Spain workshop in Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia: intensive and immersive
When: March 20-25, 2025
Recently, we conducted the Spain workshop in a way that was even more intensive and immersive than the previous RAW City workshop in Berlin. Instead of 4 days, 1 bonus day, and 1 city (Berlin), we decided to raise the bar again and went with 5 days, 1 bonus day, and a total of 3 cities. Three cities and six days in total.
We started in Barcelona for the first few days, then went by highspeed train for a 2-hour train ride to Madrid to stay 4 more days during which we made a 1-day trip to architectural paradise Valencia to visit the famous Calatrava complex. There was a lot of technical shooting in the field by the participants, where all that was taught and learned was to be executed. And so they did, in a way that surprised me very positively. I have never seen a group of participants during a workshop that produced so many high-quality architectural photos with compositions that one would only expect to see from a high-end architectural photographer.
The preparation for the workshop started weeks earlier with a 250-page syllabus the participants received to study intensively as a preparation. Apart from the readings, they also needed to prepare by watching the 5-hour B&W processing video and a 2-hour video on manual exposure blending. One week before meeting in Spain in person, we conducted a Zoom meeting to discuss the readings and answer questions to ensure everything in the syllabus was clear. This way we could focus entirely and intently on the technical shooting in the field with the help of a few summarizing cheat sheets and several short assignments. The assignments were targeted at collaboration and inspiration. Similar to what the great artists did in the previous century in French salons, we would come together and discuss, compare, and see what fellow participants did to get inspired and improve as a collective and individually.
Another key feature of this workshop is respect. Being respectful towards each other is paramount for all our workshops. Not only in how we behave but also in how we look at each other's work.
One week post-workshop we held the first image review session over Zoom to focus more on the compositions and processing and that will be concluded with a 3rd Zoom session to review the final images in B&W.
This is a workshop format that I'm very happy with and it is a format that will be further expanded and explored. Dual city workshops will be the default, and most likely there will be 1 more day added to cover as much as possible for the future.
The 250-page syllabus consisted of topics and techniques that I have never published before, with the exception of the reading on Long-exposure photography and B&W processing. Long-exposure photography was just a footnote as my focus as an educator is much more on the artistic and theoretical foundations of fine art and architectural photography. Composition is paramount. For that purpose, I've put together several readings that only discuss architectural compositions and techniques in the field. And there was one full reading that comprised the backbone of a book I am writing on the relationship between Art and human consciousness, and how our metaphysical worldview determines how we create art and the importance we give it in our life.
We are now working on a new workshop for the second part of the year which we will announce by the end of April. And this will not be a repeat of the previous workshop: we always aim to do something new and better. And the syllabus will most likely grow to over 300 pages with new insights and techniques.
Lead instructor: Joel Tjintjelaar / Assistant instructor: Tobi Trumpp