SF Photo Tours: Japanese Tea Garden

This week’s Tour: Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park

Main focus: to have the chance to try out taking close-up aka macro shots of the plant life and Zen architecture of the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park.

By shooting in close-up mode and learning how to get correct exposure and color balance, as well as honing your composition skills, I wish for you to be able to achieve high-quality images – ones of the caliber of exhibitions pieces.

On this tour, my lovely assistant and me (and a special photo-friend) will help you with your camera settings, photo shooting process (i.e. ‘work-flow’) to give you a comfort zone to be more creative honing your unique visual sense.

Once you have mastered these techniques and have some dashingly good prints for framing, then coming in the summer will be another chance to take your nature close-up shots to the next level with another SF Photo Tour taking place in the Botanical Garden of Golden Gate Park.

During the tour this Saturday, we will take the skills and techniques we have learned in the Wolf Camera Classes and get our feet wet practicing them in the field.

Tour Specifics:

tour date: Saturday, May 23rd

tour time:  9am-11am   *going for the best morning light we can get for our close-up pictures

tour costs: 10. $  *not including admission to the Tea Gardens which costs - Adults: $3.50; children 6-12 $1.25; seniors 65 and over $1.25.

Where to meet: we will meet in the Golden Gate Park in front of the Band Shell

Helpful hints:

*check out the SF Photo Tours Google Groups as Michael and Kiki have written some nice suggestions for equipment and techniques

Tour follow-up:

Once the tour is over we suggest students to share their best images and ideas on flickr & in the SF Photo Tours Google Groups (recommended that students check-out the web sites and eventually sign-up to receive updates and posts from other members)

Thanks fellow photographers and hope to see you there this Saturday,

Paul Mansfield