Great Photographic Destinations
Welcome to Great Photographic Destinations:
A series of workshops and master classes in some of the world's greatest photographic cities and locations.
Great Photographic Destinations and The World's Great Photographic Cities are learning adventures for creative photographers, serious amateurs, digital video journalists and others who want to explore a new culture while advancing their craft and creating a new body of personal work.
Our goal through each Destination workshop is to help you:
• Grow as a creative storyteller;
• Discover and explore your inner artist;
• Advance the technical command of your medium;
• Return home with a body of work that represents your unique vision to share with others;
We hope that when you return home you will have a better view of the world and its people. We also hope you will share the work you take home as well as your experiences. We encourage each participant to share their work through a personal publishing project, whether it be a book, a web gallery, an online multi-media presentation or an exhibit.
What is special about a Destination Experience?
• Each Destination Experience is led by a renowned image-maker, who knows the area, is an experienced teacher and is a generous mentor.
• Additionally, local photographers will join you to provide insight into the culture and will offer access to unique photo and story opportunities.
• To fully immerse you in your destination there will be lectures and presentations by local art historians, visits to museums, art centres and the studios of local artists.
• To develop your artistic talents, there will be in-depth and honest critiques of your work as you discover the potential of yourself in each destination.
• An intensive shooting and editing schedule will hone your technical command of the medium.
You will return home with a new body of work and with direction as to publishing options.
Expect to be challenged and stretched. These learning vacations are life enhancing experiences, and as with any adventure, the journey is more important than the arrival.
DHL's Travel Philosophy
The camera is a marvellous way to meet people and explore the world's cultures.
Being a photographer gets you up out of bed early in the morning to experience the quality of light at dawn. Being up early also lets you experience a land and its people in their innocence. Travelling through the world as a photographer, journalist, or storyteller is to experience the lives of others and appreciate their cultures to a greater depth than do most other travellers, for we go not as tourists but as participants. Photographers are free to talk with strangers; to ask them to pose. Returning the next day with a few prints, you share your vision with your subjects and often you are invited in for lunch. You may find you are being asked to photograph a family wedding that weekend, or document the harvest, or come inside and meet the family.
Getting inside, gaining access, going beyond the obvious, photographing a place, a person or a family's life is what Great Photographic Destinations is all about. We borrow from the disciplines of photojournalism and filmmaking to help us explore each culture we visit. By photographing another person's world, documenting their day-to-day life, participating in their festivals and tasting their food we ourselves are enriched. In the process each of us arrives at a deeper understanding of the human experience. We are better at appreciating the way others live, and we become better photographers and informed storytellers. The stories we tell and the images we make may be about someone else's life, but they are also our own stories as well. These photographic adventures allow us to learn about other people, but they also allow us to learn a great deal more about ourselves, and that is the greatest lesson of all.
In each culture we visit, we leave behind images, video tape and the stories we have found, sharing our observations with the people we have visited. As we embark on these photographic assignments of discovery, we go not as tourists, we go as participants - storytellers.
Come and join us this year on a voyage of discovery.
David Lyman, The Workshops' Founder