'Ardnamurchan Spirit'

Ardnamurchan Creative Retreat &

Residential Photography Experience

When: Various Dates (see below)

Where: West Ardnamurchan / Ardnamurchan Point

Spaces Available: 5 per break (see below for availability)

Cost: £1585 (All single occupancy & most en suite rooms.)

Deposit on booking: £500 per place (final balance due 5 months prior to workshop date)

Included: 6 nights' accommodation, breakfast, lunch (at cottage) & all evening meals, full public liability insurance. Guest wi-fi access! Transport once on the workshop. All tuition and ongoing support from two professional photographers including Dr Matt Horstwood (also a Geologist) 5 full days photography without large travel distances to maximise our time in the field.
 

Not Included: Travel to workshop, personal and kit insurance, lunches / beverages whilst out.
 

It is with great pleasure and excitement that, due to the success of the 'photographers break' experience we have offered dates twice yearly in Feb/March and Oct/Nov every year since 2013. In 2018 we expanded our offering to one of the most unique and geologically significant locations in the United Kingdom, Ardnamurchan. 

Scotland's land of fire and ice: created by the awesome power of volcanic activity and shaped by the sheer brute of the glacial process...…… Ardnamurchan is truly a unique environment.

Ardnamurchan in the remote west of Scotland, in fact our base encompasses the most westerly mainland point of the United Kingdom at Corrachadh Mor on the Ardnamurchan peninsula. This is without doubt the most westerly mainland photography workshop in the UK!

From our base at the remote western end of the peninsula you'll be able to explore some of the most unique landscapes in the UK as well as spend 6 days dedicated to photographing, exploring and connecting these landscape whilst getting lots of tuition, coaching, mentoring and assistance with your creative journey from an experienced photographer and educator.

We will explore the concepts of creative development, visual story telling, creating narrative in our work, understanding our own personal connections to the landscape and furthering our photography to capture images that are memorable and most notably our own. We will not be rushing from location to location, instead we'll work a single location each day giving us time to understand the essence of this special place. We'll visit places such as Sanna Bay, Portuairk, Corrachadh Mor, Glenborrodale, Strontium, Kentra Bay, Ardtoe and the Singing Sands along with the ancient Ariundle Oakwood, the highland hamlet of Kilchoan and the mighty volcano magma chamber at Achnaha. The photography will be varied and challenge you to explore your own perception and take on this historic landscape.

We will be staying in a beautiful, luxury house close to the shores of a bay at the remote western end of the Ardnamurchan peninsula close to Sanna, Portuairk, Kilchoan, Swordle and Ockle. We'll also have access to land belonging to a friend and our old base with 1,800 acres! of it's own land encompassing three lochs, sea cliffs, moors, a mountain, white sandy beaches and notably the most westerly mainland point in the UK at Corrachadh Mor. We will not be short of inspiration on our own land let alone the other areas on this stunning peninsula. This is a much less photographed area so the opportunity to explore your own unique take will be front and centre of our work.

This is an end to end masterclass; each day we will work a single location maybe two at the very most and will return to a fabulously home cooked meal of quality produce selected for us. We will spend time discussing and exploring our work as a group each day, sharing our ideas for our developing body of work / project, we will hold critique sessions where we will develop our experience and knowledge in talking about photographs and collaboratively providing reflections for development across the week. We will also transition the pictures to print both as contact sheets for sequencing sessions as our projects develop and crafting the final print as the week progresses. Essentially the end to end workshop will place you as the photographer at the heart of your individual interpretation of this magical place, we will work together to develop your connection to the landscape, seascapes and spirit of Ardnamurchan as you piece together your visual story of the week in your own vision.

Our locations will be discussed and planned as a group ahead of the trip to ensure we pull in all the locations that everyone wishes to photograph. We will obviously work quite dynamically over the week assessing the weather conditions, tides and light to ensure we are able to make the most of the seasons and capture each location we choose in the best or most dramatic light we can. We will revisit locations and seek to make the best of the given conditions to enable us to tell a tale visually that is authentic to the place and the people of Ardnamurchan.

Our approach will be a reflective one each day, where we will look at our work and explore our response to the landscape, we will think about creating narrative and working in series / projects as well as the single image as a means to tell your own story of the place, the landscape, the people and the culture. We will be looking at our printed works and exploring sequencing as well as outputs for our work. We will build on the work I have undertaken with John Blakemore on previous workshops. We'll explore photography, audio, video, writing and other stimuli and media to help us tell our unique story of this unique place.

As well as being a chance to dedicate some serious time to your landscape photography the break will give you the opportunity to spend time with other passionate landscape / seascape photographers, where we can share techniques and workflow ideas, you can see how other photographers approach their work and enjoy some enjoyable discussions and light hearted discussion.

"Rob was able to draw on a wide range of experience and reference sources. He is also very relaxed and encouraging of people to find their own way"
 

"This is the most unique, well run and participant focused workshop I have ever been on...... and I have been on a lot. Everything was focused around individual expression and interpretation, we were not simply reproducing someone else's work or visual style. I feel much more confident to seek my own photographic perspectives and make the kind of work that speaks to and inspires me."

2018 was the first time we ran this trip and with great success, spaces sold out well in advance and all the photographers who came along had a great time exploring this fantastic area of the country making superb images. We are already sold out for 2025, indeed most of the previous  trips to Ardnamurchan sold it without even listing on the web site! 

This retreat provides superb value with stunning accommodation, breakfast and evening meals included, as well as lunches at the cottage. The week will be creative, light-hearted and completely shaped by the requirements of the photographers joining us.

We will engage in some excellent discussion and image making to do Ardnamurchan, it's dramatic coast, volcanic peninsula and beautiful moors justice in the magical light...… the midges will also have left by then (October) and wont of retuned (March)! We will also have time to spend exploring the use of post processing software including Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom and the excellent suite of Nik plugins, Capture One or Affinity amongst others. Rob is an accredited Adobe Education Trainer so you can always be sure your learning experience is at the heart of all our workshops and photographers breaks. The final print will be a key focus of the end to end workshop; Rob will share his knowledge and skills of print, paper selection, colour management and crafting the image with final edits specific for your chosen paper. We are supported by Fotospeed for our print workshops and will have a variety of their superb fine art papers to work with. 

The focus on the workshop is on individual creative and visual storytelling, we will help everyone make their own connection to this unique place and seek to tell this story visually through their own unique images. We won't be standing in rows of tripods shooting the same scene, it is very much about getting a feel for the place over a week of immersion and portraying it through your photography and maybe even also video, sound and writing which we will be able to help you develop.

"...... just that you are genuine people for whom photography matters but perhaps more importantly the learning and development of your students matter.."

The accommodation is luxury with almost all rooms en suite but ALL single occupancy rooms,  with full heating and double glazing as well as an open fire, the accommodation is on single occupancy basis with very large twin or double bedrooms in each accommodation. The house overlooks the stunning and tranquil bay at Swordle with 360 degree views to the Small Isles and across the beautiful emerald Hebridean Sea or over the unspoilt beauty of Achateny in a luxurious and spacious traditional large farm house, again all with single occupancy rooms. 

Alternatively we also use a luxurious house with all the same comforts and facilities at Achateny, with stunning view from the garden right out over the field and water towards the Small Isles, either way you'll be ideally located for some of the best and most fascinating 'off the beaten track' locations that only through almost a decade of local connection and knowledge can we help you explore. 

All travel whilst on the workshop is included in our luxury VW 7 seater hybrid Multivan and we can even recommend options as to where to stay to split the journey up to stay near Dumbarton / Loch Lomond / Crianlarich. We'd be happy to provide details of the hotel as we have last year and this March to allow all guests to meet up the night previous and get to know each other over a meal.

The group dynamic and peer learning as well as the instructor led learning are a massively important part of the whole weeks learning and development experience.

Our co-tutor for the week is professional Geologist and superb photographer Dr Matt Horstwood. Matt will help not only with your creative endeavours but also give you an understanding for the landscape form and processes that shapes the peninsula, the Small Isles and indeed some of the oldest rocks in the world.

If you would like more details  CONTACT us via e-mail or give us a call via the number on our contacts page, places are strictly limited and selling fast so book early.

Ardnamurchan October 2019Book your space now!