If I were a photographer of any sort, I'd want to know more about these National Geographic expeditions and workshops

They offer all sorts of other trips too, with "teams of experts" --
Like this new 10-day expedition to Cuba, already "waitlist only" for all the currently announced dates (through May)

FROM THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXPEDITIONS WEBSITE

For more than a century, people have thumbed through the pages of our magazines and felt inspired by some of the best photography in the world. Now we’d like to invite you to travel to incredible places with some of the best photographers in the world. Our Photography Expeditions are designed for photographers of all levels. You’ll learn tips and techniques while exploring fascinating places with one of our renowned photographers. Our Photography Workshops, also led by a top National Geographic photographer, cater to those who seek more intensive instruction, and build photo editing, instruction, and critique sessions as well as photo assignments into each day’s schedule.

-- from the Photo Workshops & Expeditions page

by Ken

Let's be clear that I am not a photographer. Anyone foolhardy enough to shove a camera in my hand with those famous last words "You just press this button" deserves the heartbreak that inevitably follows. But if I were a photographer, I would at least want to gather more information about these National Geographic trips I just got an e-mail about, planned with and/or around a bunch of their photographers, who -- let it be remembered -- are a posse of the world's best.

Normally I hate this business of theme-packaged tours which organizations peddle to their captive mailing lists. But this kind of makes sense, doesn't it?

Travel with National Geographic Photographers
Photography workshops and expeditions featuring in-depth instruction

Head into the field to hone your photography skills with National Geographic! Learn tips and techniques from some of our top photographers while exploring vast landscapes, iconic landmarks, or hidden corners of a city.

Camera in hand, venture among Alaska’s dramatic glaciers to snap images of orcas and humpback whales with guidance from Flip Nicklin. Spend a week capturing the eclectic architecture and effortless romance of Paris as you embark upon daily field assignments with Sisse Brimberg and Cotton Coulson. Or enjoy a weekend with Ira Block photographing New York City‘s top spots including the Brooklyn Bridge, Battery Park, and Fifth Avenue. Below, discover many more National Geographic photography workshops and expeditions in some of the world’s most inspiring, photogenic places.

First off, there's at least a chance that these trips are taking you to places that real, live photographers might actually want to go, and if I was serious about shutterbugging, those are places I might want to add to my "to visit" list. Then, presumably, at the destinations, tour members are going to prowl when and where you might if you were someone who takes pictures for a living for one of the world's most prestigious outlets for them. And then, allowing for the decencies of a group travel situation, you've got that poor sucker at your mercy, to observe how he/she approaches locations and thinks, well, photographically -- not to mention the opportunity to pick his/her photographic brain clean.

There are 4-day weekend workshops in New York (six scheduled between May and October, led by National Geographic photographer Bob Sacha, Ira Block, or Joe McNally) and San Francisco (five scheduled, with Catherine Karnow or Macduff Eveton); 7-day international workshops in Paris (May 2 and Oct. 24, with Sisse Brimberg and Cotton Coulson) and Rome (Mar. 28, Apr. 20, Oct. 31, and Nov. 14, with Massimo Bassano or Sisse Brimberg and Cotton Coulson); and full-fledged expeditions to Morocco (11 days, May 2 and Oct. 31, with Massimo Bassano), the Galápagos (10 days, two in May and two in November, with Mark Thiessen or Kevin Schafer), Mongolia (14 days, July 21, with Chris Rainier), and Alaska's Inside Passage (8 days, Aug. 25 and Aug. 26, with Flip Nicklin or Michael Melford).

Like I said, it's something I'd at least want to know more about -- that is, if a camera in my hands wasn't something close to a lethal weapon. The jumping-off point for all the information is the nationalgeographicexpeditions.com website, or specifically the Photo Workshops & Expeditions page, which has links for expeditions -- in addition to the above -- to Alaska, British Columbia, and San Juan Islands (12 days), Bhutan (12 days), Costa Rica and the Panama Canal (8 days), Santa Fe (7 days), and Barcelona (7 days); and for additional 4-day weekend workshops in Boston, New Orleans, Toronto, Tucson, Washington DC, and Amelia Island. There are also links for all the photog/tour leaders.

OF COURSE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXPEDITIONS
OFFERS ALL SORTS OF OTHER TRIPS AS WELL

For starters, there's a new Cuba expedition, under "special license issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury" (10 days, already "waitlist only" for the so-far-announced dates through May). The listing of just the new trips for 2012-13 is pretty saliva-inducing.

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There's More To Australia Than Sydney, or Even Melbourne... Canyoneering With Mark Jenkins

© Carsten Peter/National Geographic. Cascades of mammoth ferns flourish in the humid air trapped between the narrow walls of Claustral Canyon.

Tuesday the new issue of National Georgaphic comes out with a fascinating essay by one of my favorite adventure travel writers, Mark Jenkins. His 1997 book, To Timbuktu was one of the inspirations for my own trip there two years ago. I doubt however, I'm up to following his trail into Australia's Blue Mountains. "The Swiss," he writes, "have mountains, so they climb. Canadians have lakes, so they canoe. The Australians have canyons, so they go canyoneering, a hybrid form of madness halfway between mountaineering and caving in which you go down instead of up, often through wet tunnels and narrow passageways."

Unlike other places with slot canyons, such as Utah, Jordan, or Corsica, Australia has a rich, deep heritage of canyoneering. In a way, it's an extreme form of bushwalking, something Aborigines were doing tens of thousands of years before Europeans arrived. But without ropes and technical equipment, Aborigines couldn't explore the deepest slots.

Today perhaps thousands of Aussies hike canyons, hundreds descend into them by ropes, but only a handful explore new ones. These driven individuals tend to have a rugby player's legs, knees crosshatched with scar tissue from all the scratches, a penguin's tolerance for frigid water, a wallaby's rock-hopping agility, and a caver's mole-like willingness to crawl into damp, dark holes. They prefer to wear Volleys-- canvas, rubber-soled Dunlop tennis shoes-- ragged shorts, ripped gaiters, and thrift-store fleece. They camp beside tiny campfires and make "jaffles" for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Jaffles are sandwiches containing all manner of ingredients-- including Vegemite, a nasty-tasting yeast extract-- cooked inside fire irons over the flames. Above all they search for the most remote, difficult to access canyons. "The darker, the narrower, the twistier the better," says Dave Noble, one of the most experienced canyoneers in the country. "People say, What if you get stuck in there? But that's what you are after. To be forced to improvise to get yourself out."

His story in National Geographic is set about 4 hours west of Sydney in Kanangra-Boyd National Park and down the Mount Thurat fire trail and then up to the top of Danae Falls. He and his companion are traveling with wet suits, helmets, a rope, harnesses, and lunch in their packs. "It's like rappelling off the edge of a green-cloaked Grand Canyon," he writes.

The walls are covered with moss. Sliding to the inside of the giant stone turns out to be like squeezing into a narrow, ten-story elevator shaft pouring with water. We're forced to swing into the pounding waterfall, an awkward maneuver that slams us both into the rock. But it's worth it: Standing in a pool at the bottom, we easily pull our rope down.

Below the big boulder the slot closes up, and the silky water flows horizontally along the cavelike chamber back out to the edge of the cliff. We still have a thousand feet of air below us. We rappel directly into the bludgeoning waterfall. Halfway down I make the mistake of looking up, and the blast of water almost tears my head off.

The next three descents are just as extraordinary and drop us into hanging ponds of frigid water, like swimming pools midway up a skyscraper. We backstroke across these ponds, using the dry bags in our backpacks for flotation.

I like adventure travel-- a lot; this however is beyond my capacities these days. I'll stick with the thrill of reading about it in National Geographic... and hoping they filmed it and it winds up on TV. Canyoneering is popular in Tasmania too. Looks easy, doesn't it?