Category Archives: Non-Profits

Inspiration in Central America

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Since our first trip to Central America in 2000, we’ve been growing increasingly intimate with a region of Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula known as the Bongo-Ario watershed. Aside from the region’s world-class surfing waves, it’s abundant natural wonders and it’s kind-hearted people, it is also home to an inspiring new project. A new organization, CIRENAS, seeks not only to secure the long-term conservation of the unique and fragile Bongo-Ario watershed (from mountains to ocean), but to educate and inspire future community leaders, promote ecologically sound development in the region and facilitate positive change on all levels by bringing local people, students, educators, entrepreneurs, scientists, tourists and more…together.

Our friends Caroline Grew and Tucker Szymkowicz, who now direct CIRENAS, have been working hard this fall 2010 to raise the funding they need to take CIRENAS to a whole new level. They have an extraordinary opportunity right now to see the first $100,000 they raise by the end of this year matched by a founding donor who believes CIRENAS is a key ingredient to the long-term ecological, cultural and economic integrity of the Bongo-Ario watershed and its surrounding communities.

Please take a look around the CIRENAS website, and if you have a few extra dollars to spare, please consider becoming a founding donor with CIRENAS – and supporting Caroline and Tucker’s inspiring efforts. Also, if you know of anyone interested in the courses they offer, please don’t hesitate to share the news, as their courses will likely fill up soon.

Thanks!

-Brian and Emily

Photo Workshop at Trapps with the Catamount Trail Association (CTA)

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Winter Photography Workshop with the Catamount Trail Association (CTA)!

We are working with the CTA and Trapp Family Lodge this winter to offer an exciting outdoor winter photography workshop at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont January 14-16, 2011. The workshop will be conducted by the two of us, feature plenty of hands-on time in the beautiful winter landscape surrounding Trapps, and run from Friday evening through midday Sunday.

Some of the topics to be covered:
❅ Winter Light — Being comfortable and creative with winter’s challenging and ever-changing light.
❅ Creative Compositions — Exploring focus, perspective and composition with a variety of winter scenes and subjects
❅ Exposure — Understanding and balancing shutter speed, aperture and ISO.
❅ Camera Handling — Tricks to making winter photography easy in the face of winter’s elements.
❅ Advanced Techniques — Tricks to shooting action; Shooting at night/low-light; Macro-photography; Using a tri-pod;
❅ Digital Workflow — Advice on how to store, organize, protect, process and display your photographs.
Tentative Schedule
1/14 Friday pm — Welcome Dinner and Slideshow
1/15 Saturday — Breakfast, Indoor Discussion/Workshop, Outdoor Practice, Lunch, Outdoor Workshop, Free Time, Dinner, Nighttime Photo Session,
Evening Slideshow/Critique
1/16 Sunday am — Breakfast, Outdoor Workshop, Indoor Wrap-Up, Lunch and departure
The workshop will be limited to 16 people to insure an optimal intimate learning experience for all attendees. Outdoor photo sessions will be on snowshoes or backcountry skis – whichever on which you are more comfortable manuevering around in the snow. Equipment may be rented at the Trapp Family Touring Center or you may bring your own. The workshop cost will be $750 per person, which includes two nights lodging, 2 dinners, 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches and trail fees. The workshop with meals and no lodging is $450 per person. You may download a registration form fromthe CTA’s websiteor call the CTA office 802-864-5794 to reserve a space. The last day to reserve a space for the workshop is December 20, 2010.

For more info, feel free to contact Brian and Emily at 802-496-5434 or email: info(at)emberphoto.com

Working with the Green Mountain Club

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Since 2005, we’ve been supporting the great work of the Green Mountain Club (GMC) – the primary steward of Vermont’s 200+ mile Long Trail hiking trail – by collaborating on an annual slideshow event in our local communities (through the GMC’s Annual James P. Taylor Series) and by providing the GMC with discounted access to our growing library of photographs.  Recently, the GMC published a new book in celebration of the GMC’s 100th birthday, entitled, A Century in the Mountains, which features several large scale reproductions of images we’ve captured along the Long Trail.  And on the cover of this summer’s Long Trail News, the GMC published an image captured by Emily when hiking last summer in southern Vermont’s new Glastenbury Wildnerness Area (above). Starting this summer, too, several of our fine-art photographs (matted and framed) will be on display at the GMC’s headquarters along Rt. 100 in Waterbury Center, VT. Proceeds from the sale of these prints will also be donated to the GMC.

You can support the great work of the GMC by coming out to our slideshows or considering the purchase of our fine-art photography, but most importantly, by becoming a member of the GMC, by volunteering some time, or by offering a gift to the GMC. GMC Membership has lots of nice benefits, whether you live in Vermont and use the Long Trail, or not. Please help the GMC reach its goal in its 100th year for 10,000 members, and consider joining or giving the gift of membership (upcoming birthday, wedding?) to one of Vermont’s greatest organizations.

Thanks!

-Brian and Emily

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