Workshop | Backroads & Backpacks: Photography Off the Beaten Path

The world is full of wonderful places to photograph wilderness, but the opportunities for the most original images tend to lie off the beaten path—sometimes very far off. Chris Nicholson, author of Photographing National Parks, and Sherry Pincus, photographer and veteran backpacker, want to bring you to some of those places. In this two-hour presentation, they will discuss how to find unique photos in popular national parks and other natural spaces by driving the primitive roads and hiking the long trails, venturing far from the overlooks, the information signs and the tourists.

Nicholson and Pincus will examine not only the how-to, but also the how-to-gear-up and the how-to-stay-safe. They will reveal “the 10 essentials,” how to pack a 4WD or a backpack, what kind of tent to sleep in, how to carry a camera dozens of miles into the mountains, which lenses to bring, how to eat and hydrate, and what never to leave at home. They’ll cover everything from day jaunts to overnight camping, from establishing a basecamp to trekking hut-to-hut, from extended backcountry hikes to roaming off-trail into the bush.

The talk will be an introduction for photographers unfamiliar with camping and backpacking, and also an opportunity for experienced explorers to consider how they might expand their approach. Backpacking equipment will be discussed from the perspective of incorporating camera gear while dealing with choices that are affected by weight restrictions and safe travel.

The presentation will not be all theory and guidelines. The aforementioned info will be couched in accounts of remote photo trips that they have personally embarked on, in locations such as Death Valley, Big Bend, Mount Rainier, Grand Teton, Rocky Mountain, Lassen Volcanic, Canyonlands, Glacier and Olympic national parks, as well as Wyoming’s Wind River Range, Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, Canada’s Mount Robson and Lake O’Hara, Europe’s Tour du Mont Blanc, and Patagonia’s Torres del Paine.