come to see the two or three elusive Whooping Cranes and if they are persistent, they can add these beauties to their life list.

Another early morning finds us at a pond where snow geese like to take off, then we'll head to the newly-harvested fields for more great bird photos.
After we're done at Bosque, we'll make our way to White Sands National Monument, where we've made special arrangements to be out past sunset. The moon should be rising with a little sunset light still in the sky, making for an incredible opportunity to capture it as it rises over the dunes.

Like at Bosque, we will be out photographing during the sweet light in the early morning and in the late afternoon, with the afternoon devoted to downloading photos for an image critique.

We'll enjoy one more sunrise at White Sands, enjoying the pink glow on the gypsum dunes before returning to Albuquerque.
We may conduct another leisurely lunch critique if there is time.
We will arrive in Albuquerque sometime in mid to late afternoon.

Ron York