Teen Academic Coed Summer Art and Photography, Wilderness Skills, and Field Biology Camp


“Both the grand and the intimate aspects of nature can be revealed in the expressive photograph. Both can stir enduring affirmations and discoveries, and can surely help the spectator in his search for identification with the vast world of natural beauty and wonder surrounding him.”

—Ansel Adams

Register Now

To register please email toni@noli5.com

Total Immersion Wilderness Survival Skills & Art & Photography Camp

When the participant enrolls in one of our teen wilderness camps of 2 or more weeks in duration or enrolled in 2 or more consecutive weeks of preteen wilderness camp they may choose to focus on wilderness art and photography. Our intent is to have the participants have the opportunity to raise their personal bar in nature drawing and photography as well as to make them well rounded, skilled, and confident when in the backcountry, be it for work or recreation. There is ample time for the teens to explore and just be teens.

Return to Camp Summery page Sessions, dates, ages, prices, and to register

Rainbow on Spider web

Full Description of Art and Photography

Our aim in this total immersion camp is to raise the student’s bar as an artist or photographer and grow into competent, safe, and ethical wilderness companions, as well as those that have the skills and mindset to start to lead day or backpacking trips. To that end, this camp goes deep in the skills of wilderness survival, access, field biology and natural history, as well as the techniques and aesthetics of nature drawing and photography naturalist skills as they deepen their love of nature as we explore the wilderness of the Idaho Panhandle.

This is a hands-on exploration under master mentors. Much of the material covered in this camp our school students experience daily and this camp can be used as part of their 180 days of instruction. Your child may be able to earn science, fine art, or physical education at their home school, there is more information on this below.

We believe documenting and interpreting through photography and drawings is as important as sampling, data input, and analysis are in science. Sketching, rendering, and photographing with purpose raises the bar of awareness and connection.

The students will practice macro photography and drawing of still and stationary animals as well as long lens recording of their gaits and tracks, flight and behavior. Students will have the opportunity to develop skills in showing detail in shape, texture, depth, and motion of wildlife, water, landscape, and procedures.

Wilderness Survival and Thriving Skills

This camp covers all the material in our adult In the Wilderness Essentials: Essentials of Survival

Teen Boy Rappelling

Wilderness Drawing

Nature Journaling and Drawing

Using Journaling and Note Sketching

The students will learn to use their journal to enhance curiosity, creativity, and sharpen their naturalist’s eye.

Improving Visual Memory and Awarness

The students will apply simple techniques to improve their visual memory and help draw what you see not what you think you see.

Improving Technical Skills in Using the Tools of Drawing

We will go deep into how to use graphite, pen, watercolor and gouache for fast field sketches.

Techniques in Drawing Nature

Lessons on how to draw wildflowers, trees, mushrooms, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects, landscapes, seascapes, and skies.

Photo of the Falls Taken by a Teen
Nature Sketching Nature Sketching Nature Sketching Nature Sketching
Nature Photography Nature Photography Nature Photography Nature Photography Nature Photography Nature Photography Nature Photography

Nature Photography Details


Photography as an Artform and Communication

Yes photography is fun and cool and we will develop the participants skills in the art of photography but we will also look at the use of photography as a tool for communication.

If not for the works of Mathew B. Brady, Dorothea Lange, Edward Sheriff Curtis much of the history of the 1800s and early 1900s would have been lost. The landscapes of Ansel Adams and William Henry Jackson are not only beautiful to look at but lead to development of the national parks and other conservation successes.

Each evening we will view the works of not only those listed above but the works of Galen Rowell, Eliot Porter, David Muench, Carleton Watkins, Philip Hyde, Robert Glenn Ketchum, John Shaw, and Arthur Morris whom all shaped photography as an art form today.

Intro to Your Camera

Settings, ISO, shutter speeds, F-stops, white balance, lens choice, composition, reading your histogram and getting comfortable with your camera settings.

Focus Areas

We talk about focus, depth of field and sharpness, as well as how lenses work, what focal lengths mean and how all can work to the photographers benefit.

Studying Light and Shadows

Studying light is such a critical aspect of photography! It doesn’t matter what sort of photos you take, without understanding light you are just taking snap shots. The participants will learn how time of day, reflection, and fill flash can greatly affect the photograph.

Night and Time Lapse Photography

Bring your tripods to capture stunning time lapse photos of the Milky Way, shooting stars, moon phases and more.

Early Morning and Sunrise

Early pre-dawn hikes to magnificent locations to capture the sunrise and watch as nature wakes up from its night of slumber.

Understanding Wildlife

Knowing how to identify wildlife, tracking wildlife, the behavior of wildlife, and know what they see, smell, hear, and sense.

Landscapes

Explore and develop your creativity - capture the essence of landscape in your images, capture history, sunsets, water, land, sky, cities and country, beach and forest.

Flowers & Insects

We will get up close and personal with macro photography.

Action & Adventure

We will play with both freezing motion and making it look fluid.

Photo Critiques and Peer Review Sessions

Each night we review the photos taken that day and learn from each other.

Free Expression

There is ample time for the students to explore and play.


Learn From Masters

Brian D. King

Brian King

Brian has spent his life teaching; much of it in field biology and natural history as well as wilderness survival, primitive skills, bushcraft, and photography. For several years Brian taught technical illustration at the college level. In 2000, under his direction his students from Lone Pine HS helped develop curriculum, materials, and procedures for the NPS and taught students from other schools and states. In 2004 his students revised the material again teaching other students from other schools then presented it at an international educational conference in China where they were honored as one of the best presentations. That curriculum is part of what is being offered in this academic camp.

Read More about Brian D. King

Podcast Training Series and Q & A

This will be an incredible journey for the teens and to help guarantee success for those teens that register early in the months leading up to the camp we will have podcasts. Every other week these podcast trainings are for the campers to meet each other as well as their mentors, to learn skills they will use on the trip, what to expect and the unexpected, and most importantly to get all of their questions answered. Beginning in March we will have 6 sessions, 2 a month just for the teens. We will also have a podcast just for the parents to get their questions answered and introduce them to our team. Podcasts Topics Include:

Handloading

A Word for Parents and High School Counselors

Our directors firmly believe that students’ best learn science and math when it is relevant to that which they are passionate about. Academic camp is a great model of this philosophy in action applying biology, physiology, earth science, and the scientific method into art and photography.

Integral to School

We believe in the importance of all of our camps being integral to our school. Our director has seen firsthand the benefits that FFA had on students when he was in FFA as a teen and with his students when he was an FFA advisor. He saw how it raised the bar in ways that could easily be measured and in ways only measured by students reflecting years later on how those experiences lead to their personal and professional successes as adults. Our academic camps allow our students to go deeper in to skills and areas of study that in the constraints of the school day make it difficult or imposable to do. Our camps allow students to go deep in to their own projects or assist others working on their projects. How in the classroom can a student truly understand the beauty and value of wilderness and what it holds without experiencing it first-hand?

Teen Splitting Wood

This Camp Can be a Capstone Project

In our school our students must complete a capstone project to graduate; this camp can fill that need and can be used by students of other schools or by home scholars for their own capstone project. If your teen is not from our school and wants to use this camp as their capstone project, please contact us early so we can assist in planning. The students will also get deep exposure and hopefully connection with the flora, fauna, and geology of the Idaho Panhandle.

Teens Learning Physical Science

Physical Science

In this camp the students will apply skills in relating to measuring light and speed.

Field Botany and Zoology

The students will learn to identify both plants and animals using field guides and dichotomous keys. The will learn to identify animals by their track and signs. The students will learn anatomy and physiology doing hands on dissection of birds and ruminating and non-ruminating mammals.

Earth Science

Navigation, Geology, and Weather

Art and Photography

Students will have hands on experience in techniques used in nature journalining, drawing, and photography.

Physical Education

Students will be hiking and backpacking. They may experience riding equine.

School Credit

We will assist the students’ home school in assuring that the student can earn science, PE, and art lab credits through their home school. We are currently working towards our own accreditation. We will provide the student’s home school with an outline of what is covered and we can discuss with their school what can be done to assure the student gets credit for the work performed.

Teens Watching Slideshow

At the End of Camp Each Student Will Have:

Those students that are to earn high school credit will have the following documents.

Those students that are not interested in earning high school credit may generate the above documents.

"Wow, I made the water look like water."
—Mana
"The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.""
—Dorothea Lange