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 really enjoyed the Behind the Lens course.
I really enjoyed the Behind the Lens course. It is the best of all the courses you’ve made. I own every one of your webinars and courses and this one was as intuitive as any of
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I really enjoyed the Behind the Lens course. It is the best of all the courses you’ve made. I own every one of your webinars and courses and this one was as intuitive as any of them.
I learned a tremendous amount – all the techniques Alan Shapiro covered: profiles, color checker, calibration, new curves, crushing the blacks, sketching w/virtual copies, range masking and more. Love how Alan approaches enhancing each image as a
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I learned a tremendous amount – all the techniques Alan Shapiro covered: profiles, color checker, calibration, new curves, crushing the blacks, sketching w/virtual copies, range masking and more. Love how Alan approaches enhancing each image as a new, individual artistic journey. Looking forward to learning more!
I retired from forty years of teaching elementary and middle school math/science students. As a former Indiana Teacher of the Year and and inducted member into the NATIONAL TEACHERS HALL OF FAME, I know what makes
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I retired from forty years of teaching elementary and middle school math/science students. As a former Indiana Teacher of the Year and and inducted member into the NATIONAL TEACHERS HALL OF FAME, I know what makes great teachers, and believe me, you and Varina Patel are excellent at what you do because you take complex topics and make them so simple to understand. Better yet, you teach your lessons directly from the field, on site—the very best possible way to teach.
In camera exposure principles very simply explained in today’s Mastering Exposure Webinar . It wasRead more “It was excellent!”
Alan Dixon
Norwich, England
I loved Alan Shapiro’s class!
I loved Alan Shapiro‘s class! It was really helpful just to see the little tips and tricks he uses with his still life photography. While technical classes are incredibly helpful, I really enjoyed that he presented
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I loved Alan Shapiro‘s class! It was really helpful just to see the little tips and tricks he uses with his still life photography. While technical classes are incredibly helpful, I really enjoyed that he presented the artistic side and the simplified piece. The relaxed and interactive flow of the class was really great, much more like a conversation than a lecture which made it that much more fantastic!
I am not particularly creative but after watching Kate Silvia‘s online class I feel like that I, too, can become creative. I enjoyed watching how she analyzed the scene to made creative decisions. WellRead more “I feel like that I, too, can become creative”
Alicia Hoegh
Broomfield, Colorado
Love Alan’s artistic approach
Love Alan Shapiro‘s artistic approach in using textures on photographs. The webinar was helpful in terms of techniques and soRead more “Love Alan’s artistic approach”
I enjoyed this Online Class very much. Padma Inguva is an excellent teacher. Learned so much and inspired to experiment using a light box for photography. I would be interested in any online classes or tutorials
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I enjoyed this Online Class very much. Padma Inguva is an excellent teacher. Learned so much and inspired to experiment using a light box for photography. I would be interested in any online classes or tutorials that Padma teaches.
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...
InFocus Newsletter provides great inspiration, help and source of information in easy-to-understand language for beginners like me. You gave me that little push to always have my camera with me when I’m
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InFocus Newsletter provides great inspiration, help and source of information in easy-to-understand language for beginners like me. You gave me that little push to always have my camera with me when I’m out and about. Keep up the great work!
I have only recently started reading your InFocus Nature Photography Newsletter and looking at your Youtube Videos and I am really enjoying them and find them very helpful. ManyRead more “I am really enjoying them”
Margaret
Ireland
I thoroughly enjoy each Newsletter
I thoroughly enjoy each Newsletter (InFocus Nature Photography Newsletter). They have all been interesting and informative. I love the photos I’ve seen and the text describing how the shot was made. I’ve
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I thoroughly enjoy each Newsletter (InFocus Nature Photography Newsletter). They have all been interesting and informative. I love the photos I’ve seen and the text describing how the shot was made. I’ve especially enjoyed seeing and reading how the light has changed the photo, or how the different approach of Jay and Varina to the same location will result in photos that can be dramatically different.
InFocus Newsletter has been part of my educational process
For me the best parts are the InFocus Nature Photography Newsletter and the Video Tutorials. The article on how to take pictures of the stars motivated me to get out there and
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For me the best parts are the InFocus Nature Photography Newsletter and the Video Tutorials. The article on how to take pictures of the stars motivated me to get out there and try it. I bought the video series on Essential Photographic Filters which I found informative. That led me to try out your new video series on the Histogram Exposed Tutorial. InFocus Nature Photography Newsletter has been part of my educational process in my quest to improve my photography.
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.