France - Dordogne Photography Holiday Spring & Autumn Photo Holiday

7 Day All Inclusive Residential Photographic Workshops located near Brantome in the beautiful Dordogne area of France, run by the husband & wife of Paul & Pam. The workshops include, 5 escorted trips into the wonderful French towns, villages & countryside where we cover most aspects of photography from macro to landscape. Our local knowledge means we know where and when to go and when to capture the best light etc. To compliment your photography we offer superb cuisine, from breakfast and lunch to 4 course evening meals including wine. From when you arrive at our door you need not spend an extra euro!

Overview
Nothing is set in stone during the week and the itinerary can be altered to suit guests particular interests and the differing weather conditions.

Day 1. Saturday
On arrival in Les Ages, you will meet your hosts and the other participants. When you have settled into your room we will show you the studio where you will have your own work-station, each participant has access to an Apple Mac computer running Adobe CC software, which will be available to you throughout your stay. In the evening you will have a 4 course meal with your fellow participants, with wine of course!

Day 2. Sunday
We start the day (as always) at 10.00am meeting in the studio. We go through the fundamentals of photography and broadly discuss the camera, composition and the software editing side of digital photography until lunch. Later in the afternoon, if we find we have time we venture into a local small town to hopefully capture the ‘golden hour’ evening light, returning to base for the evening meal.

We use the analogy of ‘Making Cognac from Grapes’ to our photographic workshop workflow.
Take between 100 to 200 shots per day. Harvesting the grapes.
Choosing the best shots (around 20?). Making the wine.
Editing the best 4. Distilling the wine into Cognac.

Day 3. Monday
We visit a ‘Beau Village’, the beautiful village of St Jean de Cole, to photograph the historic bridge, church and the ancient back lanes, stopping for coffee whilst having a general discussion on the mornings photography. We then return to base for a typical/french lunch, we start the day again at 5.00, when we upload and edit our files with tuition.

Day 4. Tuesday
A free morning for guests to explore our ancient hamlet of Les Ages. It offers fantastic opportunity’s to capture some old barns and cottages, some dating back to around 1720.
Lunch is served outside if the weather permits. As with everyday we start the tuition again at 5.00pm and refine our chosen files on the computers.

Day 5. Wednesday
We visit a ‘real’ French food market today in the local city of Perigueux. This offers a fantastic opportunity for street photography and you'll get the chance to experience the day to day life in a small French city. In the evening we go to Brantome to try your hand at night photography. Today we have lunch in a lovely French Bistro, the main meal of the day. Then we return to base for a relaxing afternoon, staring again at 5.00pm. After supper we have our ‘Critique’ session, where we discuss your ‘finished’ work so far from the week.

Day 6. Thursday
Today you will decide what photo opportunities are best to explore. Spend the day in the studio and process the shots you've taken from the previous days; go out and find new themes you wish to explore, or just spend a quiet day relaxing in the hamlet. We do find many guests do to go through their ‘backlog’ of files from earlier in the week. Starting again at 5.00pm we will study macro photography and maybe do an optional studio ‘model shoot’ we offer to explore the techniques of portrait photography.

Day 7. Friday
Today after breakfast we spend the morning in Brantome market, a lovely French colourful market where we have lunch, again in a lovely Bistro. Back at base we start to print your ‘4’ best shots from the week (A3+) for you to take on your return home.

Day 8. Saturday
After a breakfast, say good bye to your hosts and the other participants and check out by 10:00 a.m.