In this five-day photography retreat, you will learn a wide variety of significant techniques from four master macro and floral photographers utilizing the environs of Madeline Island and the historic port town of Bayfield. Your creative muse will include lupines, wild flowers, boatyard gardens, and woodland plant life.

This summer immersion retreat offers a unique macro photography adventure. Capture over 50,000 blossoming florals, a vivid mosaic of roadside lupine, undulating fruit orchards filled with efflorescence, and Island gardens erupting in a vibrant array of color.

Your retreat experience will include a combination of shooting in the field, classroom lectures, and unique post-processing training utilizing specialized software.

Workshop Details

Instructor: Mike Moats

I teach macro photographers how to easily get everything in focus. My main style is shooting with all of the subject in focus from top to bottom and side to side. I teach macro photographers how to easily get everything in focus. I will teach you how to deal with depth of field and deciding which f/stops to work with.

Instructor: Anne Belmont

In this workshop I will show students how to develop a more mindful and creative workflow in the field – a workflow that encourages you to connect more deeply with your subject, create photographs that reflect your heart, and reveal the unique stories and emotions that might present themselves in the process. From your initial choice of subject to bringing your images to life with post-processing, each step of the creative process is vital to creating the image that reflects your heart. We’ll explore how to use aperture, control and enhance light, make pleasing and impactful compositions, and create beautiful backgrounds in-camera. I love sharing my passion for Lensbaby lenses and how to use them effectively to bring more emotion and impact to your images.

Instructor: Jackie Kramer

I will share various in camera techniques to artistically express the character of the natural world. We will determine how best to portray our experiences and sense of place through photographic approaches including selective focus, shooting through, multiple exposures, intentional camera movement, and abstracts. For those who wish to go farther, you will learn how to shoot your own textures and add them in Photoshop, as well as other creative post-processing styles and concepts through the use of the masking features in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw.

Instructor: Charles Needle

I specialize in creative macro and Impressionistic photography.  I am passionate about encouraging students to go beyond pure documentation and create personalized expressive imagery. I will teach you how to craft painterly closeups and intimate landscapes using nothing more than your camera or smartphone. You’ll learn specific ways to take your macro photography to a whole new level, including how to shoot closeups using a diopter, telephoto and wide-angle lenses, multiple exposures and much more.  Both in the field and classroom, my instruction will emphasize how to go deeper and see in new ways so you can best translate your artistic vision into pixels.