The workshop with Maciej Dakowicz has been over for a few days and I have left the wonderful place of Varanasi far behind me. Time to draw a conclusion: I have never experienced such a well-rounded, instructive and harmonious workshop. My expectations were clearly exceeded.
My friend Sven Kräuter made me curious about the workshops with Maciej Dakowicz. Sven and I meet every now and then. Then show each other pictures and openly tell us our opinion about our works. At some point in the summer he showed me his pictures again and I immediately saw a big leap in his art. Without knowing why, his pictures suddenly became much more engaging. I mean, I like many of Sven's works, but something was different. Luckily he told me his secret: he was traveling with Maciej Dakowicz in Istanbul.
Luck stayed with me: my wife also likes Maciej Dakowicz's pictures, someone withdrew from a workshop due to illness and I had two weeks in November for something like a vacation. And presto, I was on a plane to Varanasi. One of the holy cities in India, located directly on the Ganges.
The one-week workshop with Maciej and my three “classmates” (Dave, Steve and Khalil) was a special experience. In addition to thematic introductions to the topic of street photography, the difference to tourist images and evening image criticism sessions, the day consisted of many steps and the constant search for motifs and dogs in the corners of the picture. Maciej always took turns going with individual participants for half a day, giving valuable tips and also taking photos himself. With the latter you can see what makes routine. Maciej takes great pictures with just a few gestures - we looked at his pictures towards the end of the week and would have liked to start again from the beginning. All.
At his workshop, Maciej is always polite, always helpful and often demanding. A straight A not only as a workshop leader, but also as a person.
I went to the workshop because I wanted to cure myself of wide open apertureitis and also learn how to create so-called "multilayer" images. I didn't completely succeed in the former, but I'm on the way to recovery. I only partially succeeded in the latter - images that consist of more than one layer. But now I know what to look out for. I would never have managed that on my own. The image of the musicians at the Chhath Puja is one example, because in a busy street scene such a photo can quickly look confusing and chaotic. I haven't yet fully mastered the jump from tourist photos to street photography either. The few steps that turn one into the other are actually the most painful. The comfort zone has to be left behind by around three meters. And every step hurts. Thanks to its many wonderful people, Varanasi was a great place for this learning process.
In addition to a lot of theory and a lot of fun, it was of course also extremely helpful to live completely just for photography for a week - without accounting, writing offers and anything like that. In the morning the camera often started before 6 a.m. and in the evening it didn't end until around 21 p.m.
In the gallery you can see the 12 pictures that were selected by Maciej at the end of the workshop as a mixture of “best of” and variability. But I have at least 30 more here that I don’t have to be ashamed to show 🙂
Conclusion: again at any time! And seriously: one week workshop for under €900? Bargain.
Hi Stefan, nice series and interesting report. I also "suffer" from wide open aperture disease, or rather I still think it's good. I don't know what could be so bad about the disease. Except when you're photographing people or groups that are further away. Greetings from Andalusia. Carsten
Hey Stefan, your pictures are great. I probably wouldn't think of going to India for a WS in a hurry. €900 is a bargain, but obviously not "cheap".
After initially being considered a saint, "open-blenderites" now seem to be the new scourge of photography ;-), although of course you are addressing another important aspect with the multi-layer approach.
However, photographing “street” in India is different than in Germany or Hamburg.
Glad you had a really great week and came back with pictures like these.
LG, Connie
Beautiful pictures & I'm glad you enjoyed your time with Maciej. I see an ingenious multilayer image with great lines. Unfortunately you didn't have your aperture ring parking claw on the lens ;-). Seriously: open aperture isn't always bad, but with maximum depth of field the viewer sees more. And from a purely sporting perspective, it is the greater challenge. I'm looking forward to the 4-star selection, and especially to your own edit. So I have to go back to Hamburg soon :-)!
I actually had a problem with the aperture ring on my 35Lux adjusting too easily and then shooting wide open. That cost me a few pictures.
[…] with Maciej Dakowicz, and I highly recommend spending a week under his photographic care. I shared his favorite images from the week-long workshop in Varanasi with you a while ago… Today I'll show you more of my favorite pictures. In a later part, tourist […]