SOUTHERN ITALY
April 23 - April 29, 2025
SPIRIT OF PLACE: ANCIENT SOUTHERN ITALY
Travel/Destination Workshop at Art Center Padula
April 23-29, 2025
From our home base up of the romantic hillside town of Padula, we will spend time walking the ancient streets and out in the local countryside on daily photo pilgrimages. This workshop will have a relaxed pace fitting of the Southern Italian climate, with much room for serendipity and following individual needs, rather than racing around trying to see and photographing everything yet deeply connecting to nothing.
Hosted by the Art Center Padula, our home base in the romantic village of Padula, we will spend time out on the ancient streets and in the local countryside on daily photo pilgrimages. There will be morning talks with Doug, critiques and evening photo sharing from our work in progress. This workshop will have a relaxed pace fitting of the Southern Italian climate, with room for serendipity and following individual needs, rather than racing around trying to see and photographing everything yet deeply connecting to nothing.
This workshop is not about making ‘pretty’ pictures or ‘postcard’ like records of one’s travels. It is about making a deeper, more authentic connection to the land and people, then learning to express that connection through our photography. We will be using land, sky, water as well as ourselves to transform an emotional experience into a visual one.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND: Open to all levels but students should have a good working knowledge of their camera and want to take their image making to a more meaningful and personal level. Digital and film, in all formats, are welcome. Non-photographer spouses and partners are also welcome to join us on this one. They will not be disappointed!
CLASS LIMIT: 16 students
DATES: April 23 – 30, 2025
Arrival Date: Wednesday, April 23
Workshop: Thursday, April 24 – Wednesday, April 28, 2025
Departure Date: Thursday April 29, 2025
COST: $3,650 Art Center Padula. Airfare not included.
DEPOSIT: $500
WHAT’S INCLUDED: 8 nights accommodation in private or shared room, all meals, all transportation during the workshop, local pick-up and drop-off before and after workshop
ACCOMMODATIONS: at local town center hotel close to the Art Center, private or shared rooms available (included)
MEALS: All meals included! (Italy is worth the trip just for the food alone!)
FLIGHT INFO: Fly into Naples Italy (a wonderful place to visit for a day or two before or after our workshop), 2 hour bus ride to Padula, local pick-up provided
REGISTRATION: via Art Center Padula
As photographers we need to learn to see not just look. Padula allows that to happen - you have a wonderful chance to create images but you need to work at seeing those opportunities. A small Italian village that allows you to find new images and move at at deliberate pace to search and find the "spirit of place". It also allows you to visit a part of Italy that is off the tourist track at a time of the year that the weather is great. I have been lucky to visit Italy many times and I found this to be one of the rare times I felt I was in part of Italy most people don't see. I'm looking forward to returning in 2024 to find new images that managed to escape me last year.
— Frederick "Fritz" Fenyvessy
