Celebrating my 10th photography workshop in Asia

Yesterday I ended my 10th photography tour and workshop in South East Asia with the 6 day tour into Laos.

I started running Hoi An photo tour and workshop over 6 years ago, and I had a vague idea about teaching photography into different locations. I can’t believe today how things have been developing and how successful all my longer tours have been. Only 4 years ago I ran my first longer tour in North Vietnam with 5 participants, and this has been the only tour I ran that has not been fully booked!

I really would like to thank you all for trusting me and joining my photography workshops, in Hoi An or in the rest of Asia. It is very hard work to put everything up together and run the tours, but nothing would have happened without you.

Also thanks to you and your honest feedback after all the tours which allow me to improve them every year and becoming a better photography instructor. All my inspiration and ideas I find to teach online and write my articles come from the time spent with you. Thanks, so much!

I am now feeling pretty exhausted as I have run 3 tours in a row (North Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos) and that also meant being away from home for one and a half month. But I am already missing everyone and the fun we’ve had. Once again you guys showed me the most incredible things, and these 2015 photo tours have been really epic!

I saw a Swiss man eating a fertilized duck egg and enjoying it very much, a Brit hitting a bong, a Mexican man diving into the cold waters of North Laos in search of a lost Tripod, an Australian flirting with a 90 years old lady to get her picture, a French man arm wrestling with a Vietnamese worker, a group of photo lovers jumping in the rice fields of Myanmar like mountain goats, chasing some cattle at sunset, and my own hand being eaten by a group of red ants in some coffee plantations in South Laos.

I have also seen a French man falling in love with prime lenses before our own eyes, a landscape photographer who discovered the pleasure of people photography and became very good at it, and some incredible photo stories that were very powerful and meaningful. Everyone has such dedication to the craft of photography that I have seen amazing improvements. Thanks to you all for getting out of your comfort zone and loving it!

You all recognize him don’t you?

Now it is time to go beyond South East Asia! Next year I will be running my first photography tour and workshop in Bangladesh. I will also be exploring Iran and work on an itinerary for something up there for 2017. This is a place I long dream of visiting 🙂

Stay tuned, it is only the beginning.

Most of the photos in this article were taken by the participants of the tours. Thanks a lot for sharing these 🙂

Photo “review” at the end of our tour

In the tea plantations of North Vietnam

A bit of fog in the mountains of Ha Giang

Hoa, our super local guide in Dong Van

More mountains of Vietnam

Super Hoa on a not very reliable bridge

In a Hmong village

Drying rice in Dong Van

Sometimes you need a ladder to get that shot!

Everything to get that reflection!

Needless to say that he did not win 😉

Yes, this is how I always stand while on a boat 😉

Stormy clouds make a perfect background for this landscape in South Laos. Only means we had to run when it started raining 🙂

Matches factory in Vietnam

On the shore of the 4000 islands in Laos

It is not only about photography. Also rice harvest workshop 😉

The green gardens of the Mekong