Join me, and Jeffrey Chapman, in Kathmandu this November for Tihar, the Nepalese Festival of Light. We’ll be in Kathmandu for 6 days and Bhaktapur for 6 days. As many of you know, Kathmandu is one of my favourite places in the world, a place of colour and texture and life like few other places, and Bhaktapur is all that and more. Photographically it’s a place for getting curious, getting lost, and – during Tihar – celebrating light. What better time of year for photographers to be there? I’ve been back to the Kathmandu valley every year for the last 5 years, except last year, and I missed it terribly. It’s a magical place. We’ll be staying in Boudhanath, the Tibetan side of town, for the first half, and on the main square of Bhaktapur for the second, allowing us to spend time absorbing the culture at every time of day, right outside our doorsteps.

Some have teased us for describing our adventures as organic, but that’s exactly what they are, because every photographer that’s ever joined us has been at a different place in their art. I say that because this is not your typical workshop. It’s a shared photographic adventure with passionate photographers who want you to fall in love with the people and places we visit in Nepal, and return home with a new appreciation for your art, wherever you are on that journey. We have no formal lectures and won’t tell you where to put your tripod. We’ll give you lots of time to shoot, follow the muse, and get lost in alleys – which is how we all learn this art best.We’ll spend a lot of time together – we travel in a small group,  limited to 8 or 10 participants, to give you the best access to us – and spend chunks of every day together sharing meals and participating in guided discussions about the photographs we’re taking.

There’s more information on the website HERE, but I encourage you to jump on it if you think you want to join us, as we take only a small group and these sell out quickly. For more information on our trip to Burma in September, click HERE, and for Antarctica (one spot left) in November/December, click HERE.

The sun setting over Piazza San Marco, Venice. 2012 I dragged my bags across the cobbles of Venice just after 4am yesterday morning, the wheels bumping and echoing, exaggerating the surreal emptiness of the place. Just Venice and I, which is how goodbyes should be. Around the corner a taxi waited for me, a long, [...]