Happy New Year Reader!

David here; with 2020 almost behind us, we wanted to thank you all for your incredible support throughout this challenging year. Thank you to everyone that attended our webinars and reached out to offer well wishes when our business was largely decimated. To those who sent donations to support us or signed up for future workshops. For everyone's understanding and supportiveness when we were forced to cancel all our workshops, and to those who gave condolences when my mother passed away unexpectedly. We are very fortunate to have such a wonderful, supportive audience.

We also know many others are suffering much more than we are. Many have lost their loved ones, their jobs, and businesses. We feel very fortunate to be healthy and exploring new ways to support ourselves during this challenging time. We also want to extend a very big thank you to those working on healthcare frontlines and to all the other essential workers that carried on during this hardship. You are all the true heroes in this pandemic!
​

We hope the holidays offered some hope and peace for you. We are still in Denver, working on projects and trying to stay healthy and safe. We did manage to escape to Rocky Mountain National Park last week for a day in the snow. We hiked to an alpine lake to photograph the scenery and the ice. It was a nice respite from staying inside, and even though we had below zero windchills, we loved every minute of it! One silver lining to staying home is that we can get out and explore the mountains in the winter, which is something we normally miss out on due to spending the winters in California teaching. We hope you have been able to find an escape into nature yourselves, and we hope you are staying inspired with your photography. It gives you a reason to carry on with your creative endeavors even during these difficult times.
​

For the time being, we plan to stay here in Denver through January, and we'll be keeping an eye on the restrictions in California to determine if we will head to Death Valley for a visit and if we'll be able to continue with our February workshops. In the meantime, we'll be at home working on our photos, writing, and ebooks.
​

On that topic, we will have many new webinars, ebooks, and new workshops in the coming months! Keep reading to learn more about an upcoming webinar on my black and white processing. Jennifer has also been hard at work finishing her new website, and she will release it the second week of January.
​

Here's to a happy and healthy New Year to you all! Bring on 2021, and we'll see everyone next year!

Best,

David and Jennifer

Our Favorite Images from 2020

We may not have been able to get out much this year, but in those few trips, we were able to come away with some images we are proud of. Click through to see the images and the stories behind them.

New Webinar: Rethink Black and White Processing

Do you struggle with Black and White images that are dull grey and seem to lack depth? For years I struggled to create interesting monochrome images. I went through various plugins including Nik Silver Efex, but the secret didn't lie in a plugin. The magic is in shaping light using burning and dodging techniques. I've come up with a simple, yet powerful method that I think you'll enjoy as much as my Rethink Lightroom process.

I will demonstrate how I use a Wacom tablet in Lightroom to create stunning images with minimal effort. You will be shocked how quickly you can transform a bland image into a work of art. Black and White is incredibly freeing and fun because you have complete control of creative possibilities.

Testimonial from the last webinar:

Your webinar “Rethink Lightroom” was definitely one of the best educational webinars that I’ve ever attended on processing, and I’m already looking forward to your next one! The “step by step” presentation format was easy to follow, and I was pleasantly surprised that the process itself appears to be simple and straightforward to implement. Most importantly, the “before and after” showed amazing results, and I think this approach will help me to take images from the ordinary to extraordinary. I think what was unique about this webinar is that it wasn’t simply focused on the technical “how to”, but rather on “why” optimizing the use of specific tools in LR can help to create images that are more evocative. I especially appreciate the way you applied this approach on multiple images to demonstrate how to achieve different outcomes, depending on your creative objective (high contrast, pastel, B&W, etc.). Also, I want to thank you for providing the session notes and the recording—so generous, and so helpful!

Workshop Openings

Most of our future workshops are full already due to rescheduling canceled workshops from this year, but we have two that have spots left. These are PV (post-vaccine), so hopefully, life will be a bit more normal by this time.

​Colorado Wildflowers and Waterfalls - July 26-30, 2021​

​Colorado Fall Colors - September 29 - October 3, 2021​

More Than a Rock, 2nd Edition by Guy Tal

If you're looking for some deep reading on photography, this is the book for you. Our friend Guy has just released the 2nd edition of his book 'More Than a Rock.' The book is filled with insightful essays that will take time to ponder and may even cause you to think differently about your approach to photography.

Articles and more

• ​Permission... by Cole Thompson
• ​New Photos from our friend Ron Coscorrosa
• I'm afraid that's it for this month, everyone has taken a vacation for the holidays apparently!

​Click here to opt-out of our newsletter but remaining on our mailing list.​