Tours & Workshops

We are now able to provide an itinerary for the tour :

RETURN TO TUSCANY PHOTOGRAPHY TOUR* €795.00

Tour Dates : 25 May – 01 June, 2019  / 7 Nights

Preliminary Itinerary*

Day 1 : Saturday, 25th May : ARRIVAL DAY – BENVENUTO!

17:00 pm : Group meet and introduction, welcome aperitifs

19:30 pm : Dinner in Montepulciano

Day 2 : Sunday, 26th May : DISCOVERING MONTEPULCIANO

Photography : urban, street, architecture, interiors, people

10:00 am : Meet after breakfast for our first photography assignment/task of Montepulciano city. Photography briefing – personal projects, assignments etc.

We will be guided on a visit to The Cathedral – the most beautiful wine cellar in the world, followed by a visit to Chiesa di San Biagio.

19:30 pm : Dinner in Montepulciano

Day 3 – Monday, 27th May : VINEYARD VISIT AND WINE TASTING

Photography : Landscape, street, interiors, special interest, projects

6:00 -7:00 am : Leave for early Landscape Photography session

We will depart Montepulciano very early to head to the pre-arranged vineyard for a tour of its harvest and production facilities, and tasting. The early morning departure will enable us to witness the sunrise over the rolling hills, for photography.

18:00 pm : Photography review and discussion

Dinner – Free time

Day 4 – Tuesday, 28th May : SIENA VISIT

Photography : urban, street, symbols, people, architecture, interiors, special projects

10:00 am – Depart for the beautiful historical city of Siena, we spend the whole afternoon photographing this amazing walled medieval city with its narrow cobbled streets and the world famous Piazza del Campo.

 17:00 pm : Early evening/sunset dusk photography session on the way back to Montepulciano

20:00 pm – Dinner in Montepulciano

Day 5 – Wednesday, 29th May : CRETE SENESI & ABBAZIA MONTE OLIVETO

Photography : urban, rural, architecture, people, street, special projects, landscapes

8:00 am – Depart to various locations in Crete Senesi including Sant’Anna monastery in Camprena where the English Patient was filmed then to then to Abbazia di Monte Oliveto Maggiore

21:00 pm – Travel back to Montepulciano

Day 6 – Thursday, 30th May : MARKET VISIT AND COOKING CLASS / Optional 95.00 Euros pp

Photography : markets, lifestyle, street, food, special interest

8:00 am – Meet at the local market in Montepulciano. Introduction of Alessandro Piccinini, a local Tuscan chef who will take you through the market to try and buy all the ingredients for the cooking class. – Photograph what inspires you in the market.

Transfer to Montisi for your cooking class – https://www.tuscan-chef.com/en/cooking-school/

13:00pm – Our own cooked lunch!

17:00pm – Visit a local olive oil production agri-turismo, and sample the produce, with a guided tour.

21:30pm – Return to Montepulciano.

Day 6 – Friday, 31st May : IT’S MARKET DAY IN PIENZA!

Photography : urban, street, people, architecture, landscapes, detail, special projects

A special trip to photograph some best examples of Renaissance architecture in the region. Cradled in the Val d’Orcia valley, Pienza is surrounded by breathtaking rolling hills and cypress trees, and is classified as a UNESCO World Cultural Landscape site.

19:00 Photography review and editing session as a group

Day 7 Saturday – 01st June : FINAL DAY

Photography : special projects, editing, presentation

The last full day in Tuscany is spent photographing and editing your final projects in preparation for the evening’s final presentation to the group. There are still many undiscovered corners of Montepulciano you can visit throughout the day. The facilitators will be available on hand to assist in your final edits.

17:00pm – Final Photography presentations

20:00pm – Farewell Dinner

Day 8 Sunday – 02nd June : ARRIVEDERCI A PRESTO!

Departure.

*Itinerary may vary at a later stage subject to availability of venues etc.

About the Photography Experience

On this tour, open to photography enthusiasts of all levels, we are committed to sharing our combined expertise with you as a group, and as individuals. We would provide all participants with a daily task beforehand, so that each day is spent preparing, identifying and photographing images based on the visual exercises set, with a culmination of a final presentation on the last evening. There will be ample time to discuss and review daily shoots and edit your images for presentation, as a photo project, either one to one basis, or as a group.

You will be able to photograph freely as well, through guided commentary and assistance where needed, to create a fresh outlook in your photography skills whilst improving your technical prowess with your equipment in order to increase your confidence in challenging environments.

Group size

Minimum 8, Maximum 12

Accommodation suggestions

A range of hotels and private accommodation will be suggested. More details to come.

Access

Closest arriving International Airports are Rome, Florence, Pisa and Perugia.

Distances from airports:

Perugia – Sant’ Egidio (km 75)
Firenze – Amerigo Vespucci (km 130)
Roma – Leonardo da Vinci (km 200)

Railway station on the main line Chiusi / Chianciano Terme

Two exits on the A1 “Autostrada del Sole” motorway Val di Chiana and Chiusi / Chianciano Terme

*Photo Tour price does not include travel to Montepulciano and accommodation, and stated optional events.

To Register your interest in joining the tour, please contact :

Steven     svllee@gmail.com

Daniela   info@daniella-cesarei.co.uk

About the Facilitators

Steven Lee

Steven is the founder director of Kuala Lumpur International Photoawards and ran Explorenation World Travel Photography Tours with fellow photographer Andy Craggs from 2009 to 2013. Steven also started the Exposure+ Photo Mentoring program with fellow photographers in Malaysia, and is a regular portfolio reviewer at international photo festivals.

http://www.stevenleephotography.com

Daniela Cesarei

Daniela is an established photographer specialising in travel and lifestyle, who lives in Tuscany. She is also an accomplished film-maker.

http://www.tuscanyinterior.photography

http://www.daniella-cesarei.co.uk

See Return to Tuscany

I will be teaching a 1-Day Masterclass in Documentary Photography at the City Academy on Saturday, 18 October at the Actors Centre in Soho, Covent Garden, London. As it is only a full day class, we will have run through some basic concepts, and story-telling tips, with a strong emphasis on current affairs and social issues in London.

This 1-Day course is more suited to those having completed the Level 2 Shoot to a Brief course or more advanced photographers.

More info and booking link here

City Academy website here

http://www.city-academy.com/photography-masterclass-documentary-photography#Coursedetails1

Slideshare evening : Thursday 25 April, 2013

Venue : Lightgallery 5a Porchester Place, London W2 2BS   7:00 pm to 9:30 pm

Once again, we will be hosting another SlideShare evening. Moran Sheleg, art historian, will be sharing her knowledge from her current research revolving around the relationship between figuration and abstraction in painting after the advent of photography. She will touch on art theory, the historical relationship between photography and painting, and the use of the photographic medium as an artistic tool. This is an invaluable insight for photographers into what role aesthetics play in photography. 

We introduce London based freelance  photographer Karolina Webb who will be presenting a series of images titled Mind’s Eye/ Lens’s Eye.

All welcome to this evening, we would love to meet you. As per usual we run a voluntary £5.00 per person collection for the evening.

~

Moran Sheleg

© Thomas Struth, 1989

Moran Sheleg is an art historian based in London. After graduating with a Starred First-class honours degree in the History of Art from the University of York (2009), Moran continued her studies at Cambridge (MPhil, 2010) and UCL (MA, 2012) and has since worked as a researcher in galleries and institutions such as the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture.

With specialisms in 17th-century Dutch painting, Modernist European art, and American art of the 1960s, her current research revolves around the relationship between figuration and abstraction in painting after the advent of photography. Other areas of interest include art theory, the historiography of art history as a discipline, and the philosophy of aesthetics.

Currently en route to PhD study, Moran continues to write about work that catches her eye and imagination, both professionally and for pleasure, within and beyond the academic world. Keen to spread her lifelong wonder and passion for art, she is involved in ongoing educational projects that aim to widen knowledge of and engagement with visual art and its histories.

~

Karolina Webb

People are beautiful and ugly, constant and capricious, mobile and sedate. more often than not they are all these thing simultaneously and quite possibly never recognise in themselves which of these traits are most dominant to others. The human form- particularly the human face, is the canvas over which these tumultuous contradictions are daubed. As a portrait photographer, it is my job to capture in a moment the facets of a personality that could take a lifetime to recognise personally or socially- this is the challenge.

If you have ever unblinkingly and intensely stared- and I mean really stared- into a mirror for a few minutes your own reflection will morph into something unfamiliar and alien. “Is this,” you wonder “the me that you see?”. Herein lies the essence of a good photographic portrait: an image that describes the subject as I see them but which does not undermine the “me” that they see. ~ KW

Bio

Karolina is a London-based freelance photographer. While she predominately takes on private commissions- children’s portraits, family shots etc. a large part of her work is photographing authors for their book jackets and publicity material for clients such as publishing house Harper Collins and literary agency Greene & Heaton.

She is currently working on a long term project with a ballet school, photographing the young ballerinas in training as well as documenting performances staged by children’s hospice charity, The Maternik Foundation.

www.karolinawebb.co.uk

Slideshare evening : Tuesday 29 January, 2013 :  Our first for the New Year!

Venue : Lightgallery 5a Porchester Place, London W2 2BS   7:00 pm to 9:30 pm

Welcome to the New Year, and to our next session of SlideShare. On this evening, Andy Craggs, Huiying Ore  and Coraline Gavazzi will be presenting their recent and current photography projects to the audience.  Caroline Gavazzi will also introduce Speos Paris Photographic Institute’s brand new London centre offering studio photography courses in the UK for the first time. The evening, as usual is also for meeting fellow photographers and friends, and to ask or share whatever questions and tip you have in photography.

Andy Craggs

2012 © Andy Craggs

Andy co-runs explorenation’s photography travel workshop with Steven Lee since 2008 and is presenting his City Sketches, a commissioned series of urban dance images shot in and around the city of Berlin’s historic and prominent sites with modern dancer Gaby Reuter. www.andycraggs.com

 Huiying Ore

2012 © Huiying Ore

Project Synopsis

I have always been fascinated about railways and stories around it. About two years ago, I learned about the Trans Asian Railway Network, a blueprint by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) to create a network of rail tracks linking 28 countries across Asia and Europe. When completed, it would be possible to travel by train continuously from London to Singapore. This fascination led me to Laos, a landlocked country in South East Asia that is one of the missing links in this blueprint. The communist nation, typically described as poor and underdeveloped, has an ambitious plan to build a highspeed train that would connect it to China and Thailand. This series of images is part of a work in progress project ‘Unlocking Laos’, that seeks to chronicle the impact of a high-speed train development on a rural community in Laos.

Bio

Ore (Singapore, 1982) is a documentary photographer based in Singapore. She graduated with an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography from the London College of Communication. With photography, she aspires to document the progression of Asian societies in the global context. Her works have been published and exhibited internationally in United Kingdom, Germany, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, China and Thailand, amongst other countries. Ore received one of the 10 Platform Emerging Photographer Awards (Singapore) and she was selected to participate in the inaugural Angkor Photo Festival’s Asian Women Photographers Showcase (Cambodia). Most recently in 2012, she was nominated for the Sagamihara Photo City’s Asia Prize (Japan) and received a Select Award in the Kuala Lumpur International Photoawards.  www.orehuiying.com

Caroline Gavazzi

The Punk  © Caroline Gavazzi

White Whisper

The snow falls softly and silently onto everything and everywhere, until all is covered in a white blanket.

The snow isolates everything which it envelopes, cutting it off from the real world. It is this specific moment that the Franco-Italian photographer Caroline Gavazzi wants to capture: the point in time when the snow falls and plunges people and things into the torpor of a new world.

Caroline’s intimate relationship and innate empathy with her surroundings is developed further in this collection. Her aim here is not to capture an instant in time, but rather the “soul” that she can sense in each subject she captures through her lens for our great enjoyment

Biography
Caroline Gavazzi is a Franco-Italian freelance photographer based in London. After training at Speos photographic school in Paris in 1991, she graduated from the Sorbonne in 1994. In 1995 she moved to London and obtained an MA in Professional Photography Practice (PPP) at the London College of Printing and Communications while assisting several well-known photographers. In ‘96 Caroline worked as a freelance photographer. Vogue, House & Garden and Elle are among the many magazines in which her work has been published. In parallel to her commercial career, Caroline nourishes her passion for artistic photography, leading to the production of several collections. Her work explores a wide range of themes, inspired by her heritage, culture and childhood.
www.carolinegavazzi.co.uk

We run a voluntary £5.00 per person collection for the evening.

EXPOSURE+ Mentoring Program  for 2013

Following from our recent successful 1-Day workshops in collaboration with Le Meridien Kuala Lumpur, explorenation is proud to announce a pilot photography mentoring program in Kuala Lumpur, aimed at newcomers and experience photographers wishing to initiate their own personal projects. This is a time-based, 3 month long program where our mentors will assist and guide you in identifying stories, ideas or concepts that you can execute into a photography project, through to editing, sequencing and ultimately, creating a visually flowing and personally satisfying photo-book. You will also be invited to present your project in a brief talk at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, in June 2013.

Application opens December 31, 2012 and closes January 9, 2013 and will be on ‘first come’ basis. Program Fee – RM650. There will be limited entries.

Please visit link below for further details.

https://explorenation.net/2012/12/26/exposure-mentoring-program-is-launched

SlideShare evening : Thursday 22 November, 2012 : All welcome!

Venue : Lightgallery 5a Porchester Place, London W2 2BS   7:00 pm to 9:30 pm

Our last SlideShare evening for 2012, and we would love for all you Alumni to come along as we say thank you to another exciting explorenation year of photography. We have arranged for 2 new photographers, Claudia Leisinger, Matt Richards and explorenation’s Andy Craggs to present their photography at this event. There is an optional £5 per head at the door to cover bites and drinks. (mince pies too!)

~

Claudia Leisinger is based in London, and spent her childhood in India and Bhutan, before returning to Switzerland in 1980. She completed an MA in Photojournalism at the London College of Communication in 2007 with her story ‘The Changes Within : Bhutan Between Monarchy and Democracy”, which documented Bhutan’s shift towards its first-ever democratic elections. This was published in the Neue Zuercher Zeitung of Switzerland.

Claudia works as a freelance portrait and documentary photographer and has had her photographs published in The Guardian, The Telegraph Magazine, The Big Issue, The NZZ, The Sunday Times Magazine and Foto8 amongst others.

Brett Singers has been working at Billingsgate Fish Market for 3 years as a shop boy. © Claudia Leisinger 2011

Claudia will be presenting her most recent story titled The Last Of The Billingsgate Porters.

© Matt Richards

Our third presenter this evening is Matt Richards, a keen photography enthusiast and a professional sculptor, based in London. Matt also regularly performs in Capoeira, the exhilarating Brazilian martial art and dance, and is keen to share his photographs of this amazing art. Matt currently teaches art to primary school children, and before, has worked freelance at movie studios building models and special effects on Hollywood sets including The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons and The Clash of the Titans.

My fascination of capoeira, a Brazilian martial arts dance comes from my intrigue of the dynamic human form. Capoeira is about the relationship of two people moving around each other, a conversation without words; personalities expressed through the physical, but without contact.

Once a tribal dance used by African slaves bought to Brazil, capoeira has strong roots fighting back against the suppression of slavery. Though we are not traditionally enslaved in today’s age, capoeira acts as a freedom of expression to all who partake in it.

My photography of capoeira aims to capture the diverse personalities who form the stem of the London capoeira scene, and the various environments where we train. I aim to capture the agile spirit in dynamic motion and the grace of this exuberant art form. – MR

SlideShare evening : Thursday 4 October, 2012 : Alumni and all welcome!

Venue : Lightgallery 5a Porchester Place, London W2 2BS

Round 2 of our SlideShare event takes place at the new Lightgallery in Connaught Village, London W2. This is just off the Edgware Road, and 5 minutes walk from Marble Arch station. This evening we will meet Teh Jin Lim and David Salas, and Salina Christmas,  three photographers with different passions for their subjects. All welcome. We kick off at 6:30pm. There is an optional £5 per head at the door to cover bites and drinks.

Haweswater, Cumbria

Teh Jin Lim has always been passionate about mountains and winter landscapes. In this short series, he shares his experiences combining winter climbing in the British mountains with photography. O&A follows.

© David Salas  Chinatown | 16:04pm

David Salas is a London based photographer since 2003. After studying a degree in Communication Media and Foreign Language in Washington DC, he came back to Alicante, where he was born, to then move to the United Kingdom. David works as a freelance photographer for various newspapers, such ABC and El Mundo of Spain, and the South London Press and the Hackney Gazette. He has exhibited twice with the media collective SojournPosse, and he has had two solo exhibitions in London and Alicante, Spain. At this event, he will be presenting his latest, ongoing project: “Places to Go, People to See, Things to Do: NYC”.  Q&A follows.

Salina Christmas One Thousand and One Nights marked the beginning of Sojournposse’s explorations of books – a precursor to Story Of Books – and its influence on the visual and digital culture. As part of an MSc Digital Anthropology core project, “Remediating the gendered gaze”, which was later exhibited by The Situation Modern in 2009, this body of work serves as a critique on Cartesian perspectivalism and the Renaissance way of surveying the female.

It’s also to illustrate how digital technology, in this instance photo editing, can be used to perpetuate a visual philosophy inherent in the Oriental/Middle Eastern culture. Traditional photography, through the normal lens, mainly supports the Cartesian linear drawing technique and the one-focus way of seeing the world. Photo editing, however, allows me to perpetuate the tradition of oblique perspective in visual art.

“This resulting body of work was also borne out of the dialogues that I had with my then supervisor, who felt that One Thousand and One Nights was not quite anthropology. It was not, and the resulting discomfort it raised in the viewers confirm that this is art.” ~ Salina Christmas

SlideShare evening : Tuesday 24 July, 2012 : Alumni and all welcome!

Venue : The French Art Studio, 58 Gloucester Road, London SW7 4QT

Time : 7:30 to 10:00pm Location

£5.00 to cover drinks and light snacks, per person, on arrival.

First of our London event gathering in 2012, SlideShare is an introduction to explorenation’s new EXPOSURE+ program of photography events in London for 2012 and 2013. Come and view images from established photographers who will share their stories and experiences in the photography industry and their existing projects. Bring your own photographs on a USB stick and share your very own images with us. These can of any subject, your current project or indeed, your best images from 2011. Only through sharing and feedback, you can discover and learn about new ideas and concepts, and possible improvements to your own work as a photographer.

To kick off the first SlideShare evening, we have the following photographers who are both finalists in the KL International Photoawards 2012 to present their work.

Daniella Cesarei
Daniella’s entry ‘Open Space’ won Third Prize in the Open Category of KLPA12. She is a freelance photographer covering portraiture, interiors and travel, and have photographed for clients such as British Airways, Barclays Bank and Lulu Guiness. She loves observing and capturing light and has shot all over the world for various international clients and publications. She is quarter Spanish, quarter Filipina and half Italian, and grew up in Colombia, Germany and the Philippines before moving to the UK to study photography. Daniella assisted a number of acclaimed photographers across various disciplines before establishing herself independently. As well as interior and portraiture, Daniella has an impressive body of travel photography and has most recently been experimenting in the erotic genre.
http://www.daniella-cesarei.co.uk

Tania Lee Crow
Tania is a Finalist in the KLPA12 Portrait Category with her entry ‘The Crossing’. Tania is an independent documentary photographer of mixed Chinese Malaysian, American and Ukrainian heritage. She trained and worked as a professional contemporary dancer and choreographer before coming to photography in 2011 after she was published in National Geographic as a Your Shot winner. Her work has been exhibited in the Kuala Lumpur International Photoawards 2012, in Slideluck Potshow London IV and at the Photography Open Salon Arles 2012. She is a featured artist with the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation for International Photography.
http://www.tanialeecrow.com

Under the Tuscan Sun : Photography and Cooking Classes : Minimum 6 pax

September 22 – 25,  2012 (£550 includes accommodation, dinners and all photography and cooking classes, local transportation)

Approximate agenda

Day 1

VENICE AT CARNIVAL Photography Workshop (Completed)

February, 16-19, 2012 (£375.00 + travel and accommodation)

This is a unique opportunity to photograph Venice during Carnevale. The low winter sun and the chilly air adds to the ambiance amongst the masked revelers, frilly dresses and costumes. Venice is transformed into a colourful medieval playground which is just waiting to be photographed. We will be staying in shared apartments in the Rialto area, and daily instruction will be given to produce a vision of Venice, in your own photographic style.

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY 1-DAY WORKSHOP : INTRODUCTION, LONDON

January 21st, Saturday, 2012 (£125)

Photo © Vasuki Sivagnanavel

This popular full day ‘practical’ workshop will benefit those who are interested in understanding the processes behind basic digital photography, camera handling, shooting in different Modes, learning to get the most out of their DSLRS. We will demonstrate using lenses to achieve different depth-of-field effects, selective focusing and daylight flash techniques. Based in Central London, we will ‘walk and shoot’ and return for a review of the day’s efforts.

Explorenation Cheers! Bordeaux Wine and Photography weekend

15 – 18 September, 2011 :Completed: FREE WORKSHOP : Travel and accommodation not included

Staying in a rustic chateau on the outskirts of St Emilion, in the Bordeaux region, we will be sampling wine and the local cuisine so famous in this part of France. Photography will take place in and around the narrow alleys and piazzas that make up the hilly St Emilion and in the local vineyards. Practice landscapes and architectural photography with free tuition, guidance and reviews.

SLOW Photography Weekend : Isle of Wight

August 20-21, 2011 Completed (£250 + travel and accommodation)

Have you ever seen hoards of tourists busy snapping indiscriminately at every site they visit, photographers carrying tons of equipment strolling in the park, sniping away with their long lenses on continuous mode, point’n’shooters with their camera arms out-stretched aiming and mopping up everything they see like there is no tomorrow? Well, we have all heard of Slow Food, Slow Travel, now there’s Slow Photography.  And that is precisely what we will be doing, with a weekend workshop in the glorious but quaint Isle of Wight.

To be immersed in photography seriously demands a lot of attention, which not many people can afford the time to do so. We are all so buried in work and new technology that the process have overtaken the why’s, and basic joys of manual photography. Filling up an 8 or 16GB memory card is far simpler than shooting 12 frames perfectly, on a roll of 120 film.

Bringing back precise composition, critical framing, and exposure control is what we intend to do, photographing breathtaking landscapes, chalk cliffs, escarpments, and nature. We will also visit the seaside towns of Shanklin and Ventnor on the southern coast, to photograph the beach paraphernalia, people, coloured huts, fishing vessels, tea houses and gifts shops that give these Victorian resorts their English charm.

CUBA LIBRE! Completed

Photo courtesy : Tailormade Explore

Digital Photo Editing in London Ended

Sat 7th May 2011 £155*

Once again, we will be running a one-day Digital Editing Workshop in London in May. This valuable hands-on one day session will give you an introduction to photo-editing and workflow software using Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, allowing you to manipulate and enhance your photographs. Breakfast and Lunch is provided. Own laptop is preferable. Try your hand on preparing your images to print to a large format printer.