December 10th, 2011

With 2011 drawing to a close, we at the Aperture Academy couldn't be more proud of all we accomplished over the course of this year. Each year we set to raise the bar higher and continue to provide photography enthusiasts with high quality photography education and adventure in some of the nations' most stunning locations, or right here at home in our 4,000 square foot gallery. This year, we taught 175 classes and on-location workshops, working with over 3000 students that joined us on one of these many adventures. We can't thank enough each and every one of you who took a class or workshop with us. While the Aperture Academy is definitely about education and photography, it's more about people and the fun we have when we put like minds together.

In order to bring everything together, we rely on a truly amazing group of individuals who make up the Aperture Academy. Stephen Oachs heads the ship, and his creativity and business savvy has continued to push the "ApCad" in the right direction. If you've been on a workshop in the past few years, you know Brian Rueb and Scott Davis, who have been aboard since the Aperture Academy was only an idea. We have also continued to push quality classroom education, taught by Adobe certified instructor Scott Donschikowski. Our classroom offerings have more than doubled this year, prompting us to add portrait specialist Glen McDowell to teach pinup classes and portrait lighting in the gallery. Alicia Telfer and Ellie Stone are our newest in-the-field instructors, and bring their own brand of enthusiasm and knowledge to a variety of our workshops. Most recently we've added Jean Day to the staff, to bring our total in-field workshop instructors to eight!

We can't forget the staff at our beautiful gallery either! They bring quality customer service and organizational prowess to our home base in Campbell, California. If you've stopped by the gallery, or even phoned in, chances are you've dealt with our Gallery Manager, Kristen Guldner, who keeps things running smoothly. In 2011, we pleased to have added Monique, Austin and Jane to the gallery floor. It takes the entire team, from top to bottom, to provide students with the continual fun and quality experience we strive to deliver each and every time we set out on one of our exciting workshops... and what a year it was!

We began the year almost immediately with an upgrade in transportation, as we unveiled the newest member of the team — our new 13 passenger van, affectionately known as "the ApCab." In its first year, this luxurious van has traveled through nine states and piled on over 20,000 miles. If you've been in the ApCab, you know how comfortable and spacious it is! Will 2012 bring in a sister van to the fleet?

Also in 2011, we saw some truly amazing locations. Early in the year we set out for the strange and fascinating geology of locations like Death Valley and Yosemite National Park. Spring took us to the natural wonders and slot canyons of the Southwest and Grand Canyon National Park. May, it was off to the lush green canyons and waterfalls of Oregon's Columbia River gorge and up into the rich texture of America's farmland in Eastern Washington's Palouse region. June took us to the diverse mountains and river areas of Mt Shasta. Fall took us to the wildlife and rugged terrain of the Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks, before driving south back through the red-rock of Arches and Grand Canyon National Parks.

Of course, we continued to offer numerous workshops right here in the Bay Area. Our wildly popular Night Owls and Marin Headlands workshops continue to be amazing one-day workshops that book full every time, by students looking to get out and explore the San Francisco area. We also hit plenty of the attractions near San Francisco, as well! Big Sur, Santa Cruz for the Monarchs and Arboretum, The Zoo for intro to wildlife, and we even added a new Star photography course. If students weren't able to get out on one of our longer adventures, we certainly had enough offerings in this area to keep people busy for a long time!

This year we also rolled out our newest series of workshops we like to call our "Sojourn Series". These exciting workshops are designed for the photographer who wants a longer adventure. We pulled out all the stops on these workshops, and with them, we have taken the Aperture Academy international! If locations like Alaska, Africa and Iceland sound intriguing, these workshops are for you! If you can dream it, there's a good chance we're working on providing a photography adventure to take you there! (Keep watching in 2012!)

Alaska was our first workshop in the Sojourn series. We took the whole team (dressed as the crew from Gilligan's Island, no less!) and 37 students aboard a luxury ocean liner into Alaska's inside passage. We brought aboard our entire classroom of computers, a large format printer, and all the enthusiasm and fun we normally bring for a week of photography in one of the world's most rugged areas. We spent the mornings and afternoons photographing anything from bears to icebergs as our ship took us up Alaska's dramatic inside passage. Late afternoons and evenings were spent processing images in the lab, or listening to presentations on a variety of topics by our team of talented instructors. The evenings were filled with socialization, storytelling, and of course, all the food you could eat! Everything we needed for a fun week of photography was right at our fingertips! We're very excited about this year's cruise, as well as the rest of our Sojourn workshops. Spaces are filling fast... if this sounds like your type of adventure, pop over to the website and get signed up!

Seriously developed in 2011, we will continue throughout 2012 to work with great companies that provide superior products for all aspects of photography. Companies like Nik, f-stop, Zenfolio, Singh-Ray, Photozini, Calumet, Think Tank, Induro, Bay Photo and Borrow Lenses. In 2012, we're hoping to add new companies to work with to bring new discounts so our students and customers can save some money when filling those camera bags with goodies to use on more workshops!

The Aperture Academy continues to find ways to give back to you, including new and exciting photography contests that showcase some of the best photography out there! We want to reward great, passionate images with quality prizes from many of our sponsors.

Something else new in our dedicated mission to support photographers and their love of all things photography, we've added the popular 72dpi.com to the mix. 72dpi.com is an exciting new platform for photographers to share their hard work and dedication with the masses. Join now, upload photos, and stay tuned as 72dpi continues to grow right along with us in 2012!

And no recap of 2011 can forget the open house parties! We just concluded our 2-year anniversary party, which was by far the largest and most successful event we've had so far! Over 800 people showed up to party with us and wish us a Happy Birthday. We gave away more prizes and workshops than we ever have before. We also had more of our vendors on hand than ever before to show their wares and meet the people. We have these events twice a year, and each one is bigger, better, more fun and gives away more prizes than the last! So, stay tuned for the next one... you won't want to miss it!

It's been a great year, and once again, it's not possible without the continued support of photographers and friends like you! 2012 is just around the corner and we're not going to rest on our laurels, we're going to continue to brainstorm new ideas for workshops, web content, and any and all ways we can make the Aperture Academy experience even better in the year to come! If you have ideas for classes or workshops you'd like to see us work on, please drop us a line and we'll look into it. It's going to be onward and upward for the Aperture Academy in 2012, and we're happy to have you along for the ride!

Happy Holidays from Team Aperture Academy!