I have been thinking about organizing a photography workshop in Iceland tailored to people using free and open source tools for photography. This would be a blend of a trip through many inspiring places in Iceland to photograph along with one or two days of workshop were people can learn from each other, process there work and tutorials for processing on open source software.
My question is do you think this is a viable idea? The group would be around 12-15 people and the trip would be around 5-8 days. Do you think people would like to travel light (sleeping in tents, with maybe one stay in hotels for the workshops) or hotels only?
If you look around the internet, youtube for instance, you can see several “famous” photographers offering these kind of tours, like Thomas Heaton (http://thomasheaton.co.uk/my-fear-of-workshops/), Elia Locardi (http://dreamphototours.com/fall-iceland-photo-tour/), I think also Jimmy Mcintire and iceland is one of the goals. So there is people interested in those tours. I think why it works for those photographers is that they have a “name” and so it gets seen when they offer these tours and people are eager to learn from them. What I want to say is I think the interest is there, people who can afford this are there and it’s just a matter of making it public.
I would also keep in mind, that your idea of making it FOSS oriented will be reducing the number of possible clients by a large margin. My guess is, that the people who can afford a trip to iceland for taking pictures normally are people with a certain amount of money who discovered photography as a hobby (and maybe want to learn from a pro), those are your main candidates. Those are normally people who buy good gear and won’t be stopped by a little extra money for a commercial processing software, like Adobe LR or similar.
On the other hand, e.g., for me, such a workshop would be much more interesting than the adobe-centered ones. I could afford it (money wise, better not discuss about time) and money is the last reason I am using FLOSS software for.
I’m used to go on photo hikes with a tent or sleep bare-faced just in a sleeping bag, waiting for a sunrise/sunset. Price quote is the only thing I’m concerned about, because I’m from Poland and, therefore, would have to take a flight. So, basically I’m interested, but, sorry to say, this would not work as a business idea. Just because there are very few people using FOSS+interested in landscape photography+financially potent, and their number is even more scarce than marginal number of OSS users in photography. Also knock off those less strong to go to Iceland and/or get into a tent.
(Being only 54, I certainly prefer tents over hotels and floss over commercial things; on the other hand, would 15 people of this kind want and be able to spend full eight days together?)
I’ve followed Elia and several other tour-photographers for several years, and seriously looked into making a FLOSS RawTherapee-centric workshop in southern Sweden. @McCap’s response is spot-on - the people who can afford the famous guys’s workshops (2500USD for 5 days, for example, excluding flights) are the same people who can afford Adobe products. Of course some FLOSS-photographers can afford that too, but the FLOSS audience is more narrow. Still I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to pull it off, as long as your photography is good enough to inspire others to invest their money in you and to convince them that they can learn from you.
15 people is on the large side. As the tour organizer, you’d either needs jeeps + drivers, or a bus.
Requiring tents again thins your audience. Even if a tent stay is required for just 1 night out of 8, that means everyone must still invest in tent gear + be fit and willing enough to sleep in it. I’d try to avoid that requirement.
Maybe to clarify one thing.
I didn’t mean that people use FLOSS because they have no money. I just meant that if you look at the prices of these tours, and 2500USD are the cheaper ones, then the potential clients are people who can afford those. And those people are typically a little older have enough money, don’t make a living by photography…basically really enthusiastic hobbyists with money to spare. I’ve come across these people in my other hobby (my main hobby) as well.
This being said I like the idea of a FLOSS workshop very much. It was just my musing on if you want to make it a business. If you live in the place anyway and would organize that as a summer project, then why not…
I would even think about a @Morgan_Hardwood workshop in Sweden, once debts are paid and kids are out of house…
…or even iceland…
I really like the idea of a workshop using FLOSS. Whether it’s in Iceland or some other place
I’m not really the kind of person that really enjoys sleeping in a tent, but I’ve heard there are these cabins along walking trails where you can sleep in? That might be a good compromise between camping and hotels?
Maybe this isn’t something you can do on a regular basis, but I’m sure you can find enough people to at least do this once right?
I’ve thought about this sort of as well. I think another very viable and more attractive solution might be to have something like a pixls.us meeting where folks can get together for a few days and do photography-related stuff together.
This way it’s also a chance for projects to meet and for all of us to possibly gather and discuss things. We kind-of had something like this at the London LGM, and having it coincide with another meeting in some way might help to make it more palatable and can extend the reach - so having it alongside another LGM or other meeting would be beneficial I think.
You could even have multiple photo-walks happening with different people at the same time, and gathering later to share, process, and discuss results (add in dinner + beer and I’m 99% sure we’ve got a winner of an idea here…).
Been thinking about a trip to Iceland for quite some time. If you’d asked me 20 years ago I would immediately have voted for the tents; now I think I’d prefer cabins or hotels…
Thinking about it a bit more, this makes perfectly sense. Going to Iceland would mean 80 photography and maybe 10 editing and 10 beer&dinner, because the long trip would make me not spending too much time on editing and learning about software, I would maybe sort and tag and maybe process a couple of images, but not more. While it would be great, the FLOSS part would be about 10 . Therefore, it probably would make more sense to have a come together at a place that is more simple to go to for many people. It would have to be a place where you still find options for photography but where would be also a lot of room for the FLOSS part. A good compromise of photographing, hacking, making, playing, editing, learning and of course beer&dinner. Probably an old castle or monastery in central Europe would work, or probably a national park in the US. Of course there are other options, but somewhere where the personal pressure for getting out into nature and taking photos is less than in Iceland.
Thank you all for your input and thoughts. They do help me form a better idea what might be viable. Generally I believe a traditional photo tours or workshops would gather more interest from a larger group of people. A Floss one will have not gather as much interest. I once did a workshop tour for a group of Sigma Foveon Camera users which turned out well. Since then I have been planing to do something similar again. Maybe tvo or three trips a year. I even bought a domain and set up a web site at icelandic-photography.com (plug, plug, plug, plug… Sorry about that). But I have not completed the site for a lack of time.
I would be interested in assisting in organizing a pixlus meeting in Iceland if people are interested. I have access to a 15 person 4x4 car so we could go just about anywhere we want. What could be more fun then a group of like minded people photographing, talking about photography, FLOSS, American politics and drinking beer.
Maybe skip American politics and just have more beer.
But after your input I believe a group of 8 participants max, duration from 5-8 days is good and staying preferable in motels or guest houses (cheaper then Hotels).
Some nice images there.
And damn, iceland always gives me the feeling that you can just stand anywhere with any gear, shoot in any direction and you will get amazing landscape images.
…you could call the tour landscape galore
