Workshops and Tuition
Would you line up at a racetrack before you'd learned to drive a car? Would you give an important presentation at work without thorough research and rehearsal? Would you cook an intricate recipe for friends before a practicing getting it right first?
Yet how many people buy a new camera prior to a trip, but don't learn how to use it before they leave? A game drive in the Serengeti or a walk through a rainforest is NOT the place to be reaching for an instruction manual.
A camera is a tool designed to do a job and knowing how to use it efficiently and effectively is crucial to achieving good results. Familiarity with you camera and a grasp of simple photographic techniques pays dividends in the field and your photography will improve immeasurably. Good teaching requires a thorough understanding of the subject and the ability to communicate clearly, especially when dealing with technical subjects. My aim when teaching is to cut through the jargon and lift the shrouds of mystery that surrounds so much of photography and digital processing.
I offer tuition days for one or two clients and UK-based weekend workshops for larger groups, as well as longer workshops and photography tours abroad.
Day courses are tailored to suit personal requirements, whether it be improving your capabilities with a camera, understanding various photographic techniques or getting to grips with digital processing, image optimisation and manipulation.
Always remember cameras don't take photographs, people do
Tropical Rainforest Photography Workshop Series
Adult emerald toucanet in the cloud forest of Costa Rica © Nick Garbutt
Leaders: Nick Garbutt and Alex Hyde
Ecuador: 12th January - 4th February 2024
Price from £10,995 (Twin-share)
Availability: Please enquire
Borneo: 15th - 3rd October 2024
Price from £11,995 (Twin-share)
Availability: Please enquire
Peru: Magnificent Manu: September 2025
Price from £TBC (Twin-share)
Availability: Please enquire
Costa Rica: TBC: 2026
Price from £TBC (Twin-share)
Availability: Please enquire
Workshops by their very nature are more involved, more intense: they are an immersion into all aspects of wildlife and photography of a destination. These workshops are built around the premise that it is necessary to spend more time in locations to see and photograph wildlife successfully. This allows us to maximise individual time with clients and specifically focus on techniques that are appropriate to the subjects, location and prevalent conditions.
Photographing fabulous insects in innovative ways is key during rainforest workshops: this is an Atlas three-horned rhinoceros beetle in Borneo © Nick Garbutt
A spectacular sword-billed hummingbird in Ecuador © Nick Garbutt
Tropical rain forests are the greatest expressions of terrestrial life on the planet and offer a wonderful array of species to see and photograph, yet they are also amongst the most challenging places to capture good images successfully - lighting conditions are often challenging and gloomy conditions often mean it is imperative to use flash judiciously. As such rain forest locations lend themselves ideally to the workshop format, where fewer locations are visited but much longer is spent in the chosen places than would be the case on a 'regular' tour.
For these workshops, I am delighted once again to be teaming up with my friend Alex Hyde. We have travelled extensively together to tropical rainforests and have already successful run similar workshop tours to various parts of the world. We have identified a number of iconic and spectacular tropical rainforest locations around the globe and over the coming years we will be offering a series workshops focusing on these destinations. We hope that by co-hosting these workshops, we will be able to maximise individual teaching opportunities for participants, such that they gain as much insight as possible in to appropriate considerations and applicable techniques and, therefore, return home with a broader skill set and improved portfolio of images.
An Andean cock-of-the-rock can be seen in cloud forests, both in Ecuador and Peru © Nick Garbutt
Alex Hyde photographing a White Witch moth, Manu Biosphere Reserve © Nick Garbutt
Alex Hyde
Alex is one of the UK's finest exponents of macro photography, combining the best of art and science into his exquisite images. He is a master of the technical aspects of digital photography and in the field or indoor workshop environment has the enviable skill of being able to convey challenging topics and ideas, concisely, simply and in a way that makes them understandable. To see more of Alex's stunning work click here
Tuition Days
All tuition days are run from my base in Devon. Alternatively home visits can be arranged.
If you would like a day's tuition tailored specifically to your requirements please contact me.
Prices for all one-day courses are £250 per day for one person (+£100 for an additional person) (+VAT), plus travel costs for home visits.
Getting Started with Digital SLR Photography
1 person £250, 2 people £350 (+VAT)
Plus travel costs for home visits
- Starting with the basics you will become familiar with all the necessary fundamental principles and set off on the road to becoming a competent and confident digital SLR user.
- Learn how to interpret histograms.
- File types explained and understand the benefits of shooting 'RAW'.
Progressing with Digital SLR Photography
1 person £250, 2 people £350 (+VAT)
Plus travel costs for home visits
- More advanced skills, including making the most of wide-angle and macro lenses and using flash creatively.
- Learn how to maximise the opportunities digital photography offer with techniques like stritching, focus stacking and exposure stacking.
Getting to Grips with Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop
1 person £250, 2 people £350 (+VAT)
Plus travel costs for home visits
- Organising an image library, with keywords and captions at the heart of image retrieval.
- Fundamental processing and image optimisation.
- Cleaning up images and removing blemishes.
- More advanced cloning techniques for unwanted distractions.
- Using multiple files to create a final image - digital stitching, exposure stacking and focus stacking.