Robert Green

Attending a photography tour can be a momentous experience. When you live on the opposite side of the world as I do, the expense and hours of travel mean that a lot is expected from a week on location. When the weather works against you, it's hard to get up each day and try to find interesting compositions in the restricted conditions - particularly when you know that hiding behind the clouds and rain is some glorious scenery that you may never get the chance to be near again. Unfortunately, this year's Dolomite photo workshop was very affected by the weather and my expectations for a week in the Dolomites were nowhere near realised. Managing expectations against reality is an important skill for all photographers - so that challenge, I accept. There were though, other challenges to expectations that required managing that I did not expect. The advertising for the workshop as a "Colby Brown photo tour" implied that Colby would be one of the leaders. In reality, this tour was led by his delegates. Having long admired Colby's work, I was looking forward to spending time with someone of his experience; so, this was the first change to be navigated. Now, another person whose work I have long looked-up-to is Ugo Cei. A week with Ugo, who knows the Dolomites like the back of his hand, seemed a fantastic opportunity. My imagining was that his intimate knowledge of the Dolomites would afford participants an opportunity to explore and discover unique compositions, using his specialist experience. However, it turned-out that Ugo was largely the 'bus driver' following a pre-planned itinerary that seemed to be set by someone else. It may suit beginner photographers to be taken to as many "Instagram-famous' sites as possible. For me, I was not so interested in taking the same photo as a million other people. I think we saw more dramatic scenes along the way that were worthy of a photographer's eye than rushing on to a crowded attraction. Nevertheless, I did get a dozen new images of the Dolomites. As I edit them, I'll upload them to my website Having been on a few really excellent photo tours, I have come to expect that time is spent getting to know what each participant wants from the experience and how they want to grow their skills and vision. On this tour, there was no group discussion to start the workshop, and no attempt during the workshop to foster collaboration, review and education. This left a vacuum that vocal individuals of lesser experience tried to fill. For me, there was a lack of leadership that resulted in few opportunities for learning. Certainly though, the leaders put time into helping people with only basic post-processing skills to get better results from their images. My expectations weren't met. But I take it on me to do more homework to ensure I know exactly what I'm signing-up for. Colby Brown workshops seem likely to be valuable experiences for the beginning photographer, or someone who wants to be taken to the popular spots.