We wanted to take some time to look at our 5th year of operations for Visual Wilderness and wish you all a very happy holidays. Here are some of the highlights from this past year.
More About Our Contributing Photographers
In spite of their best efforts to portray themselves as super heroes on social media, all our contributing landscape photographers are humans that have lives beyond photography. Some of them more than others. ;) Here are interesting tidbits from our contributors:
Joshua Snow – I built a camper van, spent 220+ nights on the road, was able to travel a few times internationally, and forgot how to take photos in the process.
Christine Hauber – I competed in the National Senior Olympics and I am not even old! A few years ago they dropped the “senior” age to 50. Although I did not win any of my swimming events, I was happy that I did not come in last.
Kate Silvia – I started learning to paint! I never knew I could do this and it’s kinda blowing me away. Just goes to show… try new things… all the time! You never know what you might be capable of!
Artwork by Landscape Photographer Kate Silvia
Pro Landscape Photographer Christine Hauber participating in National Senior Olympics
Landscape photographer’s ultimate transportation by Joshua Snow
Chrissy Donadi – I had a baby in January so this has been the first year of my adult life with absolutely no travel. I remained in the same state for 365 days and have been a stay-at-home parent. After more sleep deprivation than photographing in Iceland during the months of almost 24 hours daylight, my husband and I are considering our first year as parents of a mini human somewhat successful.
Varina Patel – In 2019, I discovered that I had MS… and named it Grover. Bad Grover!! Go away Grover. So I decided to add water colors to keep my fingers active and combat the effects of MS.
How MS effected Varina Patel – Click to Play
Gaurav Mittal – 2019 was very challenging for me health-wise. Facing a very serious cervical spondylosis issue, I have been through multiple surgeries and numerous nerve block procedures. While I did not do anything outside of photography this year, I did learn something new about myself… a steel-like determination to not give up.
Lace Andersen – I became a full time photographer, got laid off, and started photographing people, weddings, and families etc. Outside of photography… I have been avidly going to yoga 4-5 days a week in hopes of touching my toes one day soon. Until then, there will be no yoga selfies.
Jay Patel – This year I decided to stop running and take up long-distance biking. Why? So I can make sure my knees don’t need replacing when I grow up. Which by the way, I don’t plan on doing as soon as I figure out how to stop time.
Bear, the super-sidekick guard dog watching over Chrissy Donadi’d tripod & camera.
Landscape photographer Jay Patel testing out new Shimoda Bag in Iceland
Travel photography from Japan by Ugo Cei
Ugo Cei – This year I started shooting film again with a large format view camera and learned how to develop it at home. I also started studying Japanese and was able to use what I learned during my first trip to Japan. I will keep studying the language in preparation for my upcoming fall colors tour of 2020. Finally, I learned how to dance… no, really!!
Most Popular Blog Posts
Oh yes… and our contributing photographers continued to create some fantastic blog posts. Below are some of the most popular with landscape photographers from all over the world in 2019 (in no particular order).
This was the second full year of a landscape photography streaming service offering for our customers. We have an excellent subscriber retention rate and continue to provide new content throughout the year. In addition, we introduced several new nature photography video tutorials that were available for free for streaming subscribers. Here are is what the customers are saying about our video tutorials:
I thoroughly enjoyed the video courses by Varina and Jay Patel. Their clear presentation style and real life examples of their teaching enabled me to rapidly understand and put into practice what they were teaching. Their
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I thoroughly enjoyed the video courses by Varina and Jay Patel. Their clear presentation style and real life examples of their teaching enabled me to rapidly understand and put into practice what they were teaching. Their style is quite personal as if you were on site with them. Excellent photography in the examples supports the learning experience. Histograms were always a bit of a mystery. Seeing how to use them to improve my “in-camera” results will enable me to get the results I see in the field.
Alan Shaprio‘s Online class well paced and well planned class flew by. It was wonderful to see Alan work and create and explain his process. I feel that my money was wellRead more “I feel that my money was well spent”
Sue Eberhart
Lewes, Delaware, USA
Experience you bring to your video courses was very uplifting
The fresh perspective and experience you bring to your video courses was very uplifting to me and since I have taken the course my images have really improved. I also have a renewed desire to shoot
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The fresh perspective and experience you bring to your video courses was very uplifting to me and since I have taken the course my images have really improved. I also have a renewed desire to shoot again. I continue to watch them over and over and find hidden gems in them each time I do.
Alan Shapiro‘s work is inspirational. And aspirational. He is a dynamic, fascinating presenter. He is very generous with explaining how to set up the home studio, what lighting to use and why, product and resource lists.
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Alan Shapiro‘s work is inspirational. And aspirational. He is a dynamic, fascinating presenter. He is very generous with explaining how to set up the home studio, what lighting to use and why, product and resource lists. And it’s fun while you are learning! Bingo!
Thank you so much Kate Silva for the valuable information you provided in the Creative Post Processing online class! Questions from participants were answered fully, lots of examples were provided, the pace was perfect & Kate
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Thank you so much Kate Silva for the valuable information you provided in the Creative Post Processing online class! Questions from participants were answered fully, lots of examples were provided, the pace was perfect & Kate was a personable & well-informed & the information was provided in a logical order. Thank you! I will certainly consider registering for another Visual Wilderness Online Class.
I am looking forward to completing the Creating Impact Course. You and Varina do an excellent job of teaching key photographing techniques. Watching your video’s is like having my own personalRead more “Having my own personal instructor!”
In 2019, we expanded our video tutorial offering by becoming a multi-vendor marketplace for nature photographers. We now offer video courses from several contributing photographers on all aspects of landscape photography. Here are some of the most popular video courses from this past year...
Our latest video courses were based on fine-tuning your start-to-finish workflow for some of the most important aspects of photography. These video courses, with a razor-sharp focus on different aspects of landscape and nature photography and are sold in over 70 countries around the world.
Newsletter and Web App Notifications
We have over 46,000 subscribers for our InFocus newsletter and over 18,000 subscribers get educational content via notifications from Visual Wilderness on their mobile and desktop devices. Not surprisingly, both of these free resources have superb engagement and a worldwide audience. Here is what some of the readers have to say...
One of the best free landscape photography resources
I teach with the U3A (University of the Third age) teaching the older people. Taking them through the transgression from film to digital is a big step. I find your wording is
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I teach with the U3A (University of the Third age) teaching the older people. Taking them through the transgression from film to digital is a big step. I find your wording is great, straight to the point. Thanks for your Infocus Nature Photography Newsletter.
I’ve been a photographer for a long time – more than 35 years. One might think that I have plenty of knowledge and I just need to apply that knowledge. With almost
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I’ve been a photographer for a long time – more than 35 years. One might think that I have plenty of knowledge and I just need to apply that knowledge. With almost every issue of InFocus Nature Photography Newsletter, I learn something new. Or at the very least, I’m reminded of something that I should have remembered but has been forgotten. InFocus Nature Photography Newsletter is keeping my skills sharp while increasing my knowledge and challenging me to seek out new photographic experiences.
As someone who is hopping to build a photography business I am always looking for new tips and tricks to improve my skills and expand my knowledge. I find all the articles
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As someone who is hopping to build a photography business I am always looking for new tips and tricks to improve my skills and expand my knowledge. I find all the articles inspiring and helpful. Thank you Visual Wildereness Nature Photography Newsletter for providing a free tool to help me grow my skills.
Having Visual Wilderness Nature Photography Newsletter on my PC at my finger tips is a great help and if need be I can quickly check for tips whilst out in the field
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Having Visual Wilderness Nature Photography Newsletter on my PC at my finger tips is a great help and if need be I can quickly check for tips whilst out in the field shooting.
Throughout this coming year, we plan to create more in-depth video courses on several aspects of landscape photography. In addition, producing more on-location video courses that feature workshop-style lessons is also part of our 2020 plan.
I could startoff like this – “Seeds of Jay Patel’s appreciation for beautiful places were planted early in his childhood….” but it would get boring really fast. I will just sum it up and say that I am a Landscape and Wilderness Photographer who loves to capture dramatic light. My photographs have been published in various magazines, calendars and advertising materials throughout the world. Patience is a virtue...unless you are chasing your dreams
Wonderful that you have put this personal touch out there. May your holidays be all you want them to be and may the new year bring healing for those in need and continued enthusiasm for all the great work you do.
keith fey says:
May all of you at Visual Wilderness continue capturing the light of our wonderful World for all of us to see and dream about. May you share your knowledge with an ever widening enthralled community of like minded photographers. May you inspire the next generation to carry photography’s colors, may you return everything you have in your power to do so… to the pool of life … these wide open spaces which become rare because of their beauty and wildness…. and may you.. one and all have a very special blessed Christmas and prosperous new year… Thank you for the year gone by… too fast.. Kind regards.. Keith Fey.
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Wonderful that you have put this personal touch out there. May your holidays be all you want them to be and may the new year bring healing for those in need and continued enthusiasm for all the great work you do.
May all of you at Visual Wilderness continue capturing the light of our wonderful World for all of us to see and dream about. May you share your knowledge with an ever widening enthralled community of like minded photographers. May you inspire the next generation to carry photography’s colors, may you return everything you have in your power to do so… to the pool of life … these wide open spaces which become rare because of their beauty and wildness…. and may you.. one and all have a very special blessed Christmas and prosperous new year… Thank you for the year gone by… too fast.. Kind regards.. Keith Fey.