My teaching philosophy

 

The ideas that underpin my photography lessons are drawn from a range of sources; eclectic in nature.  From the ancient wisdom of the eastern philosophies of Buddhism and Taoism, right through to the cutting edge research that is being generated by the evolutionary biologists and Neuro-scientists.

Why is this important to you?  Well, it means that what I teach is different, so that it actually makes a difference to your photography.  I could teach you the same old stuff that is in every photography book out there, but then you might as well save yourself some money and pay a visit to your local library.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying that everything I teach is different.  I still teach the tried and true that we all need to know as photographers.  It’s just that on top of this I also teach other stuff that you aren’t likely to come across anywhere else.  This extra ‘stuff ’ I believe will put you on a path, which is both surer and a more direct route, to taking great photographs.

We’re also keen for your photography learning to continue beyond the workshop.  Partly this is about giving you skills, knowledge and attitudes that help you to teach yourself.  It is also not uncommon for us to have ongoing contact with course participants after the workshops and we encourage participants to stay in touch with each other.  To help facilitate this, we run Alumni weekends, which are free to anyone who has done one of our weekend workshops.

These Alumni weekends are a chance to catch up with some of the participants from your workshop and to meet participants from other workshops.  All while getting out there and taking great photos.  We won’t run any structured lessons as such, but we are there to answer any questions you may have.  We don’t charge anything for these weekends.  We do of course ask that you cover all your food/accommodation/transport etc costs.

We suggest people join their local camera club. We are active members of the 'Dunedin Camera Club' and view it as a chance to exchange ideas with a range of photographers and an opportunity to give back to the wider photography community.