It took me a while to get through all my photos, but I finally edited them down – somewhat.
One of the cool things that comes with hosting photography workshops is the great people I get to meet and spend time with. Workshops tend to create a bond between people who don’t know each other and they work together to make the best photos possible. But they make more than photos, they make friendships and it great to see how well folks get along when on a workshop. This trip was no different and when one person had to leave for a medical issue, the others were feeling down about not having their friend around any longer. They texted him to make sure he was ok after getting home and checked up with him each day.
The teamwork happened not only when making photos but also when it came to leisure time. Twice we did a tailgate dinner out in the boonies and they had a great time planning the food and wine and volunteering who would get what. Even when we didn’t have any glasses for the wine, they laughed and joked when I cut five empty water bottles in half to make 10 not-so-fancy drinking cups.
I look forward to our next adventure together, everyone has already signed up for either my March trip to Iceland or June Acadia National Park workshop.
Below are some of my photos from France. I’ll soon have a link to photos taken by the participants.
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My workshop partner, Ron Lake, and I stayed an extra day in Nice after our Provence Photography Workshop ended yesterday. We figured we came this far so we should spend some time just shooting on our own. While I do some shooting during the workshop, my main focus is making sure the participants are getting great pictures, having their needs met, helping with photo questions and worrying about logistics. Just thinking about making photos is how I like to shoot.
Old town features a vibrant night life, which we discovered since my hotel window looked out over a square where a three piece band, including a full drum set, started playing at 12:30 a.m. last night. There are many cool looking restaurants that were full at 10 p.m. and many shops.
This morning we went over to Roussillion to see the unique ochre trail. The trail goes through a canyon where they have mined ochre for many years and used the color to make many things. The buildings were all ochre color and you could buy ochre color to make you own paint or pottery. The town had a fun little market today, so that made for some good photos.
While we were getting breakfast at a great little bakery in Gordes, I walked over to the edge of town. In Gordes, the edge is really an edge, take a couple extra steps in the wrong direction and you are in flight. There were a couple of other Americans making photos in the street and one of them paused to change her camera. She made a nice foreground looking out across the valley filled with wheat fields and vineyards.
We then went to the neat town of L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, which has several canals running through town. I was fascinated by a little green boat floating on a canal, I worked it pretty hard but wasn’t overly thrilled with the image I made, it will be fun to see what the others got from the same scene.
We went to several other towns and as the sun was going down we found ourselves back in Bonnieux, where we started yesterday. We pulled up to the same overlook as the sun was setting on the distant horizon. We enjoyed the tailgate dinner we had two days ago so we had planned on doing it again. We had an even bigger spread tonight in a tremendous location looking out over the French countryside. The sunset for a wonderful photo and end to another great day in Provence.