What’s a Pro-Am Tournament?
An Images for Conservation Pro-Am Tournament combines a workshop and a fun photo contest into an enjoyable 4-day, 4-evening event that takes place on private lands professionally prepared for wildlife and nature photography.
We carefully select our locations so that our Coaches/leaders can combine the best elements of the finest nature photography workshops with the power of a competitive learning experience.
Pro-Am Tournaments are open to anyone with a digital SLR camera, but space is limited to six (6) participants per Coach/leader.
The Coaching Experience
The professional nature photographer who brings you through your Pro-Am Tournament serves to not only educate you about the wildlife you’ll see and the techniques you’ll learn, but to coach you as well.
Your Pro-Am Coach leads you with three primary goals in mind:
- You’ll leave a better photographer.
- You’ll benefit from the competitive experience.
- You’ll have a great time!
The Competitive Experience
What do you get from the competitive experience that you don’t get from a simple workshop? Plenty.
If you’ve ever competed, you know that part of the process is getting to know your own strengths and weaknesses. The Pro-Am Tournament offers the perfect chance to do that.
And having a Pro-Am Coach with you every step of the way helps you identify and build on those strengths while bringing your work to a higher level.
But please don’t get too serious! We keep our prizes small to keep folks focused on the fun.
We call our Pro-Am’s “cooperative competitive experiences” because they engender community among participants. We find this to be true whether participants compete against one another in a Pro-Am Me™ or band together in a Pro-Am Us™.
The best competitive experiences generate enthusiasm and here you’ll find the sort of enthusiasm that ordinary workshops can’t touch.
The Private-Lands Photography Experience
Our landowners know what you want. They know what it takes to get the great shots. And, best of all, they’ve got the wildlife you want to see in real life and to take home in images.
Our landowners created their photo blinds with your special needs in mind. Set-ups are in place. Water holes and feeding stations are ready. What’s needed now? You, your equipment, your enthusiasm and your Pro-Am Coach.
When you’re on private land that’s been professionally planned for wildlife and nature photography a diverse array of wildlife will pass closely by your lens giving you an incredible outdoor experience.
The Pro-Am Experience
Pull it all together – great coaching, plenty of learning opportunities, the cooperative competitive experience, professionally prepared set-ups on private lands, lots of fun – and you have the Pro-Am Tournament, a nature-photography experience like no other!
Your Pro-Am offers the chance to be outdoors with your camera as you get to know yourself, your subjects, and your equipment like never before.
Lose yourself in the lens and enjoy nature’s bounty in a whole different way. Relax. Have fun. Make new friends or participate with old ones.
And, when it comes to that competitive element, it’s your choice: Take it seriously.
Or don’t.
Prizes
Pro-Am Tournaments aren’t high-stakes photo competitions – we leave that to the Pro-Tour of Nature Photography!
The emphasis of our Pro-Am Tournaments is learning, the prizes are simply one way to encourage that. As a result, actual prizes are not large and vary to some extent.
While each Pro-Am is unique, we generally recognize the highest overall image, and the top 3 overall scores.
Fun, new experiences and the sort of learning that comes from a cooperative competitive environment – not monetary gains – are at the heart of our Pro-Am Tournaments.
Your Pro-Am Tournament provides the kind of valuable “intrinsic” rewards offered only by a private-lands’ nature photography workshop like this.
See the Pro-Am Schedule of Events, and sign up today.
