Today we announced the Quiet Light Nature Photography Workshops in the Quiet Light eNewsletter! Here’s the announcement. (To see the entire eNewsletter go to www.quietlightpublishing.com/newsletters/Aug2008.html)

Quiet Light Publishing and Richard Mack Photography have teamed up to form the Quiet Light Workshops. These are nature photography workshops for photographers of all levels. Quiet Light Photography Workshops offer people interested in nature and landscape photography the ability to hone their skills in the digital world of photography today. Each workshop will enable you to expand your skills with your camera, teaching or enhancing your knowledge of composition, color balances, and color calibration to get consistent work results, as well as downloading your images into the computer and optimizing them in Photoshop. Not only do we focus on improving the images you create, but we aim to engage your imagination and expand your appreciation of the natural world. Our workshops are designed to take you to some of the best landscapes the lens can see!

Join professional photographer Richard Mack as he leads you through some of his favorite places in nature – teaching and sharing with you many of the important techniques that have made him a leading nature photographer. Richard has shot on assignments in all 50 states and many countries. His portfolio includes works in both color and black & white from many National Parks, National Forests, and wilderness areas. His work has been exhibited widely in galleries throughout the United States. He has won numerous awards including twice being honored by the International Photography Awards for his nature images. His book The Lewis & Clark Trail American Landscapes has won over a dozen major photography, book and design awards.

These are hands-on, in the field workshops with Richard. You will be in surroundings that get your creative juices flowing and will serve as a wonderful photographic classroom. At the end of the day, images will be reviewed and discussed as a group. Techniques will be shared and Richard will work with each of you to improve upon what you’ve shot. The take-away from this workshop will be a better knowledge of how to make your equipment work to the best of its ability, a new understanding of composition, lighting, filters, etc. and a plethora of tips to make your images get the “wow” response.

Not only do you receive the expertise of Richard, but you will find him fun, easy to work with and truly passionate about photography. His goal is to give every participant the most rewarding photographic and learning experience possible. So, why not come along and set your own goal – take home some stunning photographs!

Workshop Schedule

Starved Rock State Park, Illinois
September 28-29, 2008

Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Tennessee & North Carolina
October 19-23, 2008

Zion National Park, Utah
January 25-30, 2009

Bryce National Park, Utah
February 1-5, 2009

Saguaro National Park, Arizona
February 23-27, 2009

Yosemite National Park, California
March 22-27, 2009

Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Spring Wildflowers
April 19-23, 2009

More Coming Soon - including Alaska trips!

I want to take a small diversion today and talk about something besides photography, nature, or book publishing and tell you about a blog I know about. A friend of mine,

Now I have taken to road biking in the last year or so – although not as often as I’d like – still need to commit to a Century Ride at some point – maybe next year. But giving up the car – beyond me (besides I like my Miata and the Chevy Pickup with our camper on its back) – but I applaud them!

So check it out over at www.georgezrust.com/carfree/ it’s worth a look!

Oh, and the image above – something I shot a longtime ago of my son on his bike.

Here’s to Biking!

Richard

We are pleased to add more images from landscape photographer Richard Mack. We have added four sets of note card boxed sets to our products line along with 14 Posters from his Great Smoky Mountains collection! You can purchase all of these online at Quiet Light Publishing www.quietlightpublishing.com. Just follow the Current Offering links www.quietlightpublishing.com/shop/enter.htm. The note cards have 12 cards – two each of six different cards along with envelopes. Sets include, Cades Cove, Rivers & Streams, Wildflowers, and a Set of Black & White images. They are priced at $18.95 per set. The posters include images from all over the park and are 24”x36”. Each is a fine art poster in and of itself. They sell for $24.95.

It’s been a busy few weeks here, well actually months. After returning from Patagonia we made a trip down to the Smokies to shoot more for the book project on the park – more on that in a later post – and have also been helping a friend get her new book to market, as well as getting images to our stock photo sales sites. It seems you never have enough time to work on images after you return! That is the reason you haven’t seen much from even the Utah shoots in Zion, Bryce and Capital Reef

We will also be announcing soon our new schedule for our Photo Workshops and trips! Stay tuned as we finalize the locations and dates for this summer’s, falls, and winter’s workshops! And if you have any thoughts on where you would like to travel to with us let us know! These workshops will include time in the field shooting and time in the class room looking at what you’ve shot and learning some tips on Photoshop and digital imaging. Stay tuned!

Peace,

Richard

I am currently traveling in the Lakes District of Patagonia in Argentina. We have been trekking through the mountains to lakes and glaciers. Yesterday we hiked to a waterfall and then on down a trail to what we believe was the Chilean Border.  We have travelled to Parque National Lanin and several other national parks. We are doing a more extensive blog on my other site - www.mackphoto.com/Blog

Because of time constraints it is easier to update just one site. Hope you enjoy!

 Peace,

Richard

I returned from my shoot last week in Great Smoky Mountain National Park to learn the very sad news that the finest book printer in the US, The Stinehour Press, had ceased operations. They have been lauded by, among others, the Washington Post, as the finest fine book printer – and by the many printing industry awards they have won over their 50 year run. Their client list included the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Fine Art Museums, the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Boston, the Norman Rockwell Museum, The Getty Museum, the Guggenheim, the Whitney and the Smithsonian. Publishers included Random House, Little-Brown and many university presses, including Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton and Dartmouth. They have also printed the works for many photographers, and of course Quiet Light Publishing as this is where my book The Lewis & Clark Trail American Landscapes was printed.

We chose them for several reasons. One they were the best. They had shown us proofs on our paper selection using our images to prove they could deliver – even before we accepted their quote. Once we were there we could see first hand why they were/are the crafts men and women of such high caliber. Every one of them was dedicated to our project, from the front office, to production to the pressroom. And everyone had the right to say, wait, we need to do this before moving on – even as we were on press. Their quality and dedication to my book was never ending. And we quickly became part of the family there in their corner of Northeast Vermont. We dined at some of their homes, went to places around town with them and became friends. And I was only one of many hundreds or thousands of books they have printed over their 50 year run. It saddens me that their dedication to publishing has come to an end and that these folks will now be looking elsewhere for work.

One of the reasons they cited for their closing is the high competition with overseas printers. The cost of printing overseas has made it so many publisher’s choose this route. We considered it. And rejected it for two reasons. On price, when considering the cost of travel overseas for the print run, and the cost of shipping finished product back, they were within nickels on the price per book. And equally important – they were here – in the US. I have always thought we should support US companies such as The Stinehour Press when we can. A company which put quality first and treats their employees and customer’s with respect. Besides, it only seemed reasonable to have a book about

But in the end, it seems, the cost of printing overseas did overcome them. They mentioned in their press release they could not compete any longer with overseas pricing when they can print books for what their cost for just the paper would be. This can not just be a labor cost problem. I can only imagine what the cost of health insurance for 26 employees and their families must have been. Imagine if that cost was taken out by having universal health care. Maybe then they would be able to stay and continue their craft of making some of the finest books published. And while some may knock me for being nostalgic here, why is it that we always rush for the lowest price on everything? Doesn’t quality stand for something? I realize the digital age has provided a cheaper, faster way to be able to send off PDF’s of a project to printer’s, have them make a few pages of proofs to be ok’d and then print on demand. But do these books give you the same feel in your hands as one which is handcrafted? Maybe the fact that they worked from 6am to 4pm instead of around the clock put them in a different league, personally, one which I admire. (Oh, and yes, if they were in the middle of a run they did finish it – they didn’t just stop the presses until tomorrow). And that meant family was as important in their company philosophy – at least from what we observed in our time in the Northeast

As Warren Bingham, CEO of The Stinehour Press said in their press release, “These are not good times for American manufacturers. I hope we know the full cost of what we’re buying as a society. When lowest cost is always the determining factor, it might be higher than we think.”

Something to think about. After all, if we can help out Wall Street and their CEO’s when they make unwise structures of mortgages and derivatives, or give huge tax breaks to oil companies making 45 billion in profits - more than most countries gross national products, why can’t we invest in companies worthy of our investment? Companies that care about quality and their employees and customers? Those small companies which really are what America is all about – ingenuity and quality. It is something I don’t understand. It is something 26 people and their families in the northeast now probably wonder about as well.

Yes it is a very sad day for publishing, especially of fine art book publisher’s, but it is also a very sad day for America.

Post Script – When we were at the Stinehour Press we did our first “blog” as a series of posts each day on our website. I will reissue this post today so you can see exactly what it was like to be there. You can find it at www.mackphoto.com/Vermont.html