China Workshop - Guilin 2012
Discover the unique cultures and natural beauty of southern China with hosts John Batdorff and Craig Ferguson. Our trip will begin in Guilin, one of China’s most popular scenic cities, with a history of more than 2,000 years.
Guilin is situated in the northeast of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on the west bank of the Li River. Its name means “forest of Sweet Osmanthus,” owing to the large number of fragrant Sweet Osmanthus trees located in the city. Guilin is a scenic mecca with amazing rock formations known as karst which rise nearly two-hundred-meters from the Li River.
Rock formations known as karst along the Li River
Next we’ll head southeast to Yangshuo, a quiet, rural region also along the Li River. We’ll check out West Street, famous for it’s many sidewalk cafes and shops, where the international appeal blends with the local tradition to create a truly unique place. We will enjoy the Impression Liu Sanjie, a folk music show performed by 600 local artists with the Li River as their stage, and the karst mountains as the backdrop. Finally, we’ll get a chance to watch the traditional cormorant fisherman at work. Using the cormorant bird as a tool to catch fish, bird and man work together in this thousand year old traditional fishing method.
Enjoy visiting local markets
Once we reach our final destination of Longshen, you’ll be delighted by the endless rice terraces built 500 years ago during the Ming Dynasty. The terraces wind along the mountain side, from the top of the mountain all the way down to the river below. The region is referred to as “Dragon’s Backbone” with the tops of the mountains appearing as a spine above scaled terraces spiraling down the sides. These terraces were built by the ethnic minority groups in the area who were forced to flee into the mountains during the Yuan Dynasty (700 years ago). Because they were primarily an agricultural society, they turned the mountain sides into fields by building the terraces. We’ll visit a Yao Village where the women where their traditional clothing of bright pink jackets, silver earrings, and especially long hair.
REGISTRATION
In order to reserve your spot, please complete the reservation form and include your deposit of $1,200. The remainder of the balance will be due no later than 60 days prior to the first day of the trip (March 10, 2012). Trip insurance is highly recommended. A full itinerary and packing list will be sent to you once you have reserved your place.
NOTE: Cancellations made within 60 days a workshop you will receive a full refund of your deposit. Cancellations made less than 60 day prior to the workshop will receive 75% of the deposit refunded.
WORKSHOP INTINERARY
Guilin — Day 1 – 2 – 3
- Meet & Greet
- Reed Flute Cave
- Moon Peak
- Elephant Trunk Hill
- Daxu Old Town
- Sun & Moon Pagodas
- Xinping Old Town
- Li River Cruise to Yangshuo
Yangshuo — Day 4 -5
- Impression Liu Sanjie – Night folk music show on the river.
- Cormorant Fishing
- West Street
- visit to small local village, countryside
Longsheng — Day 6
- visit to small local villages
- Longji Terraced Rice Fields
Guilin – Day 7
INCLUDED IN THE TRIP
- Double occupancy lodging (single supplement is available at additional cost) at the Shangri-La Hotel, Guilin’s newest international five-star luxury hotel
- Park Fees
- Transportation
- Personal Portfolio Review
- A Good Bag
- Brand New BlackRapid R-Strap
- Signed copy of Black and White: From Snapshots to Great Shots and Composition: From Snapshots to Great Shots
- Phottix mini softbox kit
NOT INCLUDED IN THE TRIP
- Airfare
- Food
- Travel Visa
- Incidentals
- Travel Insurance (highly recommended)
Joe McNally Workshop in Malaysia
One of the earliest phototips in this 365 series was about workshops. Photography workshops are available for all manner of photographers at a range of different levels ranging from novice to experienced professional and covering topics from basic image processing to multi-day travel documentary journeys. I’ve recently started compiling a list of some great upcoming workshops that will be taking place in various parts of the world in 2011 that are sure to be beneficial depending on your interests. Whether it’s travels through Turkey, a lighting workshop in the US or diving into multimedia, there’s bound to be something to cater to your needs.
Media Storm
– Intensive hands-on workshops in multimedia storytelling. Week long workshops held in New York city reporting and editing multimedia projects ready for distribution and publication. March 5-11, July 23-29 or November 12-18. $3500. Details here.
Lighting Essentials
– Don Giannatti holds small group, day long workshops at various times throughout the year in different locations around the US. $550. Details here.
Adventure Photography
– 10 instructors on hand over a week long workshop in adventure photography covering areas such as climbing, kayaking, trail running and more. Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Wyoming. September 24-29 $1950. Details here.
Aurora Multimedia
– Practical multimedia workshop in partnership with Aurora Photos and featuring a range of the world’s leading instructors. Boulder, Colorado, May 26-29. Price TBD. Details here.
Steve McCurry Workshops
– One workshop is listed at the moment but I’m sure there’ll be more added. Listed so far is Myanmar (Burma) for 2 weeks in early February. Looks to be a travel photographer’s dream. Myanmar, February 02-13. $5300 Details here.
IGVP in Turkey
– IGVP Guild members Matt Brandon and Matt Powell lead 2 back-to-back tour workshops through Turkey. May. $2750 per workshop. Details here.
Digital Trekker
– In addition to the IGVP workshops, Matt Brandon will be joining with Brian Hirschy to lead an overland tour from Lhaasa, Tibet to Kathmandu, Nepal via Mt Everest. April 12-27 $4299. Details here.
Cairo Photo School
– Focus for Humanity’s Marco Ryan and Matt Brandon team up for a week long Nile River workshop, sailing from Luxor to Aswan. October 14-21 $4935 Details here.
Rajasthan with Dispatches
– Join Gary Knight and Philip Bleckinsop on a 10 day documentary type workshop through Rajasthan, India. February 7-17. $3950 Details here.
One Light
– Zack Arias’ famed One Light workshops take place in a variety of cities across the US. $800. Details here.
Creative Asia
– A series of workshops from instructors such as Joe McNally, Louis Pang, Dane Sanders and more. Taking place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with additional workshops in Hong Kong, Singapore and Indonesia. January. Prices vary. Details here for Creative Asia and here for Joe McNally.
There are more workshops than that but they either haven’t been announced yet or have already sold out. As I find more, I’ll try to update this page.
That was the 349th Daily PhotoTip. If this post was useful to you, why don’t you subscribe to my feed, leave a comment and share it with your friends. You can also get access to exclusive content and special offers by subscribing to my newsletter. Sign up today. Thank you.
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Vanessa on black.
Whether you are a complete beginner, an enthusiastic amateur or an experienced professional, taking a photography workshop is highly recommended. These days, more and more options are available for photography education globally.
Before we go any further, let me remind you that my eBook Tips, Tricks and Pics is available to purchase for $5.
For the beginner, a suitable workshop may involve going through the basics of camera usage, the various settings and basic tips on composition and exposure. Enthusiasts and professionals might benefit more from more specialized and intensive workshops, such as ones focusing on lighting techniques, post-processing skills or fine art printing.
Consider multi-day workshop photo tours such as the ones run by Lumen Dei. These take place over a number of days or weeks in various places in the world and offer hands-on shooting opportunites in once in a lifetime locations.
Some photographers who are new to the ranks or working photographers may be lulled into thinking that there is nothing they need to learn, especially after they’ve had an initial taste of success. Nothing could be further from the truth. Professional development and continued education is essential to all fields and industries. If you wish to stay at the top of your game, you need to be constantly increasing your skills, and workshops offer an easy way for the busy photographer to stay ahead of the competition.
That was the 42nd Daily PhotoTip. If this post was useful to you, why don’t you subscribe to my feed, leave a comment and share it with your friends. You can also get access to exclusive content and special offers by subscribing to my newsletter. Sign up today. Thank you.
A very busy and wet few days here in Taipei. Last Sunday saw the first Light Your World workshop take place at Taipei Artist Village and the Huashan Culture Park. Before we get to that however, the date and location for the third Taipei Photowalk has been decided. Like the last one, this is just an informal get together that’s open to all. No advance booking or anything required. It’ll be held on Sunday October 18th from 3:30pm. The meeting place is Xin Beitou MRT station, from where we have a range of subjects to shoot.
Jaclynn modeling for Light Your World
On to Light Your World. Firstly, thanks to all the participants. It was a fun day of shooting and learning, and a pleasure to be able to give you some little bits of advice. A very special thank you to the beautiful Jaclynn who braved the wet and windy weather to come out and model for the class. If anyone is looking for a model, I can highly recommend her. Professional, friendly and talented, Jaclynn is a joy to work with.
The day started off with a minor delay, as the manager of the room I’d booked for the morning had forgotten to tell the security guards that we’d booked it. A quick explanation and phone call later however, we were in business. We had 13 participants in all which was a good number. The morning session involved theory and concepts used in lighting. We covered remote triggers, various lighting modifiers – umbrellas, soft boxes, reflectors, grid spots, snoots and gels, as well as looked at the role of aperture and shutter speed, light fall off (the dreaded inverse square law) and so forth. It actually ran a bit longer than I’d intended but no one seemed to be too bored so I guess it must have been okay.
Following a pizza lunch at the new Alley Cats, we grabbed an undercover section of the Huashan Culture Park and set to work shooting. With the exception of a few shots to test the lights, and some crowd shots, I didn’t really shoot much at all – probably no more than 10 frames all day. Instead, I tried to take a hands off type approach in order to let the participants maximize their time behind the lens. By giving them some starting numbers, coupled with the morning’s information handout and discussion, I wanted to help them learn by doing, rather than simply watching me shoot. Hopefully it worked out okay.
Light Your world - Model and Participants
After an hour or so of practicing on each other using a one light bounce umbrella, shoot through umbrella, softbox and some on-camera bounced flash, it was time to photograph someone better looking. Using a mixture of softbox lighting and a shoot thru umbrella (thanks Todd) everyone got a couple of hours to photograph Jaclynn and try a number of different poses, settings, outfits and backgrounds. Based on the images I’ve seen so far, everyone got a decent number of keepers from the day, with a few of the photos being superb.
For those of you who missed out and are interested, I’m presently putting the final details together for a repeat workshop for sometime in November. More information coming soon. For now though, I’ll leave you with another of the test shots I took.
Jaclynn modeling for Light Your World
Strobes? Snoots? Grid-spots? Softboxes? Confused by all these terms? Does umbrella mean a thing to keep you dry or a thing to improve the quality of your photos? Have you ever wanted to get a rich, creamy look to your portraits, or add some color to a background, or create a low-key moody atmosphere? Then the Light Your World series of workshops are for you. Up first is Light Your World – Taipei. This promises to be the first professionally led lighting workshop held in English in Taipei. Read on after the jump for more details.
Sheri C lit with one-light in a medium softbox
Sunday October 4th 2009 is the date. Beginning at 9:30am, we will start with introductions and then run through some discussions of equipment needed to get started. Topics covered will include getting the flash off-camera, equipment, the five variables of exposure, use of light modifiers, some hands-on demonstartions and a few more tips and tricks. This will be held in a private meeting room and should take 2-3 hours, depending on how many questions there are.
Following that, we’ll break for lunch (not included but there are plenty of options nearby). After lunch, we’ll move to an outdoor location where we’ll look at what we covered in the morning session in a more detailed, location oriented way. Here, everyone will get the chance to shoot with a variety of lighting setups, from basic umbrellas to softboxes, grid-spots to reflectors. As necessary as the basic theory covered in the morning is, there’s nothing like actually doing it yourself and that’s what the afternoon is dedicated to.
Once everyone has had a chance to try a few different lighting setups, we’ll take a short break where there will be time to get a coffee and a snack and prepare for the next segment.
Jen lit with a single shoot-thru umbrella
The third session will give you a real chance to put things into practice. We’ll have a 2 hour shoot with a professional model. This part will be loosely guided – mostly it’ll be you shooting, trying things out and asking questions when necessary.
Following the model shoot, there’ll be the option to ask as many questions as necessary. The day won’t end until everyone has had every question answered.
Costs.
For people in Taiwan, the costs are as follows.
Book and pay before August 15th 08/15. NT$1500
Book and pay before August 31st 08/31 NT$2000
Book and pay after August 31st (09/01 – 10-03) – NT$2500.
Get in quick because there are only 15 spaces available. Payment can be made via ATM transfer (Taiwan only), Paypal or cash. For more information, payments details, costs for international currencies and so forth, you can get in touch and all questions will be promptly answered.
Selina indoors with a bounce-umbrella
Equipment Needed.
Really, the only thing you need is a camera that has a hot-shoe. Any DSLR/SLR or higher-spec compact camera will do. If you have any flashes, remote cables, RF triggers, e/i-TTL cords, IR triggers etc feel free to bring them along. Also handy is a laptop for if you want to edit a few pics during a break, or shoot tethered. If shooting tethered, it’ll be your responsibility to ensure you have the correct software, cables etc to work with your camera.
Light Your World is a wholly available light workshop. By that, we use any light that’s available, whether it’s the sun or a speedlight.
If you have any further queries, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Thank you and let’s light our world.
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