Composition in the Field - Photography Workshop

The Desert Botanical Garden is a 140 acre botanical garden that was founded by the Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Society in 1937 and established at this site in 1939. The garden now has more than 21,000 plants, in more than 4000 taxa, one-third of which are native to the area, including 139 species which are rare, threatened or endangered. This means that you will be photographing beautiful, exotic plant-life most people will never even see.

Your instructor will teach you many of the skills accomplished photographers use every day. These tips and tricks will quickly improve your photographs, making them look more professional and less generic. For instance, in the photo above, Christine used a long zoom and a large aperture in order to focus the cactus pad nearest to her, but blur the rest of the image.

Obviously, there will not be studio lighting in place for the shoot. Working with natural light can be tricky, but your instructor will teach you how to use it to invoke warmth and depth in your image.

If the great outdoors is your studio, and the sun your lighting, then the spiky-looking lizard above may just be your model. The gardens have a thriving population of lizards, butterflies, and the like. You will learn tricks like panning to help you capture their motion. You may even get close enough to use macro-photography and photograph the intricacies of this colorful animal!

The flora and fauna, perfect light, and gorgeous landscape, along with your talented teacher, will make taking great photographs an easy, rewarding, and fun experience!

Adult Admission Fee: $24.95

Due to weather or other circumstances beyond our control we will be happy to work with you to reschedule or provide a refund. However, if you should need to cancel or require a new class date, contact us. A $25 transfer fee will be imposed without a 3 day notice before the scheduled class.

Call at 1 877 372 2231 or a field agent at 917 597 7053. Lots of people seem to hang up if our welcome recording comes on instead of a live voice, but we promise to return your message within a day or two if you leave one with your name and number. It would be even better if you included your email address as well as the date and city of the class you are considering. If leaving a voice mail message is not your thing, please email us at [email protected] and include the date and city of the class you are considering, as well as your phone number .

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Desert Botanical Garden, 1201 North Galvin Parkway, Phoenix, United States