GroovyGeek
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Dustin Gent wrote:
There is a good reason why Marc Adamus workshops are sold out a year or more in advance. A lot of photographers took his workshops, and then started their own, that is how good he is. Several good friends of mine have taken multiple workshops from him and they were really stoked on them.
I have my own feelings about workshops, but if I were to only take one, it would be his just for the adventure that goes into it, and also to see his crazy style of post processing that a lot of people have adapted (in one way or another) in their workflow over the years. ...Show more →
As someone who has taken half a dozen trips with Marc over 6-7 years, and will do so twice more in the coming 9 months, I obviously have NOTHING but good things to say. I have been on a few trips with others, but Marc's are, IMO, in a class of their own, and on more than one occasion I have heard first time participants on his trips express opinions to the effect of "I am not taking a tour with anyone else ever again".
Sure, you can go on his trips to see his post processing style, which I also find somewhat heavy handed, but nevertheless very tasteful. However, you are not likely to come out with much from that exercise. Technically his system is extremely simple, and relies on ZERO plugins, precanned routines, layers, or anything like that. There also does not seem to be a particular order in which he goes about his processing, certainly nothing like the usual mantra of "global adjustments first, then local". He seems to just zip around the image apparently with no particular sequence, often abandoning a particular area only to come back at it at a later time for no apparent rhyme or reason. Instead his system relies on a keen artistic sense, great understanding of color and light, and amazing attention to minute details. He is a big fan of Bob Ross, and I must agree that the way Bob draws a scene bears a lot of resemblance. This ain't something you are learning in one, two, or three trips. You are gonna get some videos that you can watch in slo-mo to try to disentangle what he is doing and why, but if you are like me you will struggle for a long time and are likely to eventually give up and develop a method of your own that is more forgiving to the weekend amateur.
The most value I have extracted from Marc's tours are
a) Deep appreciation for the value of becoming a semi-literate meteorologist. I am not talking apps with forecasts here, but direct reading of satelite maps, understanding of wind and cloud patterns at particular locations. With few exceptions there is no itinerary to his trips. He will stare intently at satellite maps at 7pm, at which point you may go on a 100 mile ride to put yourself in position for the next morning. Or you may wake up at 4am, start driving, and then spend 30 minutes parked at the side of the road while he tries to determine whether to go here or there. When he has good data connections he rarely misses with these guesses.
b) Understanding into the subtleties of his thought process when analyzing and composing a scene. On occasion you will be driving like a maniac on a dirt road after him (I once did 100 mph in the equivalent of a Toyota Tercel), the light will be flaming, peaking and maybe even starting to fade, but he will just keep driving. At some point he will stop and say "shoot here". In doing so he goes on to explain why. This happened once in the vicinity of where this image is taken from https://www.marcadamus.com/photo/northern-colors/ Note the isolated trees in the middle ground, and how from this particular perspective they line up with Tombstone Peak in the background and nicely tie up the foreground to the background. He is instinctively aware of these minute details that make a surprising amount of difference to the quality of the image. Of all the things I have learned from him over the years, this is probably the one that has made the most difference to my own photography.
c) "Seeing" at multiple scales. He will walk past an unremarkable puddle 6-8 inches across, pop his camera down, and without ever looking through the viewfinder fire off a shot of a 5-inch scene that is remarkably balanced and looks like a grand scene. At Mono lake he once stood in front of the location where he took this image https://www.marcadamus.com/photo/tufamoon/ (about two years before he actually took it) and explained how someday the moon will be in the right location and the sky will be clear and the milky way will be in just the right spot. I was literally standing at the spot he took this image and I could not comprehend how it is even possible to make a composition out of it. But there is obviously a shot there :-)
d) Understanding for developing light, and the value of the blur in controlling what your image looks like. You will never be able to us it as effectively as he does, but the concepts are powerful and it is amazing to see them in action. Take this image for example https://www.marcadamus.com/photo/chephren/ If you have been to this location you know that the forrest at the base of the mountain in rather contrasty, even after heavy snow, and tends to partition the scene in half. There is no way of knowing for sure what processing he did on this, but I am willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that there is significant blurring and reduction of contrast in that treeline to get the smooth transition from the river into the mountain
e) Over time you will gradually understand how he reads a topo map and prepares for a location he may not have seen before. It goes well beyond driving around on Google Earth 3D view.
f) Undivided attention. He rarely shoots for himself on tour, and even when he does he has such good eye for the scene that he can ensure his clients are in the best possible position, and at just the right moment he will pop his camera hand-held just next to the yours, and in the end his comp will be meaningfully different and better than yours. I was standing next to him when he shot the elements for this composite https://www.marcadamus.com/photo/yukonpeaks/ but had left my long lens at camp. At some point, while the scene was still beautiful and evolving, he took off the 80-400 from his camera, handed it to me, and said "I am 100% sure I have everything I need for my image, have a go at it".
Even after all these years and tours, coming back tens of times to a particular location, Marc has genuine enthusiasm for leading tours and seems to enjoy it tremendously. Yes, his prices have gone up a great deal (which given the incredible demand for them is the absolute right thing to do from a business standpoint), and yes, you need to be on a two year lead time. But it is well worth it. I am perfectly capable of getting myself to 90% of the locations where he leads tours, often go on multi-day solo backpacking exercises, have developed a few locations on my own, but I still look forward to going out with him and learning something new.
I must note that one person stated that they ended up loosing half the cost of a trip due to a cancellation. I certainly don't know what happened, but Marc's deposits are usually around 30% of the trip cost, and at least in my experience he has always been reasonably flexible with cancellations.
The above all sounds like a big infomercial, but given the amount of money that has gone out of my pocket and into Marc's, quite substantial by my standards, I am certainly putting my money where my mouth is.
Edited on Mar 17, 2019 at 04:42 PM · View previous versions
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