MACRO & MORE W/EREZ MAROM
Led by professional nature photographer Erez Marom, this instructional workshop takes you to some of the best places in Costa Rica for macro photography. We’ll photograph all manner of macro subjects, including poison frogs, tree frogs, insects, mushrooms, and orchids to capture outstanding images of the amazing colors and details contained in the small world of Costa Rica. Of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t throw in a bit of bird, wildlife, and landscape photography as well! You'll learn a number of different techniques for taking great rainforest photos.
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Features & Info
MACRO TECHNIQUE
Erez will be sharing with you a number of different techniques to allow to capture sharp, colorful, and dramatic rainforest macro images.
GREAT SUBJECTS
Our itinerary visits one of the best places in the country to photograph the famed red-eyed tree frog as well a plethora of other colorful frogs, birds, and lizards.
LANDSCAPES TOO
Erez is a fantastic landscape photographer, and you'll benefit from learning how he captures his stunning landscape images.
Full Itinerary & Tour Leaders
The Itinerary
Day 1, July 13 San José
Arrival to Costa Rica. Meet our representative at the Juan Santamaría International Airport and transfer to our hotel near the capital city of San José. The hotel is surrounded by a beautiful tropical garden filled with great subjects for macro photography, including orchids, bromeliads, and passionflowers. There is free wireless Internet throughout the property.
Day 2, July 14 Central Valley
After breakfast, we spend the morning in the classroom going over the techniques that we’ll be employing during our time out in the field. Throughout the day we’ll be working on these techniques in the fantastic gardens right behind the hotel. The orchids, bromeliads, heliconias, and passion flowers in the gardens are simply amazing. There are also a couple of very interesting frog species that we’ll search for in the early evening to photograph.
Day 3, July 15 Atlantic lowland rainforest
After breakfast today, we head to our next destination in the Atlantic lowlands. We arrive for lunch and immediately set in to begin photographing the two species of poison frogs that frequent the lodge grounds. In the evening before dinner, we have a session with the resident red-eyed tree frogs, during which we will employ a special technique using flashlights for dramatic portraits of these amazing nocturnal frogs.
Day 4, July 16 Atlantic lowland rainforest
Today again we have all day to explore the forested grounds of our lodge for macro photo opportunities that will include more frogs, small snakes, and a myriad of insects. We also will keep a lookout for some of the interesting birds and monkeys that are on the lodge grounds.
Day 5, July 17 Arenal volcano
After an early breakfast, we travel to the Arenal Volcano area. En route, we visit a little-known farm where Greg Basco has set up feeders for wild scarlet and great green macaws. We’ll enjoy a delicious traditional Costa Rican lunch at the farm. We arrive to our lodge in late afternoon to photograph the sunset and the Arenal Volcano. Our lodge affords some of the area’s best photographic views of the famous Arenal volcano and offers fantastic sunset views over Lake Arenal and the surrounding hills.
Day 6, July 18 Arenal volcano
We dedicate the early morning to photographing Montezuma oropendolas, Passerini’s tanager, green honeycreepers, red-legged honeycreepers, and emerald tanagers at the lodge feeders. Mid-morning, we depart for a nearby location run by one of Greg Basco’s friends. There we have special access to photograph numerous color forms of the amazing eyelash vipers, parrot snakes, vine snakes, as well as some of the incredible frogs and small lizards in Greg’s friend’s collection. We will photograph all of these animals on natural stages that we will set up on site. This is a great opportunity to photograph a number of species that are very difficult to find in the wild and also to continue our work on multiple flash setups for pleasing macro lighting. We will enjoy a delicious home-cooked lunch as well as refreshments and coffee throughout the day. We return to the our lodge in late afternoon to photograph the sunset and the Arenal Volcano.
Day 7, July 19 Atlantic slope cloud forest
After breakfast, we travel to the higher cloud forests of the northern Central Volcanic Mountain Range, and our next lodge, which is located in one of the most biodiverse areas of the country, nestled in a picturesque valley at approximately 4,500 feet above sea level. With its rushing mountain streams, cool air, and orchid and moss-festooned trees, the area is akin to a tropical Colorado. En route, we make a stop for lunch and a little break from macro photography and head to a nearby waterfall, which is 110 meters high and offers beautiful photographic opportunities of the waterfall itself and the surrounding cloud forest. There are some spectacular tropical foliage shots here of palms and ferns on the cliffs surrounding the waterfall. This is a great place to work on some wide angle and telephoto landscapes and can be an interesting place to explore HDR techniques if so inclined. We arrive to our lodge in late afternoon with time to settle in and enjoy a relaxing dinner.
Day 8, July 20 Atlantic slope cloud forest
Today we take the entire day to explore our lodge’s private cloud forest reserve, which contains some fantastic frogs, insects, and mushrooms that will be great for photographing with macro and wide angle lenses. In late afternoon, we can usually obtain great portraits of the turkey-like black guan and the large forest rodent, the agouti, which visit the feeding areas right outside the lodge dining hall. And we also will work on photographing the abundant hummingbirds with natural light and fill-flash, both in-flight and perched. In the evening, we will look for glass frogs and other nocturnal frog species in the forest.
Day 9, July 21 Atlantic slope cloud forest/Central Valley
We have the morning today free to explore the lodge forest reserve or to photograph finches and hummingbirds at the feeder areas. After lunch, we pack up and return to our hotel in San Jose. In the late afternoon, you will have time again to explore the fantastic orchids in the hotel gardens, and then we'll enjoy a farewell dinner in the hotel restaurant.
Day 10, July 22 Airport
Private transfer to the airport for your flight home.
END OF SERVICES
THIS ITINERARY INCLUDES
Lodging as specified
Meals as specified
Private transfers to and from hotels on first and last days
Professional driver/photo/nature guide and private transportation in spacious tour bus
Entrance fees for all described activities
Taxes on all services listed above
THE ITINERARY ABOVE DOES NOT INCLUDE
Airfare
Airport departure tax (US $28)
Alcoholic drinks
Gratuities
Dinner the first night (July 13)
Non-meal time snacks
Non-meal time soft drinks and bottled water
Single room supplement (US $349)
Your Tour Leaders
Born in 1980, Erez Marom is a professional nature photographer based in Israel. A musician since his youth and an engineer, Erez started his way in the photography world in 2008, and has since then become a world renowned macro photographer, publishing images, articles and instructional texts in numerous Israeli and international websites, magazines and forums.
Erez specializes in macro and landscape photography. To him, both these fields are all about capturing the intricacy and beauty of our natural world. His wildlife macro images are shot strictly in the field, exhibiting the creatures' natural environments and surroundings. As for landscape, Erez travels as much as possible to shoot the most fascinating landscapes of Israel, from the incredible Dead Sea to the shores of the Mediterranean, and often travels overseas on photography missions.
In addition to shooting, Erez dedicates a considerable amount of his time to teaching, lecturing in Israeli institutes and traveling several times a year to his favorite locations overseas to guide photo workshops.