Course content

4 live sessions

This photo tour will give you a taste of The Netherlands, and we’re sure you’ll be back for more. Our days start before sunrise and finish after the sun has disappeared behind the horizon. We are here for the light and the light is at its best around sunrise and sunset. During the day we use some time to go through the photos taken and to show you what is possible with photo editing.

Live session 1 – The use of light in Photography
Our photography tour starts in Zaandijk. You meet the group in the B&B or hotel where we stay for the night. Zaandijk is a beautiful little town close to the Zaanse Schans. We take our first photos at sunset and after that we have dinner together. We explain what the program for the next days will be and we can get to know our companions for the next days.

Live session 2 – Photography Composition
We get up before dawn to witness the first sunrise of this tour. We capture the reflection of the windmills in the water and hope for a colourful sky. After a well-deserved breakfast there is time for an introduction to post processing of photos with Adobe’s Lightroom CC. This is where your photos can really pop!
We drive to the bulb fields in the afternoon and walk around through all these bright colours. We pick a nice spot where we wait for the sun to set with our cameras ready.

Live session 3 – Communicate an emotion in Photography
Sunrise in the bulb fields! We can’t get enough of row after row of flowers. After breakfast and a second session of Lightroom we drive to arrive at Kinderdijk in the afternoon. We check in to our hotel and have time to rest a little. In the evening we walk to the windmills and take photographs of this iconic place.

Live session 4 – Feedback on the assignments
In the early morning the windmills look different with the light coming from the opposite site. This gives us an opportunity to try different compositions. After breakfast we go through the photos we have made in Kinderdijk and edit a few. We drive to Delft, the city famous for its Delfts Blue, the blue-white ceramics. However, we concentrate on the canals in the historic centre with lined with gabled houses.

What to expect

How is this course given?

The course will be given during live calls on Zoom or Facebook so the photographer can give you direct feedback and you can ask all the questions you want. You will be given some exercises so you can practice what you have learned between the calls. Photography is like a language, you can’t learn to speak a language by just reading books or watch videos; you need to get out there a take your own photos, practice. Make errors, learn from them until you speak the language of photography more fluently. You can post your photos in our private Facebook group to show your progress and receive feedback from the other group members. During the live calls the photographer will discuss some of the photos, so everyone can benefit from the feedback.

What will I learn?

Photography is literally ‘writing with light’. So you will need to know a bit more about light and how it effects your photos. Understanding light helps you to make more beautiful photos.

Just great light does not make a great photo yet. A great photo also needs a great composition. This is probably the hardest part of photography, but when you get that right probably also the most satisfying part. When light and composition come together, be ready for some really special photos.

Photos show you emotion(s). There are ways to transmit these emotions in a photo, and we will touch on this in the course. Putting emotion in your photos makes them more beautiful, more interesting to look at. The best part of taking photos with emotion is that you get to feel the emotion first, while you take the photo.

How long is the course?

The course takes three online live calls of 90 minutes each.

The first call is an introduction and we will talk about light. Without light there won’t be any photos. At the end of the call you will receive an exercise to play with light in your photos.

The second call will be about composition. How can we arrange the elements in our photos to make an impact? Again you will get an assignment to practice some of the composition guidelines, so you will train your eye to ‘see’ the composition.

The third call is about mood and emotion in photography. Now that you know how to compose a photo and how to use the light, you can use this expertise to communicate with your photos. Also after the last call you get an assignment to practice the new gained knowledge.

We will have a fourth and last call to wrap up and discuss some of the photos of the last assignment.

In all the course will take about one month, so you have enough time between the sessions for the assignments.

Important Information

Travel/medical insurance for the duration of the tour is compulsory. Note that this insurance shall also cover repatriation. At the start of the tour you will be asked for a paper copy of your insurance, without which you will not be able to participate.

Lunch and dinner are excluded from the tour price. While we will eat together as a group, everyone can eat what they feel like. We have noticed this works better for most participants. We will usually opt for an early dinner, so we’ll be in time for our sunset shoots… and have plenty of time after the sun went down. Often the best colours appear after sunset.

What is required for the online session?

• Great internet connection minimum 6 Mbit/s
• Headset for better quality sound
• Laptop for better 

Cancellation Policy

The deposit of 50% is refundable until the minimum number of participants is reached. You will be notified when this is the case. Once the minimum number is reached, all accommodation is booked. In the case you cancel your tour more than 2 months before the start of the tour, we can refund 50%. From 2 months up to the departure of the tour, no refund can be made. For this reason we suggest you to get a cancellation insurance.