On location photo workshops

[chrismg67]

Does anyone have any experience with any of the photo workshops advertised in the Outdoor Photographer magazine. There are a lot of them and I was wondering what they are all about. Do they just take you to the "pretty" places and let you shoot or do you actually learn something about photography? Some of them travel worldwide and are pretty expensive. I've been contemplating taking one of the cheaper US workshops on my next vacation.

[Tom]

Find one that Joe McNally is teaching. He is the best.

[lscottpht]

I have experience with a lot of them. I used to own a photo tour company that did this; in fact, my company had a tour that was voted tour of the year by Outdoor Magazine. So, I was very familiar with my competition. There are some new ones out there, but the good ones are still around. Some of these teach you and some just take you to "pretty places". If they specifically say workshop, then they are there to teach you. Feel free to pm me or ask on here about specifics. I can probably answer most of your questions about how these things work and why they are so expensive.

[andyz]

Weird. I was dog-earring pages last night on OP to look up some of those sites and see more specifics. To try and keep these in the open, unless you'd rather not Leslie, what about Arizona Highways, or Santa Fe (which I've heard good things about)? Those are just two.

Are there things that we should look for, and look out for?

[lscottpht]

I don't know much about Arizona Highways. They weren't really around when I was doing this, either that, or they were so localized. The ones I really know are the ones that do international tours/workshops/expeditions. Santa Fe workshops are good. I've heard great reviews about them. They have some wonderful classes, and they are probably the premier workshop organization for what they do. Their teachers are very good.

I would def. search the web for reviews of these workshops. If you want to actually learn something, make sure you go to a workshop versus a tour. The good tour companies/workshops have many repeat clients that go with them all the time. Geographic Expeditions and Mountain Travel Sobek have some excellent instructors and they really know their stuff. They have other tours besides photographic ones, but their photographic ones are top notch. Nevada Weir teaches at MTS, or used to. She's excellent. Joe Englander is one that has been around for a long time. People love him or hate him. If he likes you, he will teach you some stuff. He's bad about using the workshops to get his own images. Be careful of teachers like that. Make sure they actually teach you and let you take photos, rather than them taking the photos. I've heard that Steve McCurry (phenomenal photographer) is actually a terrible teacher. He was with National Geographic's workshops. Maine Workshops is another one that is more localized but has some incredible teachers. Also, Rocky Mountain Workshops has some good classes. They have mixed reviews, though. Some of their classes are excellent and some aren't quite up to par. They've been around for a long time, though.

This guy is excellent: http://padroimages.com/classes.htm. He's my former business partner for my tour company. He's very knowledgeable and an all around great guy and willing to share. He was on the board at NANPA....he was head of ethics. He was doing workshops outside of the community college. Not sure if he still is or not. You might ask him. He knows New Mexico inside and out and a fantastic landscape and people photographer. He also know Patagonia extremely well. I would take a workshop with him in a heartbeat.

Oh, and I have heard great things about Joe McNally's workshops, as well. He's been around for a long time.

[jeffkohn]

I've done a few workshops/tours, though never with any big names. Everybody likes the idea of doing a workshop with some famous photographer, but those workshops tend to be more expensive and larger/more crowded (which might mean less one-on-one instruction). And as Leslie said, there's no guarantee that someone is a good teacher just because they're a good/famous photographer.

I would suggest looking for workshops/tours that have extensive info on their website about what they cover and what the itinerary is like. If you're looking to learn about photography, be wary of workshops that promise to teach you everything from gear to shooting techniques to composition to post-processing to printing in a single course, because there's no way they can cover that much ground with any depth. Better to pick a course that focuses on a more specific topic that you're interested in learning about. And if you're looking for advanced instruction, be wary of workshops that claim to cater to all skill levels; there's really no way to do that, and such workshops tend to be more basic/introductory.

I wouldn't necessarily knock tours that are more about taking you places to shoot, that can save you a lot of planning and logistics, and allow you to get to places you might not easily be able to get to by yourself. If looking for tours rather than education, I would suggest looking for locals, or at least photographers who specialize in certain regions. They're more likely to know about more than just the famous spots that everybody goes to, and they're also going to know about seasonal considerations like what time of year certain spots have the best light, etc. Some of these 'unknown' tour operators might also offer private tours/workshops where you get to set the itinerary, for about the same price as a group tour by PopPhoto or other big tour operators.

[lscottpht]

Jeff brought up a good point. One of the things I always did with my tours/wkshops was to have a cap on the amount of ppl going. That way, there was time for individual attention. A lot of the companies will tell you the max. ppl they allow.

Also, I know many tour companies in obscure places throughout the world that helped me with my operations and logistics. If you need some local, excellent operators internationally, let me know...anything from Everest, Tibet, Yakutia, Papua New Guinea, and others. If you want to do one in Peru, I have the name of an excellent lady that organizes tours there. She will make sure you have an excellent leader, not a photographer, but a local that will take you to places that are out of the way. She also understands being places when the light is good. I worked with her for awhile. Her name is Milli Sangama of South American Expeditions. She can arrange private tours, as well.

lscottpht added 475 Minutes and 1 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

Someone brought up the Mentor Series on a pm, so I thought I would cut and paste the info here, as well:

The Mentor Series workshops are fun and very good. My old biz partner and I met on one of those. It was one of the ones that you had to submit a portfolio for, and they chose the top 100 in the world to compete during one of their workshops based on the state of Texas. I've done two of those, and our images were in their special addition mags on Illinois (my first one) and Texas. I became friends with the two girls that used to run them, Jamie Spritzer and Michelle Cast. Michelle is still running them, I think, but Jamie went on to even bigger things, a partnership with Seth Resnick. I also ended up helping out with one of their workshops here in Texas (that was fun), plus, I got an assignment from American Photo and the state of Texas because of the Texas workshop. Part of my payment was a trip to NY for the NY workshop. Now, there were around 100 people on these, but the Texas and Illinois ones were spread out throughout the state, and we each had our own mentor for them. The NY one had around 100 people, but again, they split us up in smaller groups with our own mentor. The NY workshop was a normal one, not a competition. It was a lot of fun, and I got to meet some incredible pro photogs. I even got to go to Jay Maisel's studio (the most incredible studio in the world, imo). They go over your portfolio, as well, and one of the mentors, a National Geographic photog, told me my work was "typical". I spoke with another mentor, Steve Brown, about this because I was a bit hurt. He told me Steve McCurry was also considered "typical", so I felt better. BUT, I must say, that one word, typical, changed the way I shot from that day on. I became a much different photographer and started to really get noticed. So, as much as it hurt, it was the truth and got me to where I am today. Anyway, I highly recommend the Mentor Series workshops.

[andyz]

Great info Leslie and Jeff. Thanks.

[Gordon]

I've had good experiences with Craig Tanner, on his Rocky Mountain School of Photography workshops (and Radiant Vista, now the Mindful Eye (http://tmelive.com)

Also good are Susanna Gaunt and Elizabeth Stone, with RMSP http://rmsp.com

All 3 are great teachers at any level and accomplished photographers in their own right. I was most impressed that none of them shoot during the workshop time, other than on one 'optional' shooting morning (some people sleep in/ recover, everyone else goes and shoots, including the instructors) The rest of the time they are teaching, or shooting occasional candid, handheld shots, but not doing their own shooting or serious work.

I've heard of other workshops were the instructor spent most of the good light shooting for their own portfolio and not helping or teaching.