New tour: Photography Workshop

Next level photography

We've been wanting to do a tour like this for years! Saint Anna & Gryt are amazing for photography. It's much trickier than one would expect to capture the beauty of the area and the action of paddling, camping and strolling on the islands in a pic.

Six days of photo workshops in stunning settings around the Saint Anna & Gryt Archipelagos

There are so many factors, the light, being one of them! The daylight in Scandinavia produces harsh shadows, often resulting in photos too high in contrast. A creative eye for compositions certainly is another! It takes careful consideration of how to shoot your scene or subject to end up with a clean, balanced, beautiful photo. In other words, it's a perfect location for challenging your skills and taking your photography to a more advanced level!

Meet Rob McNamee

This tour is a collaboration with accomplished photographer Rob McNamee. He has created a unique workshop approach including manipulating basic controls, styles of photography, light, approaching a scene or subject and working around limitations. Rob has led kayaking tours in Saint Anna & Gryt for years, and has hand-picked ideal settings for these workshops.

In the wintertime, Rob leads arctic wilderness & northern lights photography excursions in Abisko, northern Sweden. Before combining his two true passions - photography & nature, he comes from a long background of for example working as Director of Photography for an environmental film company

Workshops and itinerary

Kayaking and camping in Saint Anna & Gryt is a fantastic experience in it's own right. Exploring the area with specific photo workshops as the leading star is an excellent opportunity to take your photography to new highs. Both amateurs and experts are welcome, the beauty of photography is that we're all constantly learning! You only need a DSLR camera to join, and a thirst to develop a new creative eye and work on your own photographic style, together!

Early September is an ideal time for photography in our area, dates for this tour is 2-7 Sep! The light is warmer than earlier in the summer, and sunrise and sunset times are perfect for golden hour, blue hour and night sky photography. Indeed, this is the time of year most of the photos we use are taken.

Workshops include:

• Basic controls and how to manipulate them
• Working around limitations
• Light - daylight, golden hour, blue hour, night sky
• Developing a creative eye for compositions, how to approach a scene or subject
• Landscape, Macro, Abstract, Portraiture, Adventure and Architectural photography
• Night photography, astro photography, light painting and night portraiture
• Post-production - importing, editing, presets, exporting and posting

We spend most of our time on photography, kayaking distances are relatively short. The first day, we paddle and camp in the outer archipelago, with is barren islands and endless blue horizon. The following day we set up a base camp in the middle zone of the archipelago for our remaining nights of camping. The spot has been carefully selected for its beautiful forests and proximity to fantastic locations to explore during day trips.

We aim for the lookout at Kupa Klint for Landscape and Macro photography, and the wild stunning island St Tallskär to experiment with Adventure and Portraiture photographic styles. Harstena village, the idyllic fishing hamlet seemingly frozen in time, is fantastic for architectural photography. It's almost abandoned this time of year. We can get really close and work on controlling depth in our photos, while having the village pretty much to ourselves.

After five days of photo workshops, paddling and wild camping in the archipelago, we settle into charming little houses by the waterfront for our last night. We spend half a day working on all the steps involved in post-production, from importing, editing and presets to exporting and posting. Here we truly learn the cyclical nature of photography, how our plans for post-production affects our initial creative approach!

Check out a detailed itinerary and book your slot! Photography Workshop by Kayak

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