Typical Itinerary
‘Man in His Landscape’
Course title ‘Man in His Landscape’ his imprint, shadow and passage - allows for reportage, direction to develop or ‘Just Landscape’ Our courses are organised around the needs of our students and therefore the following itinerary is purely an example of what you could expect.
Day 1 - pick-ups from Rome Ciampino or Fiumincino airports or Orvieto train station. Welcome to Columbus Hotel and an introduction to the week ahead by Christian Schwetz, the course instructor. Personal introductions will be given by the course members during a pre-dinner drink followed by dinner. Please note. Every course member will be given a 30 minute private, personal one-to-one session during the early part of the week with a progress follow-up on the last full day.
Day 2 - tour of Bolsena Village followed by classroom based digital techniques to include individual assessments and objective setting to be continued throughout a buffet lunch. This will leave the afternoon free so that course members can practice taking breathtaking shots of Pitigliano, a local mediaeval hillside village, in the sunset.
Day 3 - we start off with an early morning dawn trip to the other side of Lake Bolsena, the deepest volcanic lake in Europe, to enjoy the quite solitude of the lake and shoot some great lake-side scenes. After lunch we drive to Orvieto and its environs for landscape and sunset scenes. There will be two drop-off points from which you can choose - cityscape or landscape.
Day 4 - is ‘multiple choice’ - a trip to the magical city of Sienna; a visit to the Etruscan and Medieval ruins nearby to the castle or for the ‘earlybirds’ another dawn trip, this time to the attractive hillside village of Sorano.
Day 5 - is a free day for you to either, laze around the hotel pool or Bolsena lake, visit some local villages or take yourself of to Rome or Florence by train - it’s great fun and you don’t have to worry about transport as we’ll take and pick you up from the station.
Day 6 - this is ‘crunch-day’ - a day when all the course members have short, individual assessments and a critique of their work that follows-on from the one-to-one sessions completed earlier in the week. The best shots will be viewed and be the basis of ‘The Course Exhibition’ which will be displayed in the studio. The last evening meal will be at a local restaurant, which will give everyone the opportunity to get some night-time shots of Bolsena.
Day 7 - open forum after breakfast before departure.
Rainy days - in the unlikely event that there is a rainy day, we will arrange portraiture, still life and interiors master-classes and lighting master-classes featuring the latest techniques. Throughout each practice session Christian will be on call for problem-shooting and individual tuition.
Equipment - Essential
- A digital SLR would be best, or a high specification non-DSLR, e.g. Panasonic DMC-LX2. Basically a good camera with manual shutter and aperture controls.
- ND Grad 1 stop filter. ND Grad 2 stop filter.
- Cable release
- Trainers - we sometimes need to walk across fields
Equipment - Desirable
- Tripod
- ND Grad 3 stop filter
- Other grad filters e.g. sunset Warm-up filters ‘Cokin’ filters recommended brand
- Laptop, with Photo-Shop software
- Good dedicated flash
The Holiday Includes:
- Transfers to and from Rome’s Ciampino or Fiumicino airports and/or Orvieto train station
- Some of our guests will prefer to hire a car and should this be the case please let us know and we will send you a comprehensive holiday pack that includes maps and directions to Bolsena
- Welcome drinks
- Most evening meals will be enjoyed at the hotel restaurant or in the private studio room. All evening meals and some picnics are included for each day apart from the lunch and evening meal on the ‘free day’ when guests may wish to explore one of the many restaurants in the village and surrounding lake area
- Good local wine and soft drinks are served with delicious local food at all meals
- On the last evening we will all visit a scenic restaurant on the shores of lake Bolsena and celebrate in our new-found skills as a photographer
- Transportation to and from the various trips to shooting locations
- Full en-suite double or twin rooms (no sharing) i
- Free use of the studio and available photographic equipment.
The holiday does not include:
- Flights are not included as guests will choose a variety of transport options. However, we are happy to assist in the planning of individual journeys
- Free-day - transport or meals, other than breakfast and the drop-off and pick-up from the station if you choose to vist Rome or Florence - on your free day
- Holiday insurance
- All personal drinks other than wine and softdrinks at mealtimes.
