CREATING THE BEST LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOPS
ALWAYS TRYING TO OFFER MY ALUMNI THE MOST UNIQUE PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPERIENCE, I SET OUT TO CREATE THE BEST LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP OUT THERE!
When I set out to create what I envisioned to be the best Landscape Photography Workshop out there, I could rely on a quarter of a century of teaching experience. All those long years dedicated to teaching others, taught me a lot, too. While the traditional photography Workshop, with their 8-12 people groups, are a good way of sharing knowledge, I always felt that there was vast room for improvement. In fact, I think there is room for a completely new Workshop’s concept.
After analysing the situation and examining hundreds of Workshops on the market, I set out to create the best Landscape Photography Workshop I could. To do so, I isolated a few key areas that I felt needed addressing.
1. TOO CROWDED
Workshops are generally designed to monetise on having a high number of students, perhaps enticing them with a lower fee. The truth is that Workshops with 8-12 participants or more are only good for the organisers’ bottom line, while participants don’t get good enough tuition and enough attention. It is just not possible: since there are only 24h in a day, traveling in a group of 8-12 people means that you’ll physically won’t get enough 1-to-1 face time with the instructor. The best landscape photography workshop that I have in mind will never have more than three participants.
2. NOT ENOUGH TIME ON LOCATION
In today’s Workshops, I see a tendency towards “the more locations we visit, the better”, no matter what. Amassing too many locations in too short a time, however, only results in having too little time to dedicate to each location. More, it won’t leave time at all to reshoot a location in case something goes wrong or reschedule a day if conditions aren’t great (i.e. bad weather).
The best landscape photography workshop that I envision will leave you plenty of time at each location to explore and get a feel for the place, before starting to shoot. We’ll work in the most comfortable and relaxed possible way, in and out of the field.
3. POOR KNOWLEDGE OF THE LOCATIONS
During my Workshops, the horror story I most often heard from my Alumni is that about Workshop leaders who have never been to a location before the Workshop, and yet they take a group there. The results are, of course, much less than positive.
The second most often heard story tells about Workshops that don’t have enough locations to face either possible weather problems, or any unexpected problem (from road works to crowds, and so on). Perfect knowledge of the location has always been a trademark of my Workshops. Before publishing a Workshop, I invest my own time and money to explore all the locations and to know them like the back of my hand. As well, we always have at least a couple of extra location per day of Workshop, to face any unexpected weather trouble and to accommodate people with different physical requirements.
4. WHAT TO DO WITH THE IMAGES?
During a Workshop, I believe that having serious image selecting and post-processing sessions is a must. Image selection, when done involving the whole group in constructive criticism, is both a really powerful teaching tool and a great help in selecting keepers out of hundreds of images. Post-processing sessions are fundamental to help your images achieve their true potential. Unfortunately, most Workshops don’t offer any such sessions at all, due to lack of time and excessive crowding. Too often participants go home with hundreds of images they don’t know what to do with, images that will lay forever buried on their hard drives or won’t get developed up to their potential.
The best landscape photography workshop I envision will set aside time every day for image selection and post-processing.
WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT
When I started running Workshop, back in 2015, I immediately and efficiently started to tackle these problems. Beside my trademark knowledge of the locations, something I have always been proud of, my Workshops started with a limited attendance of 6 participants, were planned with enough duration to face the occasional unplanned bad weather day and dedicated a fair amount of time to image review and post-processing sessions. As a result, people have been more than happy with them, for the two years I kept running them with this format.
However, in my quest to always improve and to always do better, I have been thinking about how to create the best Landscape Photography Workshop possible for a while. Finally, last April, after coming back from my Scottish Workshops, I set down, put my thinker hat on and ended up designing a completely new line of Workshops.
- PERFECT KNOWLEDGE OF THE LOCATIONS AND FLAWLESS ORGANISATION
A perfect knowledge of the locations and a flawless organisation are trademarks of all my Workshops, something I am really proud of and that will never change. - EXTREMELY LIMITED ATTENDANCE
Unique to my Landscape Photography Workshops, attendance is LIMITED TO THREE PARTICIPANTS. This is the best Instructor-to-Participant ratio on the market and guarantees you my undivided attention. Limiting attendance to three people makes my Landscape Photography Workshops one of the most immersive and productive photographic learning experiences you’ll ever enjoy. - IMAGE SELECTION AND POST-PROCESSING SESSIONS
During my Landscape Photography Workshops, we will dedicate at least half-day every day to image selection and post-processing, to help you select the best of your images according to your vision and process them to make the most of their potential. - DEVELOPING YOUR PORTFOLIO
Unique to my Landscape Photography Workshops, during our time together we will aim to select, develop and post-process your images to prepare a 12-images Portfolio ready for online publishing and printing. - MORE LOCATIONS, MORE TIME, MAXIMUM FLEXIBILITY
Longer Workshop duration means visiting more locations and taking more images, but also having more flexibility. Choosing my Landscape Photography Workshops, you’ll never run out of locations, you’ll never be pressed for time in the field and you’ll always have the possibility to revisit a location if a reshoot is needed. - FULL SUPPORT BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER THE WORKSHOP
I believe you deserve my full attention, before, during and after your Workshop with us. I am proud of my customer support, I normally answer all my emails the same day and I am always available to answer any questions you might have before, during and after my Workshops. More, learning doesn’t stop on any Workshop’s last day: once a Workshop is over, we will keep working on your images either on a dedicated, secret Facebook group or via the email, whichever you’ll choose.
And more. Please see ABOUT VIERI BOTTAZZINI WORKSHOPS for more detailed information on all the features that make my Workshops unique.
Even if, on paper, a Workshop with extremely limited attendance might look more expensive than a more crowded one, the truth is simply the opposite. The more limited the attendance is, the more you’ll get your money’s worth.
Photography is best taught through learn-by-example tutoring and coaching in the field. By working closely together on both the technical and artistic sides of your photography, combining in-the-field work with post-processing sessions aimed at developing a full Portfolio of your images, I’ll inspire you to think differently as an artist and a photographer.
During my Landscape Photography Workshops, we will spend between 6-8 hours a day in the field, working on the locations, learning how to read the weather and chasing the best light, and making the best images we can. Together, we will create images expressing in the most powerful way possible the amazing beauty of the world surrounding us. However, I believe that learning must be as pleasant as possible: when not in the field, we will lodge and eat as well as our destination allows, enjoying our time off the fields as well. Working and having a good time aren’t mutually exclusive!
In Landscape Photography, success relies in large part on intimately knowing the locations you intend to shoot. When I am organising a Workshops, I revisit the same locations for years, to explore every corner of them and really get to know them in different seasons and under different weather. As a result of such dedication, for each destination I perfectly know the light, where to go according to the weather, what to shoot with different tides if on the ocean, how to make the most out of a sunny, cloudy, rainy or snowy day, and so on.
Having been teaching for over a quarter of a century now, I feel that few things are worthier doing and more fulfilling than sharing knowledge. Just get your camera ready, join me for one of my Landscape Photography Workshops and let me share with you what I have learnt during my long journey in the field of Landscape Photography!
Thanks for reading this post, I hope you enjoyed it! Why don’t you share it with your friends, or drop me a comment to let me know how you feel about this?
Have a great day, and don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTER!
Enjoying the blog? Support us with a PayPal donation:
