The Fire of Fall

A Nature and Wildlife Photography Expedition in WYOMING

September 26 - 30, 2020

$3,750

Yellowstone and The Grand Tetons

Reds, yellows, greens and bright blues… ignite your photographic passions as you capture the fiery colors of geysers and foliage, study wildlife behavior of bears, bison, wolves and more. The vibrancy of color and life is calling to you. Join us on this inspiring refresh of your photographic eye and inhale crisp air like never before.

An Expedition Retreat: Reinvent The Philosophy of Your Photography

Boy! Some of our trips really do pack in a plethora of awesome places and experiences— and our photographic passions are so fed by this system of inspirational overload.

Yet if you’ve landed on this particular Wyoming photography expedition page, you have stumbled upon something quite special. This one is a type of photography expedition unlike any of our others: it’s a photography retreat; something we’ve been wanting to dive deeper into for quite a while…

A Photographer’s Refresh in Wyoming

We built our photography expedition model to create opportunities to revive creatively-starved photographers.

You are hungry in your passions

and that HUNGER MUST BE FED.

One of our most pressing missions is to keep people out there, doing it, feeling it, being it. Not inspired… out of practice… tired of photographing the same place… not sure of what to do with your photography?

We believe these are a few of the true roots of many of the surface-level problems photographers face. Chances are, you may not sticking with a scene long enough to get a good shot, and that’s because you’re not inspired enough by it. Chances are, you may not know how to create a powerful image, and that’s because you aren’t immersed enough in the moment to even know which part is the magic you’re trying to capture.

Our goal has always been to make those opportunities, solve those problem—getting to the roots of the problem of people’s photographic reservations.

In fact, we noticed we were really getting at something here. So we decided, in this Wyoming Photography Retreat, let’s dedicate the whole thing to this really interesting, remarkable and totally opportunistic space to Completely. Change. The. Game.

HERE’S WHAT MAKES OURS SO SPECIAL COMPARED TO OTHER WYOMING PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOPS

• We give you time and space to rest

• We give you the space to see things in a different way

• We’ll teach you how to see things with a fresh look for your photography

• At the time of sending us your trip application, send us your biggest photography problem to solve on this retreat. We’re dedicated to helping you progress beyond your limits.

• We offer a space to help revive your photography and feed any lack of direction or emptiness you feel in your captures

• We are 2 photography guides to no more than 8 participants

• This is a time to unlock your creative blocks and open new doors to what your eye and skills can create

• We spend less time on the road, more time in the scene. Pack light, let’s not ‘weigh ourselves down’ with luggage and ‘things’. We’ll have you flying into Jackson Hole and out of Bozeman. This is not a loop to leave you back where you started (realistically and metaphorically!).

Without further ado, allow us to introduce our Photographer’s Retreat in Wyoming. It’s short, it’s a simple and peaceful itinerary, but it’s the back-to-the-basics kind-of-space that reveals the foundation that could drastically paradigm-shift your photography.

This one is designed to take it slow and go through the real things people are trying to uncover in their hold-backs. We will be asking each photographer to send in an issue they have in their photography prior to the trip, and we will take the dedicated time to cover the philosophy behind that problem and the tactful solutions to solve it.

ITINERARY

SEPTEMBER 26

Welcome to Wyoming! What a view you had coming in. We will pick everyone up from the Jackson Hole, Wyoming airport at 1:30 p.m. and head to our lodge for an orientation. Everyone will have some time to settle in, take a rest and get packed up for a sunset adventure in Grand Tetons National Park!

We will explore Schwabacher’s Landing and surrounding areas to take in some of the most stunning mountain scenes in the U.S. We’ll stop by an area of bison where the light is just right, and scout for other wildlife along the way. We will finish the night with a delicious dinner by the fire in a cozy setting and begin an open discussion of our creative blocks to incredible photography. After a full afternoon of photographing, great discussion and a tasty dinner, we retreat to our hotel suites knowing we can sleep in tomorrow morning.

SEPTEMBER 27

Breakfast is had at everyone’s leisure. This morning we will start talking about the ways to solve specific photography blocks. We gather our belongings and hit the road for the Yellowstone National Park area and soak in the beautiful drive along the way. We may have time for a stop or two at some beautiful sights along this drive.

We check into our hotel in the Yellowstone area and head out for an inspiring afternoon of lunch amongst the springs and a beautiful landscape to captivate our lenses, keeping our eyes out for any wildlife photo ops from the wolves, bison and other animals. A cozy dinner is waiting for us by our hotel. We retire to bed early tonight in preparation for our sunrise wildlife outing tomorrow.

SEPTEMBER 28

Today we wake early and have savory and sweet breakfasts packed for us, as we are ready to seize the best opportunity for our very own wildlife safari in Yellowstone National Park. After a fulfilling early day in the park, we have a nice lunch followed by group constructive reviews of photography made thus far. Be sure to place up to 5 images on your provided hard drives and bring them with you to this review session!

After learning a lot not only from your photography leads, but also having the opportunity for insight from each other, we get back into Yellowstone for an afternoon session with long exposure waterfalls, and a gorgeous sunset date with the geysers. Dinner will be had picnic-style amongst the landscape in fresh air. We head to bed early in order capture one more glorious sunrise tomorrow!

SEPTEMBER 29

We wake early just brimming with excitement for another morning of glorious sunrise scenes in Yellowstone! After our inspiration is surcharged and our memory cards are packed with vibrant, bewildering images, we give a warm “see you soon!” to our new photography friends and prepare to depart from Bozeman, Montana. We will head for the Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport (BZN) to arrive there by 12:30 p.m.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTORS

ABOUT MARISA

MARISA IS AN EXPLORER, PHOTOGRAPHER AND JOURNALIST WITH A PASSION FOR CONNECTING PEOPLE TO THE UNKNOWN.

Her passion for documentary photography has lured her to remote corners of the world to experience the fire and ice of Iceland, ice-driving across the world’s deepest lake in Siberia, zodiac-riding over the world’s strongest current - Saltstraumen - in the Arctic circle, and more.

Marisa’s work has been featured in the first exhibition juried by infamous Cecil The Lion photographer, Brent Stapelkamp, written about by The Palm Beach Post, and hung on the walls of various locations throughout the East Coast.

She leads photography expeditions connecting people to inspiring landscapes, and creates photoessays for national and regional publications.

As a former student herself, Marisa is appreciated by all levels of students for her tactful ability to break down the elements of photography and post-processing, and convey them in a simplified way.  

EXPEDITION PRICE: $3,750

Price is for double accommodation. Single supplement is available at an additional $350.

GEAR LIST

HERE ARE SOME IMPORTANT THINGS TO BRING TO WYOMING

• DSLR or mirrorless camera

• At least two camera batteries

• At least two memory cards

• Your favorite lens (We recommend bringing at least a wide-angle, mid-range and telephoto lens so you are able to seize all photographic opportunities in Wyoming.)

• Lens cloths

• Tripod

• Laptop (If you would like to follow along with us during our post-processing instructions, we recommend that you bring a laptop to be able to participate and edit your photographs while with us.)

• Headlamp (We recommend something like this because it can switch between a regular and a red, night vision light. While having a regular light will be important for hiking or seeing paths, having red lights are important for night photographers because this type of light preserves your night vision and does not negatively impact other photographer's exposures in the way that regular light does.)

• Camera bag (At certain places we will be walking distances from parking areas to the viewpoints, and therefore you will need to have a bag that can hold the gear you'd like to shoot with. Keep in mind that this usually includes your tripod. You will also want to have some extra room for a water bottle and a packed meal on the days we take our meals to-go.)

TAKE YOUR WYOMING PHOTOGRAPHY TO THE NEXT LEVEL WITH THIS GEAR:

• Cable release

A cable release will allow you to take exposures longer than 30 seconds and multiple successive exposures (for star trails), help prevent camera shake, and more.

(These can be purchased on Amazon for approximately $9 and arrive within two days. Make sure you are getting the one that is appropriate for your particular camera. This one is for a Canon Rebel t6i. You can search Amazon or Google for the terms "remote cable release" + [your camera name and model].)

• Neutral density filter for your wide-angle / landscape lens

An ND filter will allow you to take longer exposures when you normally wouldn't be able to because the scene is too bright. This is the key to nice soft clouds in landscapes, milky waterfalls, etc. 

(I recommend anywhere from a 3-stop to 10-stop ND filter, but make sure it is of decent quality. I use B+W brand, but HOYA also makes great filters. LEE square filters are good too.)

• Graduated neutral density filter for your wide-angle / landscape lens

A graduated ND filter serves the same purpose as the ND filter described above, however the darkening effect takes place only on the top half of the filter, which allows your lighter sky to be exposed more similarly to your darker foreground. A 2-stop GND is a good start.

• Polarizing filter for your wide-angle / landscape lens

A polarizing filter will help deepen colors.

• Hand warmers (approximately $7 on Amazon or $5 at your local Walmart) and rubber bands

As your camera is brought from warm interiors to cooler settings, dew can accumulate on your lens glass and completely fog up your images! Photographers have come up with the ingenious solution of securing a couple of hand warmers onto the lens with a rubber band, which keeps the lens temperature regulated enough that it prevents the condensation from occurring!

THIS TRIP IS FOR

*All* levels of photographers

Those looking for a nature photography *experience*

Those looking to translate their connection with nature into their images

Those ready to breathe new life into their photography with this vibrant expedition to a land of color and fresh air

Those photographers who feel like they see the magic of the scene when they are there, but really want to work on being able to translate that into a final awe-inspiring photograph

Those interested in the psychology behind a photograph and its composition, and want their photographs to catch other people’s attention

DATES

September 26 - September 30, 2020

Price

$3,750

LOCATION

Yellowstone National Park

Lamar Valley

Yellowstone Falls

Geysers

Springs

Grand Tetons National Park

Scwabacher’s Landing

Wyoming

Education

Field instruction

Specific photographic technique problem-solving

Philosophical approach

Class post-processing instruction

One-on-one critiques

photographic themes

Incredible fall landscapes

Inspiration from and connection to scene and its influence on the image

Capturing the moment and translating to the creation of an awe-inspiring photograph

Saturation

Natural light

Nature

Wildlife

Reinventing your photography and compositions

Astrophotography

“Marisa Marulli is the person who took my love for photography and pushed it over the edge. Prior to her explanation I didn't know anything about shutter speed and aperture. Not only did she take the time to explain it to me but she spent the time to show me how to do it in the field. She put everything in terms that I could understand and I am forever grateful.”

—FRANK DINARDI, HADDAM, CT

What makes our excursion stand out from all the rest:

• Exclusivity: Limited to eight participants only!

• One-on-one attention: Two photographer guides for no more than eight participants promises you the attention you deserve.

• Immersive experience: Each step of this itinerary has been hand-picked by Marisa, offering her signature immersive and intimate experiences of the landscapes we aim to photograph.

• Everything iconically Wyoming: We make sure to bring it all to you in one expedition: cultural immersion, gorgeous landscapes, our nightly hunt for the Milky Way, and more!

• Light: We chase many sights when the light is golden and right!

• Experience: Our expedition is a mixture of photography opportunities and engaging experiences.

RESERVE WITH A 30% DEPOSIT

GETTING TO US

Info coming soon…

MARISA'S INSTAGRAM FEED

@MarisaMarulli

SEE WHAT SHE'S CURRENTLY SHOOTING!

DISCLAIMER

This itinerary is subject to change. The opportunity for photography and astrophotography is based on proper weather conditions. If the weather conditions are in any way hazardous or unfavorable, the photography guides reserve the right to cancel in-the-field instruction for affected days.