In 2011, I started Out of Chicago as a blog about my adventures photographing Chicago. Through the blog and the Out of Chicago podcast, I met wonderful photographers from Chicago and beyond. Many became friends, but we mostly connected through social media. I wanted to bring us together—to photograph, learn from our favorite photographers, and spend time with people who shared our passion.

That idea became our first Out of Chicago photography conference in 2014. We brought together classes, photowalks, and social gatherings, creating opportunities to learn and make friends along the way. Our annual Chicago conferences continued through 2019, and in 2016, we took the experience to the heart of New York City with Out of New York.

Then we had another idea: what if we brought the classroom to the landscape?

Rather than teaching landscape photography in the basement of a conference center in Manhattan, we could teach it in the field, surrounded by the places we wanted to photograph. In 2017, we held our first landscape photography conference at Acadia National Park.

Since then, our conferences have taken us from the Smoky Mountains to the Oregon Coast, beneath the night skies of Moab, and into Yosemite and Grand Teton National Parks. We’ve expanded into flower and garden, wildlife, bird, and urban photography, bringing different photographers and perspectives together in extraordinary places.

Through it all, the reason we gather has stayed the same: to photograph alongside people who inspire us, learn from one another, and turn a shared love of photography into lasting friendships.

— Chris Smith, Founder of Out of Chicago