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Landscape Photography Course

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The courses that I run with my wife, Jan, are on Black and White Landscape Photography in the beautiful English countryside.

Lake District 3 day courses

New for 2010 are 3 day courses in the Lake District. These will use Eskdale in the Western Lakes as the base and run in March, May and September.

Locations will be from areas such as Eskdale, Wasdale, Ennerdale, Buttermere, Duddon Valley, Ulpha Fell and Ravenglass amongst others. This will give us a wide variety of subject matter including mountains, lakes, trees, waterfalls, coast and rock formations.

We will be staying in Stanley House in the village of Boot in Eskdale which will provide bed and breakfast for 3 nights from the Sunday.

Lunches and evening meals will be in local pubs and cafes to wherever we find ourselves. Not having a fixed time and place for dinner in particular will give us greater flexibility for locations.

In the event of poor weather we will use the large reception rooms at Stanley House for the odd lecture and discussions about locations, technique and the more artistic side of photography.

Each course starts with a welcome meeting on the Sunday night. This is followed by 3 full days on location taking photographs Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

The course ends at 4pm on the Wednesday to allow time for travelling home.

Cost: £550 each

Usual number of places available: 5

Transport: provided for the duration of the course

Meeting Point: Stanley House Bed and Breakfast, Eskdale, Lake District, Cumbria, CA19 1TF

Not included in the price:

Travel to meeting point.
Lunch
Dinner
Insurance

Peak District 1 day courses

There are 1 day courses in the Peak District (or you can combine 2 courses on consecutive dates to make a 2 day course) from April to October (except no courses in August).

We will continue to add new locations, as we have each year, so that if you have been with us before we will try and make sure you do not visit the same location again, unless you have a particular favourite in which case we will do our best to fit it into our itinerary.

We visit locations across the middle part of the Peak District including the Goyt Valley, Mam Tor, Padley Gorge and a host of other locations. In a normal day this will provide the chance to photograph wide views of the Peak District from one of the many edges and hill tops, waterfalls, trees and rocks.

Cost: £150 each

Usual number of places available: 5

Approximate Times: 9 am start, 5 pm finish

Transport: provided for the duration of the course

Meeting Point: Briarwood, Tunstead Milton, Whaley Bridge, High Peak, Derbyshire, SK23 7ER

Not included in the price:

Travel to meeting point.
Lunch
Insurance

Personal Tuition

If you would like more personal tuition for yourself or a group of friends then I can arrange courses of one or more days in the Peak District or Lake District (or lots of other areas in the UK). We can go to more remote locations or stay near the car, you decide. This is a very cost effective way of rapidly improving your photography for both digital and film camera users while finding new stunning places for your photography. If you are a digital worker we could also include some simple Photoshop image manipulation, which is not otherwise available.

Personal tuition can also be arranged for dates outside of the the normal courses calendar. So, if you want to come on a course in the winter months (November to February), for example, then this is the only way to do it.

Days booked need not be consecutive. For example, book 1 day in the spring, 1 in summer, 1 in winter, etc and see the effects of the different seasons on the landscape and your photographs.

The cost is £500 for 1 day, £800 for 2 days and additional days by negotiation. Expenses are extra but are kept reasonable and can be estimated or fixed before any final agreement.

The price is the total per day or 2 days, etc. (not per individual as for my other courses). The smaller the group the more attention each individual will receive but the larger the group the lower the cost to each individual. For example, if you can arrange a group of 4 or more it can be a very cost effective way of booking a course. Choose whichever suits you best.

To talk through the options give me a call on 01663 733771 or send an email to mono@davebutcher.net

General Information:

All photography courses are suitable for digital or film camera users of any standard (absolute beginner to professional).

There are usually 5 people on each course.

There is no group tuition, it is all 1-to-1 from both Dave and Jan Butcher, a pupil to tutor ratio of just 2.5 to 1.

The locations vary, as you would expect with such varied areas to choose from.

The locations are spread across the Lake District or Peak District, as appropriate, and are mostly in the National Parks. The more popular locations are visited 'out of season' and during the tourist season we find more obscure locations to avoid the crowds.

You need enough fitness to walk 3 miles or so on rough paths and have stout shoes or walking boots, warm clothes and waterproofs. Other than that these are photography courses so we want to spend as much time taking pictures.

if you want something with more hill walking then talk to me separately and I'll see what I can do.

These are practical courses that concentrate on seeing and capturing pictures in black and white and are a mixture of art and technique. The basics of composition, depth of field (what is in focus), and exposure as they apply to black and white, where to point the meter (built-in or separate) and how to take a meter reading for both film and digital, are always covered.

Film users:

The use of filters is also included. I have a few filters to sell or lend you if you have none of your own. I can advise on processing and other aspects of using film. If you have no darkroom then there are 2 ways to use film but still make prints. Use Ilford XP2 film which can be processed through any High Street processing machine for colour print film (for example, the "1 hour" C41 process). This produces a black and white film but the prints will usually have a colour cast since the printers are not set up to make black and white prints, but at least you have a processed film and some prints for guidance. Once you have your negatives you can either scan them or have them scanned. Alternatively use Ilford FP4 or HP5 and send the films to Ilford Photo for traditional high quality processing and printing. They can also scan the negatives and provide a CD so that you can tweak the images and print from your own PC.

I am supported by Ilford Photo who provide 3 rolls of FP4 film free of charge to each participant (35mm or 120).

Digital users:

The use of the histogram and clipping functions, and adjustment of curves in Photoshop instead of the use of coloured filters on the lens, are always covered, as well as techniques such as underexposure and multiple exposure (you need a tripod for this) to keep details in the highlights and shadows. Polarising and grey graduated lens filters to compensate for very bright skies can be very useful for digital slr users. If your camera has a RAW file format then this should be used. Always record in colour mode to make sure you keep all the colour information so that you can apply filtration in Photoshop or whatever image manipulation program that you use. Some top end cameras let you record in colour RAW and view 'on-camera' in black and white; this is the best system of all. Don't worry if your camera only records in jpeg you will still get some good results but as soon as you transfer to your PC convert it to tiff format to avoid losing quality (every time you resave a jpeg quality is lost).

The use of a tripod will give you extra possibilites for photographs; slow shutter speed shots that cannot be hand-held are often very effective with water and in low light situations. The multiple exposure techniques to compensate for the deficiencies of digital camera sensors, in situations of wide brightness ranges such as sunlit water to deep shadows, really needs the use of a tripod or the acceptance of lost detail in highlights or shadows.

IMPORTANT: Make sure that you fully charge rechargeable batteries and wherever possible bring spares. If your camera fails on a course there is very little that we can do about it. Also, bring enough storage space for lots of image files. In a typical day 150 to 200 colour RAW images is not unusual.

If you have been on a Photography course with me before I will make sure that we visit some new locations.

Payment details

Either book here through my secure web ordering system, send me an email with your details or call me to book over the telephone or for more information.
Telephone: 01663 733771; Email: mono@davebutcher.net

If you are using a credit card, click here to view the available dates, then click the buy button.

Alternatively, I can accept payments with a UK cheque made payable to Dave Butcher Photography. In this case please send your payment to:

Dave Butcher Photography
Briarwood
Tunstead Milton
Whaley Bridge
High Peak
Derbyshire
SK23 7ER
UK

Course Information

I have written some articles to help clients who come on my courses. They are freely available to anyone and cover:

They are also available, in a slightly different page layout more suited to printing, as a downloadable pdf from the pages listed above.

Here is some extra information to help you decide to come on one of my courses, or prepare for it:

Courses Leaflet

Peak District Landscape Course information

Course Dates 2010

Directions to Peak District Meeting Point

Local Accommodation