The value of photography workshops
When I started out in photography I had three goals. I wanted to become a better photographer; I wanted to learn to look differently; and I wanted to meet other photographers. The modest boy in me (he is in there somewhere) had no illusions. I could do nothing. Camera on, automatic settings, press the button.
Yes, all right, I drew a lot and light plays a part in that too. But my knowledge of photography was practically nil. I also knew nobody at all in the photography world. Almost nobody, apart from photographer Miriam Rohde. Miriam gave me my first workshop, at her kitchen table. So how did ISO and aperture actually work in practice? You have to start somewhere.
After that I visited Evely Duis, who told me how a flash works. The basics of added light. I went back to Evely once more, to go into flash with a single unit in more detail. I wanted to be able to do that on location with minimal gear. To practise with maximum gear, I walked in at Michiel Fischer. Playing with plenty of big lights and reflectors; I learned a lot. Alongside my commercial work, I wanted to find out more about that exciting world of street photography. That went perfectly well with my 70-200mm lens, but I wanted to get closer. The obvious workshop was of course the one by Fokko Muller. And I visited Paris under the watchful eye of Valérie Jardin, whose workshop I also took.
I took workshops online as well, and the more I did, the more I kept coming to the same conclusion: workshops open up your world. Knowledge is nice, but insight is nicer. Taking a workshop is learning in practice. What a workshop is worth to me really lies in watching what other people do. What is that seasoned teacher actually doing? How do the other participants look, and which camera tricks can I take home? The subject barely even matters to me; I learned an enormous amount standing at the coast with a tripod photographing a sunset.
To my mind it is not about which workshop you take, but about what that workshop does to you. Whether that is one to one or in a group. I love workshops so much that I started giving them myself. Then I get to watch my participants shamelessly and study how they handle their cameras.
My biggest photography dream is to be able to keep taking and giving workshops for ever, whether as a mentor or in a group. The format does not matter to me. Always keep learning. In whatever setting. By carrying on with this, I am sure I get closer to my three goals. I keep improving myself and my photography, I keep learning to look differently, and my word, how good it is to meet other photographers.
So if you are still hesitating over that one workshop, just book it. I guarantee it will never make you a worse photographer.
Besides Wijchen, Utrecht, Antwerp, Nijmegen, Paris and London, I also run street photography workshops on request in Prague, Zurich, Rotterdam, Eindhoven, Maastricht, Middelburg and Hamburg. No date on the calendar yet, but keen anyway? Just let me know. Prefer not to spend a whole day travelling? A one-day photography workshop might suit you better.
This article first appeared in Focus Magazine (the best photography magazine in the Netherlands), for which I wrote a column in every issue in 2023 and 2024.