epic eagles of alaska
We don’t call this workshop Epic Eagles for nothing. Kachemak Bay in Alaska is home to one of the densest concentrations of eagles on the planet where at times you can find yourself surrounded by upwards of a hundred or more at once. Eagles soaring, eagles fighting, eagles perching, eagles diving for fish, eagles in the snow, eagles with snow capped mountains in the background, and we will photograph them all.
Kachemak Bay this time of year may be one of the most picturesque winter wonderlands I know of. Towering and rugged mountains rise up from clear emerald waters where harbor seals and sea otters and a seemingly infinite array of ducks like harlequin and long-tails go about their lives. Snow covers all and the great silence of winter and wilderness here is something everyone should experience at least once in their life.
If you like eagles, if you have ever wanted to fill memory card after memory card with epic eagle photographs every single day, then this is the workshop for you.
This workshop will be a MASTER CLASS in bird in flight photography while also focus heavily on learning to see and think creatively.
Oh, and it’s nowhere near as cold as Yellowstone this time of year!
Cost: $7000
Deposit: $2000
Single Supplement: Included
Dates:
February 22nd - March 1st, 2025
Included:
Classroom Session
5 days on boats
All lodging in single rooms
Airport: Ted Stevens International Airport. ANC. Anchorage, Alaska.
Location: Homer, Alaska
Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced
Physical Difficulty: Easy
Overview of the Workshop
This workshop will be a master class in bird photography. While there will be significant opportunities to photograph portraits of eagles, specifically working on creative portraits that engage and have a storytelling component, the lion’s share of this workshop will focus on mastering birds in flight. While there will be other wildlife opportunities such as sea otters and various sea ducks such as harlequin and long tail ducks, the prime directive of this workshop is to create stunning photographs of bald eagles.
General Itinerary
Day 1: The first day of the workshop is all about just getting to Homer, Alaska. Most flights to Anchorage come in late so we recommend grabbing a room at the Courtyard Marriott for the night before driving down to Homer. Of course, you can also take a commuter flight from Anchorage to Homer as well.
Day 2: The following day we will be spent indoors talking shop. This is a photography workshop, not a tour. So, everything about this trip is designed to help you improve your photography. For this reason, the first day will be spent in a classroom like setting where we will discuss skill sets we believe to be critical for your success. And we guarantee your workshop will significantly more productive after spending the day with us refining the skills necessary for getting the most out of your trip to photograph bald eagles with us.
Day 3 - 7: The next five days will be spent photographing bald eagles. Each day will be split in half with a morning session and an evening session in the field. Days are relatively short up in Alaska this time of year but we will still end up with about 8 hours of photography a day.
Day 8: On the last day of the workshop, everyone heads back to Anchorage. If you wish to book flights out the same day, we recommend doing so after 2pm to account for any delays in travel back to Anchorage.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do you mean by master class?
All said and done, I have led over 30 winter workshops to Yellowstone National Park and I can honestly say that it is FAR colder there than it will be on this workshop. Days will likely start out in the upper 20s and climb to the mid-30s in the afternoon. Thanks to the presence of the ocean, this area does not experience the tremendous temperature swings and deep negatives that places in the interior see throughout the winter. With an average low of 26°F and an average high of 36°F in the winter, this workshop is down right comfortable compared to Yellowstone’s -40°F we sometimes experience.
How cold will it be?
Every workshop I offer has its particular skill sets that we will spend a considerable amount of time working on. On some workshops you might come away with a complete mastery of flash, or understanding manual exposure so well you never have to think about it again. To be successful at birds in flight photography you need two things: 1. a deep and intuitive understanding of your autofocus system and the associated autofocus area modes. 2. you need opportunities to practice, practice, practice. On this particular workshop, we will likely finish each day with around 15,000 images of bald eagles in flight. This means you will have countless opportunities to photograph eagles in every situation imaginable, all while attending an actual wildlife photography workshop. The workshops that I offer are not tours. These trips are designed to help ensure you come away with a solid understanding of the skills we will use during the workshop as well as a hard drive full of once in a lifetime photographs.
Additionally, you will notice that I make mention of a Classroom Session under the workshop details above. Before we ever go into the field, or out on boats as the case may be with this workshop, we spend an entire day in a classroom like situation discussing the ins and outs of the skill sets you will need on this workshop, making sure everyone’s cameras and autofocus systems are set up properly and helping participants prepare for the days ahead. We have found that these sessions before the workshop have been a game changer for our participants.
What size lens will I need?
This is where things get interesting. On this workshop you will absolutely want access to a shorter mid-range zoom lens. A 70-200mm lens is a great piece of glass for this workshop, as well as a 100-400 or a 200-600mm lens. Personally, when I am photographing eagles here, I bring a 100-400mm and a 400mm with built in 1.4 teleconverter (it’s a Nikon thing). If you don’t have the appropriate big glass for this workshop, have no fear - and definitely do not feel like you need to run out a buy a lens. Do what us working professionals do when we are on assignment and need access to equipment we rarely use: rent! We have a great working relationship with www.lensrentals.com and are able to give all of our workshop participants fantastic discounts through these guys.
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