The Canals of Venice Workshop led by international photojournalist Peter Turnley, will take his very successful street photography and photo essay approach to photography one step further, offering a wonderful seven-day learning and shooting experience in not only the streets but on the waters one of the world’s most beautiful and exciting cities, Venice.  This is an ideal time to visit and photograph Venice-a time of year where there the daily life and weather is wonderfully conducive to interesting photographs, and also a time when the hordes of summer tourists visiting Venice are gone, and the city rediscovers its’ authenticity.

Students and teacher will meet approx. 3-4 hours a day as a group for lectures, photo presentations, photo critiques of the each students daily work, visits to museums and galleries, and discussion of successful techniques for making spontaneous, human images of the life of a city.

Each day, students will be explore on their own on foot and boat, the streets and canals of Venice and to shoot for at least half of each day. Students will be urged to try to discover a theme of life in Venice that interests them and to create a photo story around that theme. Peter Turnley will help them develop the themes and work and it is not important at all to know ahead of time what the theme will be.  Discovering and developing a theme of interest will be one of the key aspects of the workshop. A theme can be very specific, or very broad, such as “Impressions of Venice”. Students are pushed to go beyond simply the picturesque and to discover a sense of the texture and the rhythm to the real life of this exciting and unique city.

As it is a city very different than many because of the canals and water and the way that this affects and influences the organization of the life of the city, students will hear some early lectures on some of the particularities of life in Venice. Students are pushed to photograph not only scenes and environments, but also the people and life of Venice. Those who are naturally timid about approaching people will learn techniques and be exposed to ideas and a spirit that will help them go forward with their photographic communication including photographing people. This should be a tremendously visual locale for making interesting, creative and powerful images.

Students  focus on how to use documentary photography as a tool for visual storytelling and illuminating the intimate moments of everyday reality. Students are encouraged to photograph both the ordinary and extraordinary scenes of daily life and to not shy away from the challenge of photographing people. With Peter's guidance and support, students learn to overcome any hesitations and timidity that is limiting their work. 

Turnley is a master at photographing people and has vast experience in helping students relax and find a sense of purpose in the process of photographing people and daily life. He is a disciple of Henri-Cartier-Bresson, and passionately encourages his students to hone their attention to the “decisive moments” everyday life. Students will create a final 15-image photo story/essay from their week of shooting in Venice. Peters helps the students refine not only their photography, but gain a greater sense of creating a narrative with images, and how to conceptualize images into dynamic storytelling. Turnley helps find the threads of commonality in your images that contribute to each person’s individual vision.  This will be a tremendous opportunity to create a personal portfolio/body of work about one of the world’s most beautiful cities.

At the end of the workshop, there will be a class show where each student will present a photo story (essay) comprising 15 photographs of their work edited from their shoot during the seven days. Peter Turnley encourages a very warm and helpful spirit among the students in his workshops-there is no sense of competition-students are encouraged to take risks to make interesting photographs, and Peter conceives of this experience as a gift the student is offering themselves of a week photographing a truly unique city.

Companions

This is an ideal workshop to bring along a spouse, son or daughter or partner. Non-photographic companions may join the group sessions and meals but are not involved in the critique or review sessions. Companion supplement is $150.

Hotels

Peter has rented an apartment in the San Marcos area, which is where the workshop meetings will be held.

The address of the apartment is:
S.Marco 3335,
30124 Venezia.

Students may choose a hotel of their liking and there are numerous hotels to be found on the Internet. The choice of late October is also a good time for hotel availability and rates. Students are encouraged to choose a hotel within walking distance of St. Mark’s Square.

Some hotels we have found in the immediate area:

Palace Bonvecchiati Hotel
www.hotelbonvecchiati.it - Calle Goldoni, 4488, Venice - 041 528 5017

Ca Alvise, Venice
www.caalvise.it - Piazza San Marco, 3673, Venice - 041 520 5488

Hotel Bella Venezia
www.hotelbellavenezia.com - San Marco, 4710, Venice - 041 528 8779

Hotel Al Codega Venice
www.alcodega.it - Corte del Forno, Venice - 041 2413288

San Gallo Hotel Venice
www.hotelsangallo.com - San Marco, 1093/A, Venice - 041 522 7311

Gorizia A La Valigia Hotel Venice Hotel
www.hotelgoriziavenezia.it - San Marco, Calle Fabbri, 4696/A, Venice - 041 522 3737

San Luca Hotel Venice
www.hotelsanlucavenice.com - San Marco, 4671, Venice - 041 296 0833

Arrival

Plan to arrive on Saturday, Oct. 27, to allow at least a day to get acclimated to Venice. The first workshop session will begin at 2pm on Sunday, Oct. 28. Flights from the States are often in the evenings, which mean you could fly Friday evening, and make your plane or train connection to Venice on Saturday, Oct. 27 and give yourself an evening to get acclimated before the workshop begins on Sunday.

if you are flying into Venice, from the Marco Polo airport you can catch the bus to Piazzale Roma (Venice bus
station) and then from Piazzale Roma catch the actv vaporetto (water bus) number 2 (S.Marco direction, through the Grand Canal) to S.Samuele boat stop.The apartment is just 2 minutes from S.Samuele boat stop.

Departures

The workshop ends at noon, November 3, with a final show of the students’ final 15 image photo stories made during the week. Students are free to leave on Saturday afternoon, which would enable those needing to get back to the States to work on Monday the time to do so. Those wishing to stay in the region longer are free to continue their trip afternoon on Saturday.

Technology

This workshop is conducted using digital cameras. Students are encouraged to use a 35 mm digital camera. You will need to bring a laptop computer to Venice and will need to know how to download your digital images each evening to a folder so that your days work can be brought to class the next day on either a flash drive, external hard drive, or disc, for review each day with Peter Turnley.

What to Bring

Besides your SLR digital cameras, students are asked to bring along a body of creative work to share, it can be a printed portfolio, a digital card of images, or any sort of visual set of work. Your portfolio can be prints or digital images. The workshop will have an LCD projector and there will be a final show of all of the students work during the final session.

Camera Gear

A digital SLR camera is required. Students may work with a high end point and shoot camera such as a Canon G10. Two bodies are recommended, with a minimum of at least one wide-angle lens, such as a 17-35mm zoom, or 24mm, 28mm, 35mm, or 50mm lens. In order to shoot comfortably in low light situations, it will be preferable that students have a wide-angle lens that is relatively fast and has a wide aperture such as 1.4 1.8. 2 or 2.8. Bring several memory cards (at least 1 gigabyte cards are recommended), extra batteries and necessary battery chargers. A laptop should have image management software, such as Apple’s Aperture, Adobe’s Light Room or, as Peter suggests, PhotoMechanic, which can be downloaded, free, on a trial basis from CameraBits.com A back-up system for storing each day’s work is also required. This can be your laptop, a portable external hard drive storage device, flash drive, or discs. Additionally, you will need means of transmitting your daily selection of edited images in a folder to Peter for review; flash drives are the most practical, but you can also use an external hard drive, or DVD.

Research and Preparation

Research and preparation are important parts of any endeavor, particularly adventures. There are many very thorough guidebooks about Venice and extensive information about Venice to be found on the Internet.

Meals

The first and last meals are included in the cost of the workshop. You will be a guest of the workshop for a group opening dinner on Sunday night, and a final dinner on Friday night. Aside from the two group meals, breakfasts, lunches and dinners are independent but students are encouraged to join each other in local restaurants and cafes. Past students usually have spent around $50 a day on meals.

For more information about teacher Peter Turnley, please consult his personal website: www.peterturnley.com

Turnley has published 5 books of his work:

Parisians

McClellan Street

In Times of War and Peace

Beijing Spring

Moments of Revolution

This promises to be an exceptional experience for any photographer wishing to create a portfolio/body of work, on the life and scenes of an extraordinary city in the world