A photography “tour” is generally considered an experience led by an expert photographer (which probably already knows the area) that will take you at the best times of the day at the best locations, given its experience in evaluating all the variables.
A photography “workshop” is an experience that includes all of the aforementioned things, PLUS the help and guidance of your leader: he/she shall not just take you on the spot, but also help you with settings, compositions, subject, study of the location and much, much more. He/she shall teach you valuable lessons and techniques that you might use even in the future, your photography leader shall help you improve your photography skills and reach a better level of photography – all the way from working with you on the field till the editing part.
While our name includes the word “tours” in it, make no mistake: each one of our experiences is a workshop, definitely not a tour. We will always be there to help you – not just to get the best possible images during our sessions together, but also in any other future photo trip you will take on yourself. We will strive to give you as many notions as we can – starting from the basic settings all the way to the most complex techniques such as focus stackings, vertical panoramas, HDRs and so on. Technical stuff aside, one of the biggest focuses of our workshops is the composition: no matter how perfectly exposed is your picture, if the composition is “no bueno”, the image will end up looking quite dull – let’s face it. Composition will be one of the aspects we will work on more during any of the workshops. Last but not least, in pretty much every single workshop we will dedicate some good time to edit the pictures we’ve taken throughout the trip, so that you can see our workflow and hopefully getting some useful informations out of it!
– during the peak of the season (e.g. spring in Tuscany, autumn in the Dolomites, etc) we set up some fixed departures (with fixed prices). You will find all our upcoming workshops in the “All Tours” page from the top menu. All our workshops will have very limited spots available (max. 5) since we like to keep things small – so that your workshop leader will be able to follow each participant with the necessary attention.
– during the remaining part of the year, we work with even smaller groups, almost private workshops – on a “first-come, first-served” basis. If you find a spot on the calendar for the workshops you are interested in, that spot is yours: as soon as you leave the deposit, your departure is guaranteed and your place on the tour is secured, even if you are only one person.
Price-wise, the most price-friendly are generally the fixed departures, but we also have two different packages available for the workshops all-year round to satisfy all different needs, called “Smart” and “Comfort”. Discover all about them in the next questions!
The only condition that needs to be verified, before officially transform your workshop into a private one, is that you are the first person(s) to book for those dates. If somebody else already booked for those exact dates – obviously we won’t be able to make it private anymore.
In case a private tour is what you are looking for – please alert us first so that we can tell you what dates are available!
The “Smart Package” includes:
– Accommodations (3-stars rated, either an hotel, B&B, villa, mountain hut, etc);
– Breakfasts;
– Pick-up/Drop-off at the closest airports to your chosen location (Venice for Dolomites, Florence/Pisa for Tuscany or Cinque Terre);
– All car-transfers;
– Road tolls, gasoline, taxes and fees, etc.;
– Guidance and Assistance of a Professional Local Photographer 24/7 throughout the whole trip;
– Editing Sessions throughout the trip.
The “Smart Package” does NOT include:
– Airfare to/from Italy;
– Food (Lunches/Dinners);
– Public Transports Tickets (Ferries, Buses, Trains, etc);
– Attractions Tickets (Museums, Towers, Monuments, etc);
– VISA (if necessary);
– Travel Insurance (highly recommended, both for you and your photography gear);
– Everything not mentioned in the “What’s Included” list.
The “Comfort Package” includes instead:
– Accommodations (better than the ones of the Smart Package, either 3* or 4* rated depending on availability);
– Three Meals per Day in Typical Restaurants (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner // No Alcohol Included);
– Pick-up/Drop-off at the airport or at any other place where we can arrive by car (note that areas like the Venice city centre or the Florence city centre are limited traffic areas and we can’t drive everywhere – so please check with us before making reservations if possible);
– All-transfers throughout the tour;
– Public Transports Tickets (Ferries, Buses, Trains, etc);
– Attractions Tickets (Monuments, Churches, Towers, etc);
– Road tolls, gasoline, taxes and fees, etc.;
– Guidance and Assistance of a Professional Local Photographer 24/7 throughout the whole trip;
– Editing Sessions throughout the trip.
The “Comfort Package” does NOT include:
– Airfare to/from Italy;
– VISA (if necessary);
– Travel Insurance;
– Everything not mentioned in the “What’s Included” list.
So, after these quite long and boring lists… What are the differences? Well, basically the Comfort Package is our all-inclusive option, as you can see from the fact that it includes all the meals of the day as well as any public transport and attraction ticket. When choosing the Comfort Package, you won’t have to pay for almost anything throughout your trip (apart from your own leisure expenses).
The Smart Package instead is our more price-friendly option, dedicated to those who don’t care that much about food or having everything included in the formula.
Two really important considerations:
– Even when choosing the Smart Package, you will always have every meal together with your photography leader. The only difference is that with one option we will cover the bill while in the other each one will pay for his own food – but no matter what we will always take you to try the best places in every single town we will be shooting during the workshop, and always recommend the best food to choose and try in every place!
– Accommodations will be nice, clean and perfectly located no matter which package you will pick: we obviously try to pick a few better ones for the Comfort Package, but it won’t be a huge difference – the ones included in the Smart Package are already checking all the boxes when it comes to have a good quality hotel, so do not think even for a second that in any of our packages we offer accommodations that are not up to our standards!
However, having said that, things are different for the workshops available all-year round, you can expect to be in even a smaller group: the average size of these workshops varies between 1 and 3 persons, not more. Basically private or semi-private workshops.
The reasons why we operate on such as small scale are mainly two:
1) We will always try to meet your needs and find the best dates that works for each one of you;
2) In this way your instructor will follow you based on your needs! Some of you might need a refresher from the very basic settings, some others will want to work on more complex techniques (both on the field and in post-production): your photography guide will model the workshop based on your skills so that each one of our participants will get the most out of the experience.
Actually, most of the workshops we run throughout the year are mostly tailored to the needs of the participants! We can do longer (or shorter) workshops in any of the locations we operate in, we can merge different locations together and we will do our best to recommend you where you should spend more time depending on the time of the year you will be visiting Italy. We have successfully led up to three-weeks-workshops across several different locations – so all you need to do is just reach out and tell us what, where and for how long!
– When should you visit the Dolomites?
– When should you visit the Cinque Terre?
Down here we’ll briefly give you an idea about how much walking is involved in each location (in general).
Dolomites: many of you will think that Dolomites are the most strenuous location out of the bunch.. and they are right. Or at least, they might be. You see, Dolomites offer a moltitude of locations – some of which are quite difficult to reach (3h+ steep hikes) while some others are literally at a car distance, where there’s zero difficulty involved of any kind.
The Dolomites are the location that can be more strenuous, if you want them to be. Paradoxically, they can also be one of the easiest though! That’s why in our Dolomites workshops we wrote “suitable to all fitness levels” because while setting up your tour we will discuss at great length what are you hiking skills and experience, and we will work out the itinerary consequently.
Cinque Terre: after years of experience, we can safely say that Cinque Terre is the place that takes the biggest toll on every participant (unexpected, right?).
The fact is that all these villages are incredibly uphill since they are “sitting” on the cliff – so every time that you need to move anywhere you’ll face a steep walk (either downhill or uphill). Oh and the steps.. So many steps! Unfortunately here it’s not like the Dolomites where we can pick easier or harder locations depending on your skills – in order to get to any of the good perspectives we will have to walk!
Don’t get discouraged by these words as all our participants always enjoyed the beauty of Cinque Terre (despite the walks) – this is mainly a warning that they might be more challenging that you would expect from a bunch of seaside towns.
Tuscany: the Val d’Orcia (the area that we’ll explore for the most part) is like a walk in the park. Apart from the occasional hilltop-town-walking where there might be a few ups and downs, but something that pretty much anyone can face; the photography locations are all at a car distance, except for maybe a couple where you’ll need to walk a whopping 5 minutes!
Terrain is a bit tricky when we go into the fields though, and specially after some rain it gets incredibly muddy as the soil is mostly made of clay (so it sticks to your boots too!). Be sure to bring the right shoes to face mud!
Venice: no big surprises here – Venice is quite an easy place to roam around. Is there walking involved? Of course, your legs are what will move you from A to B during your whole stay since no cars are allowed downtown and ferries won’t go everywhere. It’s the classic type of walking that you would do in any other city – roaming through the streets and discovering every corner – absolutely nothing strenuous. There might be a few bridges to cross though!
Having said this, no matter how soon you’d like your workshop to begin, always try to shoot us a message – if we have a free spot, we are incredibly quick at setting things up!
– within 60 days from the workshop departure: full refund of the deposit or the full quote (minus a 7% handling fee);
– from 60 days to 30 days before the workshop departure: 50% refund;
– less then 30 days before the workshop departure: no refund.
In case you find a substitute for your workshop – your refund will be given back in full no matter the time you will cancel your reservation. No need to say that we always, strongly recommend to everyone to travel with an insurance, both for yourselves and for your camera gear in case something happens to it.
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