2024 Colorado Fall Color Photography Workshop

Chasing light and golden aspens in Colorado!

Learn to capture images like a pro and make images that stand out as unique. This is a uniquely-crafted experience high in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado that is so much more than just a photography workshop; it’s an immersive adventure!

Brief Fall Color Workshop Overview:

Where: Gothic, CO, and surrounding areas.
When: Thursday, Oct 3rd through Saturday, Oct 5th (3 full days).
Capacity: Limited to 8 people and 2 instructors

Cost: $1875/person – includes lodging, food, & 4×4 transportation, and airport shuttles.

($350 deposit to reserve your spot)

SOLD OUT!

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Full details below! Keep scrolling.

High Altitude Adventure

J Smilanic – owner of WNC Photo Tours – was born and raised in the mountains of Colorado and is no stranger to the Rocky Mountains. This workshop adventure was designed to give participants the true feel and experience of autumn in a remote setting of the Colorado Rockies!

If you’ve never experienced fall in the mountains of Colorado, this is a must-do for photographers!

Our base camp will be in rustic cabins situated in a secluded valley surrounded by giant mountains. We’ll be renting 4×4 vehicles to take us into the heart of the mountains and do some proper exploring! Gothic is just a few miles from Kebler Pass which has the largest grove of Aspen trees in the world!

There are abundant wildlife photography opportunities in Gothic, too, including a herd of elk, moose, wild foxes and bears.

Have you ever heard of Gothic, CO? Probably not. It’s a desolate town nestled amongst giant mountains just outside of Crested Butte. The only structures in Gothic are truly rustic cabins that will serve as our lodging. Wildlife outnumber the humans here 🙂

We have teamed up with Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (wildlife preservation) to rent these unique cabins. While we’re still awaiting exact cabin assignments from RMBL, it’s worth noting that some cabins may not have running water but all participants will have access to the bathhouse for showers, etc. We meant it when we said rustic! It’s also quite possible we’ll end up in cabins with running, heated water. TBD. For now, plan on roughing it a little. Keep reading below.

Full Workshop Details

Highlights:

3 Full days and nights in the Colorado wilderness
New shooting locations each day
4×4 excursions into the remote mountains
On-site chef
Wildlife Opportunities
Daily lesson plans, designed to challenge you as a photographer

Our style:

First of all, our workshops are for ALL LEVELS OF EXPERIENCE! You should not at all feel intimidated to join us! Truly. As with all of our workshops, we put a preference on creating an overall experience versus a traditional photography workshop. That is not to say that we do not teach — during the workshop we spend a lot of time with customers who are trying to grow their photography craft. But first and foremost, we want to provide you with an experience that you won’t forget, and we excel at this.

What’s included:

Lodging
Food (Breakfast & Dinner)
Transportation
Getting you to and from the airport

What’s not included:

Gear
Flights

Itinerary:

WNC Photo Tours will be offering group shuttles / rental cars from Denver International Airport on Wednesday, October 2nd to Gothic. We’ll all be sharing 3 vehicles during the duration of the workshop. Of course you have the option of using your own transportation to meet us in Gothic which is 5 hours from Denver.

On the night of the 2nd, we’ll all convene in Crested Butte and have dinner together, getting to know each other and discussing the exciting details of the following three days! We’ll retire to the cabin(s) the night of the 2nd and the workshop will begin on the morning of Thursday, October 3rd!

Each day we’ll shoot sunrise and sunset, with a little downtime in between.

We want to remain flexible and shoot when and where the conditions best serve us so we won’t be laying out an exact itinerary for the workshop.

The workshop will end the night of Saturday, October 5th, we’ll stay one more night at the cabin. For those who need it there will be a shuttle offered back to Denver to get participants back to the airport on Sunday October 6th.

The Team

J Smilanic

Owner/Founder

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Matt Williams

Guide Superstar

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The WNC Photo Tours Team has a combined 25+ years of experience as photographers and over 2,000 hours instructing people about landscape photography!

What you should know

Don’t be intimidated!!

All skill levels are welcome at our workshops. Can’t stress that enough! The less you know about photography the more you will walk away with, and the better the experience will be for you, so don’t be shy. Photographers are generally pretty nice people 🙂

Lodging

As mentioned above, it’s possible that the cabins we’ll end up staying in will be very rustic and potentially without running water. Think of it as comfortable camping. All cabins will have a heat source and electricity. We’re personally really excited about these cabins and we think they’ll lend to an incredible Colorado experience. We opted to go this route instead of some cushy Airbnb or hotel for the sake of immersing ourselves in the Rocky Mountain culture.

We may end up staying in more modern cabins with running, heated water with showers, and full kitchens (as we did in both 2022 and 2023). We won’t know until RMBL gives us our exact cabin assignments. For now, plan and prepare for staying at the more rustic option.

Some of the rooms in the cabins will have two beds. If you have a strong preference for having your own sleeping quarters, we will do our best to accommodate you but we can’t guarantee it.

Food

This year we are bringing in some help to cook breakfast and dinner for the whole group in the cabin! We will do our best to meet your dietary needs and dietary restrictions. Each person will be responsible for paying for and packing their own lunches each day.

Conditions

Colorado can get downright cold during fall! We would not be at all surprised to see snow during the workshop (We’re secretly hoping for a little snow). You’ll want to bring plenty of warm layers including hats and gloves.

Activity

Between the altitude and some hiking, you should be in decent physical shape to participate in this workshop. On one of the days of the workshop we will be doing a 2-mile hike on top of other activities.

Bundling

You can save $200 total by booking this workshop and our 2024 Moab Astrophotography Workshop (Sept 24th – 26th) together. You will see the option during the checkout process to book both at the same time.

Payment/Cancellations

50% of your initial deposit ($350 +tax) is non-refundable. Full payment must be made by August 1st. Any cancellations within 60 days of the workshop will not receive their payment back as it is very difficult to fill the space on that short of notice. If we are able to fill your spot, we will provide you with a full refund, minus half of the initial deposit (~$204). If an emergency arises we will do our very best to work with you as we understand things can happen.

More details will be made available to those who book the workshop. We can’t wait!! Hope to see you out in the Rockies 🙂

Questions? Email us!