What are the dates?

Beginner:
B1: 2 half days: Afternoons of January 25th and January 27th 2011
B2: 1 full day: January 29th 2011

Intermediate:
M1:1 Full day: February 5th 2011
M2: 2 Half Days: Afternoons of February 23rd & 24th 2011

Advanced:
A1: Dates to be confirmed in Feb and March

Lightroom:
L2: 2 x half days: Afternoons of Mar 4th and Mar 5th

Cost

How much are courses?

One Course – EGP750 / $136
Two courses – EGP1400 / $ 250
Three courses – EGP 1900 / $345
Lightroom course – EGP1100 /$200
Three courses + Adobe Lightroom course – EGP2750 / $500

How can I book?

You may register for one or more courses online. When you have completed the registration, you will receive an automated reply detailing payment instructions.

PLEASE NOTE: Your registration is not confirmed until your payment has been received.

Beginners Course – An introduction to photography

The Beginners’ course serves as a great introduction to photography. We look at the basic principles involved in capturing an image and learn how the camera interprets what it sees. The course has a very practical bias and our aim is to translate the technical aspects of photography into real-life examples, demonstrating how you can take creative control of your camera’s functions.

This course is ideal for anyone looking to fully understand the capabilities of their camera and will demystify all those curious buttons and dials. Our aim on the Beginners’ Course is to teach you how to use your camera to capture the image that you see in your mind’s eye.

After a morning in the studio, looking at basic camera control techniques, we break for lunch and then reconvene in the afternoon for a practical field-trip in Cairo’s photogenic Moaz street. We will photograph in the late afternoon and early evening, enjoying the best light of the day and putting the day’s lessons into practice.

By the end of the Beginners’ Course, you will have an understanding and appreciation of the following photographic techniques:

* Apertures and Shutter Speeds. The relationship between them and how their use influences the final image.
* ISO. How selecting the right ISO speed will allow you to capture images in low light, without flash.
* White Balance and Colour Temperature. How to ensure that you are capturing colours accurately.
* RAW v JPEG. We explain what these digital formats are and how your choice of format might affect what you can do with your digital files.

What will you need to attend the course?

Any camera, whether digital or film, will be perfect but an SLR or Rangefinder camera would be ideal. If you’re not sure, please ask.

What else will you receive?

* You will leave the course with a comprehensive set of notes, covering all of the techniques discussed, which you can refer to in your own time.
* Access to a private, online forum where you can continue discussions with fellow students and upload your images for review and critique.
* A range of trial software, suitable for anyone looking to manage digital image files.
* Discount vouchers for future Cairo Photo School courses and workshops held by Marco Ryan.
* A list of web site and resources for further learning.

Intermediate Course – Continuing to improve your skills

The Intermediate Course continues to build upon skills learned in the Beginners’ Course, enhancing your understanding of the camera functions and giving you greater creative control.

As well as a number of technical skills, you will also learn the art of successful composition, seeing examples of work from a range of professional photographers and seeing how you might translate their compositional ideas into your own work. This section of the course is where we will begin to encourage your creative ideas to flourish.

After a morning in the studio, learning technical skills we will break for lunch and then reconvene in the late afternoon at Dahab Island to practice lessons learned during the best light of the day.

By the end of the Intermediate Course, you will have an understanding and appreciation of the following photographic techniques:

* Camera Metering Modes. You will learn how the camera reads lights and how it interprets what it sees.
* Exposure Control. Knowing how and when to override the camera’s automatic exposure settings will allow you to capture perfectly exposed photographs.
* Composition. What makes a “good” photograph? How can you adapt compositional ideas to give your images more impact.
* Digital Post-Production. We look at the first steps in creating a consistent digital workflow process to help you manage your digital files.

What will you need to attend the course?

Any camera, whether digital or film, will be perfect but an SLR or Rangefinder camera would be ideal. If you’re not sure, please ask.

What else will you receive?

* You will leave the course with a comprehensive set of notes, covering all of the techniques discussed, which you can refer to in your own time.
* Access to a private, online forum where you can continue discussions with fellow students and upload your images for review and critique.
* A range of trial software, suitable for anyone looking to manage digital image files.
* Discount vouchers for future Bangkok Photo School courses and workshops held by Gavin Gough.
* A list of web site and resources for further learning.

Advanced Course – Bringing all your skills together

The Advanced Course brings all of the skills and techniques learned on previous courses together and combines them into a consistent and comprehensive approach to the art of photography.

The course begins with an examination of the work of several successful professional photographers with a discussion of how we can adapt the techniques we have learned to realise our creative vision. We look at the art of photographic story-telling and learn how to plan, construct, shoot and realise a photo essay.

This course also looks at the difficulties of shooting in low-light situations and you will learn techniques to make the most of available light. We also look at fill-flash techniques and understand how different exposure settings can create dramatic effects in low-light.

This sessions concludes with each student undertaking a story-telling exercise on their own. By the end of the workshop, you will have created a series of images and will have the skills and software required to build them into an online photo essay.

After a morning in the library, we break for lunch and then reconvene in the early evening at the colourful Pak Khlong Talaat flower market in Bangkok. This field-trip begins at dusk and continues into the evening where we will photograph after dark, with artificial light and using the skills learned earlier in the day. This is a challenging but enormously rewarding time to photograph and brings the series of courses to an exciting conclusion.

By the end of the Advanced Course, you will have an understanding and appreciation of the following photographic techniques:

* Composition. More advanced compositional ideas will help you create images with drama and impact.
* Low Light Photography. This is one of the most challenging times to photograph but there are various techniques that will help you make the very most of low light situations.
* Story-telling. With Gavin’s help, you will create your own photo essay based upon principles used by news photographers and photojournalists. At the end of the course you will be able to construct your own online slideshow with accompanying audio, which will be supplied for you.

What will you need to attend the course?

Any camera, whether digital or film, will be perfect but an SLR or Rangefinder camera would be ideal. If you’re not sure, please ask.

What else will you receive?

* You will leave the course with a comprehensive set of notes, covering all of the techniques discussed, which you can refer to in your own time.
* Access to a private, online forum where you can continue discussions with fellow students and upload your images for review and critique.
* A range of trial software, suitable for anyone looking to manage digital image files.
* Discount vouchers for future Cairo Photo School courses and workshops held by Marco Ryan.
* A list of web site and resources for further learning.
* A series of audio files appropriate for adding to your story-telling photo essay.
* Instructions for how to upload your photo essay to our internet server, where your story can be viewed by the world.

Adobe Lightroom – Creating a workflow for digital photographers – with Marco Ryan

Building on the popularity and success of previous Adobe Lightroom workshops, this full-day workshop will give participants the opportunity to create a comprehensive, start-to-finish digital workflow that will allow you to manage your digital images files.

The course content includes lessons on creating a consistent approach to importing, storing, archiving and managing a digital image library. We learn techniques for cataloguing files for quick and easy access and will discuss how Lightroom’s “Search”, “Metadata” and “Collection” functions can be used to your advantage.

The second half of the day is spent looking at real examples of image processing techniques. We learn how to make the very best of a digital image file, looking at ways in which you can realise the creative vision you had when you took the original photograph. This session covers topics including exposure control, white balance, contrast, colour control, tone management, black and white, brushes, gradients and all of Lightroom’s comprehensive development controls.

The aim of the Adobe Lightroom workshop is to equip you with the skills to manage your image library and to process digital files to create the very best images possible.

What will you need to attend the course?

A laptop computer and a copy of the 30-day trial version of Adobe Lightroom software, which can be downloaded for free from the Adobe web site will be useful but not essential.

What else will you receive?

* You will leave the course equipped with comprehensive course notes and a series of instructional videos, made by Gavin Gough of the Bangkok Photo School, which you can view in the comfort of your own home and at your convenience. Previous students have found these videos, which relate to the course content, to be an invaluable learning resource.
* A series of over 100 Lightroom presets, which build into a step-by-step digital workflow, allowing you to manage and process your digital images files quickly and effectively.

Individually tailored workshops

The Cairo Photo School workshop is designed to be tailored to your specific needs. We do not sheep dip you in a standardized course. We listen to what you are struggling with or what you want to explore and then use our experience and knowledge to structure the day to make sure you leave motivated, inspired and happy. A typical workshop format would look like this:

• Half-day: We meet in El Fishawi cafe for an early morning cup of mint tea and a discussion on what you want from the day. We’ll review camera settings, how to hold the camera especially in low light, options for composition, metering, depth of field , shutter speeds. We’ll also have a quick look at how you have set up your camera (depending on the model type). Then it is out into the souk and the bustle of Old Islamic Cairo, to construct a photo story, pausing to review lessons learned over a mid-morning cup of tea. The morning concludes with lunch in a local cafe, where we review the photographs made during the workshop with a discussion about future projects.

• Full-day (weekday): The morning session follows the format for the half-day tour (above) but after a mid-afternoon break to escape the hottest and brightest part of the day we meet again at about 3pm, in time to photograph the enchanting Khan el Khalili, El-Moez street and the old Mosques in the best light of the day. Our afternoon session builds on what we learned in the morning, but we now use the idea of a photo essay to focus our picture taking. This provides a direction and structure to the day and helps you to build your portfolio as well as starting to capture compelling images. As night falls the street cafe get busy, the lights come on and we h get some great opportunities to take some night shots. We finish with a quick bite to eat, a review of the day’s activities and discuss ideas for future projects that you can take away and work on.

• Full-day (Friday): Fridays give us the opportunity to go to the famous Birquash Al Gamal Camel market – about 40 minutes outside Cairo. We start very early – about 5am. The morning session follows the format for the half-day tour (above) but since the the market is most lively in the mornings we try and make this as practical as possible. After a late morning break we take a taxi into town, and have lunch in the famous El Fishawi cafe before starting again about 3pm to photograph the enchanting Khan el Khalili, El-Moez street and the old Mosques in the best light of the day. Our afternoon session builds on what we learned in the morning, but we now use the idea of a photo essay to focus our picture taking. This provides a direction and structure to the day and helps you to build your portfolio as well as starting to capture compelling images. We finish with a drink and a review of the days images and discuss ideas for future projects that you can take away and work on.

• Full-day (weekend): Weekend workshops offer an opportunity to move a little out of Cairo and to travel a little further afield. The workshop focuses on the same technical aspects as the weekday course, but the locations now are less well trodden, less touristy and offer an insight into the real Egypt. We’ll collect you by car and we head out to Abu Simbel, where we have some opportunities to see a different pyramid and spend time with an Egyptian family, who gie us lunch in their wonderful orchard. After lunch we head down to Sakarra and do some more street portraiture as well as spend some time in the fields with the date farmers as they scale the date palms. We head back into Cairo before dusk so that we can capture the Pyramids as light falls. We have camels organized so that we can go out away from the madding crowds and get an unusual aspect of these magnificent constructions and the only remaining 7 wonder of the world. We then go to a local restaurant for a lit bite a review of the images and discuss ideas for future projects that you can take away and work on

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How much does it cost?

Half-Day Tour

• 1-2 people: $350 total
• 3-6 people: $100 per person

Full-Day Tour

• 1-3 people: $600 total
• 4-6 people: $175 per person

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What’s included?

• All travel costs
• Lunch
• You need only bring enough local currency for refreshments and dinner at the end (full day only).

What else do I need?

You will need the following

• Camera! (although we can also rent you a camera in certain circumstances)
• Lenses: wide-angle lenses, medium zooms and fixed focal length lenses are ideal.
• Charged batteries
• Formatted memory cards
• Flash/Strobe – if you especially want to but we discuss various ways to make the most of the available light
• Tripod – useful on the full-day workshops
• Sun-screen. Cairo is always sunny
• Hat/Scarf – to protect you from the sun, we spend a lot of time outside
• Spare shirt/blouse.

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Booking

Booking could not be simpler. You just need to complete the booking form below. We’ll get back to you within 24 hours with whether that date works, and if not we will try and provide you with a range of dates. You just need to tell us whether you want a half or full day, how many of you there will be (max is 6), what sort of standard you are.

We’ll also send you a full itinerary including a list of what to bring on the day together with a PayPal invoice for 50% of the total cost. The remaining amount is payable at the conclusion of the tour, either in Egyptian Pounds or US Dollars. Please make sure you have read the Terms and Conditions, and that you sign and either send or bring with you the liability waiver form.