Photography School & Tour

Signature Travel have developed an exclusive business relationship with compact camera specialist and prize winning garden photographer Robert Glaze to offer small group photography school and tour of Holland in Springtime.

These trips are designed for owners of the X1, Dlux 4, Vlux and other Dlux series cameras. You will use this week to improve your image capture skills and work on developing better composition, exposure, perspective and timing in garden and natural environments using a clinics, lessons and assignments model that is build around  “light”. The Leica Compact Digital Cameras are truly exceptional as image capture tools and this week will demonstrate their capabilities.

Traveling from the North Sea to the Ijsselmeer and from the Green Heart to the Water Land, this limited availability small group school and tour will visit the flower fields, gardens, villages and urban environments of this remarkable land. We will take the roads and paths less traveled by taking advantage of early mornings, varied perspectives and perhaps a new way of seeing the world of nature in the wild, in gardens and in urban settings.

Designed as a learning environment, these tours spend time in the natural and urban environments that you visit and use a mix of trains, trams, buses, mini-vans and a great deal of walking (even in the rain) for transport.

Sunday May 1: Welcome, Orientation and First Assignment: At 10 am the group will be organized at your hotel and we will proceed to the Meeting Point at Schipohl Airport in Amsterdam. We will meet each other and go to the top of Schipohl for a welcome lunch and orientation for the week ahead. After a mini workshop on image capture in the Holland we will proceed downstairs for a walking tour of the Schipohl complex, the airport, the train station, bus center and the vast shopping plaza and dining locations. There you will begin your first field assignment. You will have dinner on your own before returning to the hotel.

Monday May 2: The Explosion of Color: We will meet early at the Schipohl Bus center and proceed for an entire day at the famed Keukenhof bulb gardens, a 60 acre exhibition center of over 8 million tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and narcissus among many other flower species. We will have morning and afternoon floral and garden photography workshops with most of the day devoted to touring the gardens and your assignments for the day. This will be a long day but here are plenty of sidewalk and pavilion based dining choices in addition to many special displays and programs to participate with.

Tuesday May 3: Waterland: Today we drive in Mercedes mini vans up into the classic villages north of Amsterdam in the polder country called Waterland, where we will begin our learning about small landscapes and rural gardens. We will continue on the village ofMarken where you will have an assignment in a colorful and very small village. If the ferry is running we will board it and go across an arm of the Zuiderzee to the active fishing village and port of Volendam. The small harbor filled with classic boats and ships will provide many new scenes and subjects for the photographer.

Wednesday May 4: Street Shooting: Walking in Amsterdam: We will journey from Schipohl via the metro train to the Amsterdam Zuid station where we will begin an all day walk across and around the city of Amsterdam. We will have several mini workshops as we travel through a variety of residential neighborhoods, commercial areas full of local shops and stores and pass through the large city parks of the city. We will lunch near the Leidseplein as we enter the centrum and spend the afternoon in the Jordan arts district, the many canals, and some of the more “interesting “ areas of the city. We will take a small boat canal cruise for our dinner and then introduce you to using the compact digital camera after dark as the night, lights and panorama of people and cultures invade your senses.

Thursday May 5:  Woodlands and The City: We will start a little later this morning as the night before may have been a late one. Our day will be spent in the Amsterdam Bos (forest) and along the Amstel River as we move into woodlands and meadows for a slower paced day of lessons and assignments.  As we return to Amsterdam we focus on two special composition subjects before we board the train back to Schipohl and your hotel.

Friday May 6: What Have We Learned? We begin the day with a workshop reviewing the week and the lessons learned. There after we begin the final assignment as you are tasked to use your photographic, travel and creative skills in both individual and collaborative efforts to learn about the classic concept of travelogue. Using your new found skills you will spend the day telling a story with light! In late afternoon we will gather in the centrum of Amsterdam and tell the story of our day and our week with words and with images. We enjoy a farewell dinner and evening in the city.

The following equipment is recommended for the following Photography Schools and Tours listed in RED.

Between Heaven and Earth: The High Desert of Santa Fe and Taos June 2011

Island and the Sky: The Big Island of Hawaii July 2011

Street Shooter: Amsterdam Fall 2011

1 Leica Compact Digital Camera (X1, D-Lux 0-4, Vlux 1 or 20, Clux 2/3 or any new Leica Compact from Photokina! ) with neck or hand strap, two to three extra batteries, two battery chargers And the instruction manual.

1 waterproof shoulder bag the size of a Billingham Leica bag or the Pola Stowaway; recommend a black color if possible.

1 Lightweight (carbon) Monopod with small ball head; we recommend the gitzo model; if you have a small tripod bring it but it should fit in your daypack with small ball or small magic ball head. 

2 lens cleaning cloths and a small bottle of ROR

1 small 1’ x 1’ chamois cloth

1 laptop with basic photo organization/management programs (apple or PC)

1 Strong yet compact umbrella like the gust buster metro in black

1 pair waterproof or gore tex light hiking boots

1 waterproof shell jacket with 1 pair rain pants

1 waterproof and durable daypack ………and 2 waterproof stuff sacks for holding goods inside the pack.

1 pair very light gloves that you can operate camera with

1 cap, 1 rain hat and 1 sock cap

1 Fleece vest

The weather can change quickly and dramatically in all of our tour and photography locations.

Remember we will walk and be on our feet a great deal of every day, frequently with the daypack on.   Make sure your boots and shoes are comfortable and the pack as well.