Sardinia Photography Workshops
The Tiny Continent
A foot-shaped island floating in the Mediterranean Sea, Sardinia is like a continent in miniature, doubtlessly as much diverse as regions several times its size.
Dazzling white-sand beaches stretching between jagged promontories and towering cliffs, herb-scented granite mountains, a lush countryside and near-alpine woods, mysterious prehistoric sites and pictoresque villages and towns: despite the incomparable beauties of its varied landscapes, an average of 250 sunny days every year, a friendly and welcoming people and delicious food and wines, Sardinia is still surprisingly unspoilt and undiscovered, largely untouched by mass tourism: it is just one of the best locations for taking a private, one-to-one landscape photography workshop as it represents one of the world's last paradises for photographers who look for adventure, inspiration and unique images.
Shooting Locations
Alghero
The capital city of the "Riviera del Corallo, a stretch of coast in northwestern Sardinia, Alghero is a wonderful medieval city that still conserves the Aragonese walls (XIII century), a fortress and several churches.
Capo Caccia
Not far from Alghero, Capo Caccia is famous for the huge vertical walls of limestone of its cliffs, A wonderful rocky promontory on the western coast of Sardinia, with a bay and the beautiful small Island of Foradada in the centre, and the renown Neptune's Grotto. The entrance to the grotto lies only around a meter above the sea level at the foot of the 110-meter-high Capo Cacciacliffs and the cave can therefore only be visited when the waters below are calm.
Stintino
A beautiful tourist resort on the northwestern end of Sardinia, Stintino is part of the Asinara National Park, and the most important starting point for visiting the island.
La Pelosa
A wonderful, Caribbean-like beach with fine white sand and turquoise waters, La Pelosa is the ideal place for some serious fine art seascapes pictures.
Island of Asinara
Established as a National Park in 1997, Asinara is totally uninhabited and completely unspoiled.
In a word:a paradise!
Torre Argentina
A rocky shoreline nearby the town of Bosa, it features two medieval watch towers and wonderful rock shapes carved by the wind and the sea.
Bosa
A charming town on the shores of Temo river and along the western coast of Sardinia, half way between Alghero and Oristano. Bosa is famous for the crazy, vivid colours of the houses surrounding a medieval fortress.
Nuraghe of Santu Antine
Santu Antine (in Torralba) is one of the largest nuraghi (ancient megalithic edifices) in Sardinia. The main structure was built around the 19-18th century BC, and the other parts of the nuraghe date back to the 17-15th century BC. The main tower originally reached a height of 23-24 metres and contains three tholoi chambers on top of each other.
Near the Nuraghe lie the remains of a Nuragic village.
Capo Testa
A small peninsula - once an island - on the northernmost end of Sardinia, Capo Testa features some of the best wind carved rock formations of the whole Sardinia. Since the Roman age this rocky jewel was renown for the excellent quality of the rocks: the columns of the Pantheon, for example, were made with the granite of this area. The Roman caves are still visible today, with remains of unfinished blocks and columns.
Santa Teresa di Gallura
A beautiful town on the northern end of Sardinia, on the Bocche di Bonifacio.
Tomba dei Giganti - Arzachena
Giant's Grave is is the name given by local people and archaeologists to a type of Sardinian megalithic gallery grave built during the Bronze Age by the Nuragic civilization. They were collective tombs and can be found throughout Sardinia, and one of the best conserved is in the site known as Coddu Vecchiu, not far from Arzachena
Example of a typical
day in the field
Sunrise shoot
From the seafront medieval bastions of Alghero, with the amazing promontory of Capo Caccia in the background.
Rest of the morning
After breakfast at the hotel, we will take a walk in the historical centre of Alghero (approximately 3/4 hours) with its tiny cobbled streets, handicraft workshops, romantic atmospheres and breathtaking sea views from the bastions.
Afternoon
after a break with a quick sardinian style lunch, we will move in the outskirts of Alghero to explore the nature reserve of Porto Conte and Capo Caccia, located approximately 40 kms north-west of Alghero. This is an area of breathtaking coastal scenarios, massive steep cliffs, intense mediterranean scents and a rich fauna such as wild sardinian horses and donkeys, wild boars as well as rare birds like griffon vultures. This area has been visited by humans for thousands of years, that’s why you’ll have the chance to explore also the ruins of the nuragic village of Palmavera, built 15 centuries b.C. during bronze age.
Sunset shoot
We will wait for the sun to set in the waters of the Mediterranean Seal at Capo Caccia from Cala Inferno, an amazing small bay encircled by huge, rugged white limestone cliffs.
Looking for more images?
Check my photo portfolio online for hundreds of images from this and other areas of Italy
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Requirements, prices and other useful information about this workshop
Details and Requirements - Key Features
Number of students per workshop: minimum 1, maximum 3 students
Duration: minimum 4, maximum 8 days
5 or, even better, 6 days is the recommended length, as it is indeed the ideal timeframe for putting together a very effective itinerary, there are long distances to cover as Sardinia is quite a big island
Workshops Availability
Year around, August excluded.
Particularly scenic from October to May.
Difficulty
Easy. Most of the shooting locations are directly accessible by car.
A few of them require short hikings of no more than 1.5 kms one way, on easy trails with moderate elevation gain.
What's included
- full time in-the-field tutoring and instructions
- at least one image processing class (min. 2 hours) per workshop
- all transportation during the workshop will be provided with a rented car/van. included in the price
What's not included
- Travel costs for reaching the accommodation, hotels/B&B rates, meals and beverages are not included in the cost of admission unless specified.
- Excursion boats
- Entrance tickets to archelogical sites. museums, etc.
- Lodging costs of the instructor
Insurance
All participants must be in possession of a valid Health and Accident Insurance with repatriation cover.
Key Skills You Will Learn
- build a strong technical background
- learn how to frame effective compositions
- recognize how the quality of the light, the time of the day and weather conditions can play
in your favour for producing strong images with higher artistic content
- learn when and how use filters
- understand how and when breaking the rules can be helpful for creating images of more impact
- learn how to pre-visualize, compose and shoot panoramas
- learn how to pre-visualize, compose and shoot very long exposures with the help of strong ND filters
- advanced techniques of image processing with the most common software tools such as Photoshop and Lightroom
Prices, Payment and Cancellation Policy
Prices*
4 days, 1 student:
2.050,00 € + VAT 22%**
*a discount applies for groups of 2 or 3 photographers:
2 photographers pay each one 75% of the base rates above,
3 photographers pay 65% of the base rates.
Of course partners and/or friends who are not active photographers
are always welcome to join for free.
**
VAT (Valued Added Tax) is not applicable - and it will not be charged -
for businesses and/or companies from outside the European Union
Deposit
A deposit of
45% of the total amount is due at the moment of the reservation,
this is required to secure your place at the workshop.
The final balance payment is due no later than 15 days before the beginning of the workshop.
Accepted payments
Bank Transfer, Credit Cards, Paypal
Cancellation policy
If you cancel within 90 days before the workshop start, you will be refunded the deposit
minus 100,00 € as administrative fee.
No refund will be issued for cancellations received with 90 days or less remaining
before the workshop starting date.
Please note that there is no exception to this policy. For this reason it is strongly recommended to purchase refundable plane/train tickets only and endow yourself with a trip cancellation insurance.
All cancellation request must be in writing.
Accommodations
Hotel El Balear or similar
Bed & Breakfast Da Patrizia
or similar
Pricea: 70-120 € per night, per person, depending on season. Continental breakfast included.
Clothes and Accessories
• wind/rain proof jacket
• a warm pullover
• headdress
• sunscreen
• sun glasses
• Head lamps and batteries
Camera Gear - Recommended Equipment
- Tripod
- Dslr camera
- Camera user's manual
- Wide angle to normal zoom lens, at least 24/70 mm on a full frame sensor, the equivalent on cropped sensors. Ideally one 16/35 mm and a 28/70 mm
- Long tele zoom lens - 70/200mm is enough, 300mm is recommended
- Enough storage cards for at least 16 GB
- Extra Camera batteries
- Photography backpacks come in handy to protect the equipment if it rains and to facilitate transfers from a shooting location to another
- polarizer filter
- a set of Graduated ND filters, at least a 2 and a 3 stops (it is ideal to have all the range from 1 to 4 stops)
- ND filters for long exposures, ideally one 10 stops and one 6 stop
- remote (or cable) switch
- for the image processing session, a laptop with Photoshop CS3 or newer and Lightroom 3.x or newer
About your Photography Instructor
Ciao! My name is Paolo.
I have been a full-time professional landscape, nature, travel and architecture photographer since 2007. Since then, I have planned and led hundreds of private one-to-one and small groups photo workshops and tours in some of the best looking regions and cities of Italy and France.
My pictures have appeared in calendars, books, travel magazines, brochures and as wall art in offices, hotels, restaurants and corporate venues. For more info please click here
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