Portrait of a Woodland - A Photography Retreat

Whilst land­scape pho­tog­ra­phy invites us to explore so many dif­fer­ent envi­ron­ments from val­leys and lakes, to open plains and the coast, there is one that has always drawn the ded­i­cat­ed pho­tog­ra­ph­er and that is the fas­ci­na­tion of wood­lands. Over many years we have ran work­shops teach­ing peo­ple how to pho­to­graph these allur­ing places, but this work­shop has been tai­lored in a dif­fer­ent way. Like our Port­fo­lio Retreat, this pho­tog­ra­phy work­shop is dif­fer­ent from any­thing we have done before and one that we have been think­ing through for some years.

You will be encour­aged to sim­ply take your time, allow the wood­land to reveal itself to you and for you to devel­op a com­mu­nion with your sur­round­ings. There will be no rush­ing around to get to dif­fer­ent places as we want you to breath in the calm of the wood­land and make pho­tographs that will become a unique port­fo­lio of the way you see them. Rather than images that are tech­ni­cal­ly cor­rect with good his­tograms and accu­rate focus, this work­shop will devle into orig­i­nal­i­ty and authen­tic­i­ty. All approach­es to pho­tog­ra­phy will be wel­comed. We want you to cre­ate a port­fo­lio that will nev­er been repeat­ed, one that is derived from a pho­tog­ra­ph­er that has shut out the out­side world and has become enveloped by the woods. 

Our time with our cam­eras will be in some of the old­est wood­lands in Suf­folk that date back to post glacial ​‘Wild­wood’ over 500 years ago and are sites of Spe­cial Sci­en­tif­ic Inter­est and Spe­cial Areas of Con­ser­va­tion. There are ancient oaks, rowans and birch­es along with the largest hol­ly trees thought to exist in the UK. There are huge fall­en limbs lit­tered every­where and along every path are the giants of the past. They are eerie, enchant­i­ng and mys­ti­cal habi­tats that could eas­i­ly form a life­times work.

Dur­ing our time togeth­er we want to spend time out as well as valu­able time back at our hotel engag­ing in con­ver­sa­tion about how we ​‘see’ and pho­to­graph the wood­land and gain an under­stand­ing of how the oth­er par­tic­i­pants have engaged with their sur­round­ings. We will be active­ly encour­ag­ing you to be as cre­ative as you want and try to set aside the notion tro­phy images designed for social media. There will be evening lec­tures from your lead­ers Paul Gal­lagher and Michael Pilk­ing­ton and they will be on hand to talk over your port­fo­lio cre­ation and help with image inter­pre­ta­tion and post pro­cess­ing. What­ev­er your lev­el of expe­ri­ence, we will be there to encour­age you in an entire­ly non-judge­men­tal way.

We have cho­sen the beau­ti­ful Seck­ford Hall Hotel & Spa sur­round­ed by stun­ning grounds which dates back to the 1530’s and con­tains arti­facts once housed in Buck­ing­ham Palace and Wind­sor Cas­tle. Dur­ing our time togeth­er you will enjoy the high­est qual­i­ty accom­mo­da­tion, fine meals which are all includ­ed, and we will have our own pri­vate meet­ing room where Paul and Michael will share their expe­ri­ences of mak­ing portfolios

You may pre­fer black and white or colour, love the ethe­re­al effect of infrared or the won­der­ful­ly abstract nature of ICM and mul­ti­ple expo­sures. It does not mat­ter. These are all ways of self-expres­sion
that are at your fingertips. 

Each pho­tog­ra­ph­er will return home with a port­fo­lio of three A3+ prints made on a paper of their choice and pre­sent­ed in a fine art port­fo­lio box. You will also have free life­time access to our online course​‘Mak­ing The Print’ so you can con­tin­ue your jour­ney after the workshop.