THE CARNIVAL WITH CASANOVA

The mask

A mask in Venice is not a disguise. It is the face the city shows when it stops pretending to be only stone. Put a camera in front of it and the temptation is to photograph the object — velvet, gilt, the slit for the eyes. That is the wrong distance. The mask does not hide the face: it finishes it, the way water finishes a reflection. Photograph the gap instead — the half-inch of skin between chin and edge, where the person is still visible refusing to disappear.

Water and reflection

A canal is a mirror that the tide keeps rewriting. At low water the reflection is sharp, almost a second city, upside down and complete. As the tide turns, the same water blurs, and a figure standing on the fondamenta starts to lose its double. Most photographers wait for the sharp mirror and call it luck. Wait for the blur instead, because that is the half-second when the city stops confirming what you already know and starts inventing something. Check the tide table before you check the light: in Venice, the water decides what the light is allowed to say.

The threshold

Every interior here has the same problem and the same gift: a doorway that holds two different centuries of light at once — the grey winter glare off the canal, and whatever small, warm source is already burning inside. Cross it with the wrong exposure and you lose one or the other. The gesture is not to choose between them but to let the threshold itself be the subject: meter for the interior, let the exterior blow soft, and put the figure exactly on the line where one light gives way to the other.

The travel diary

Our age hands us machines and calls them memory. They are fast, and the journey is not. The journey asks for the opposite of speed: it asks for pauses, for halts, for the hours when the body rests and the mind catches up with where it has been.

Carry a notebook, and write in it by hand. There are moments on every journey when you find yourself alone, for an instant, before the immensity in front of you. It is then that thoughts arrive which will never come again, and which no screen will keep for you. Fix them on the page, or they scatter into the dust, the sun and the wind of the day, and are lost.

A gift of your own images

Most of the advice I can give you is obvious. Protect your equipment. Keep your socks and shirts away from the dust, because pulling on a clean, fresh shirt is always a pleasure. Any traveller knows these things, and perhaps you know them already. I say them not to teach, but because a teacher leads by example.

But there is one thing I have learned over the years that I do not impose on you: I recommend it, with force. If you wish to build a real relationship with the people you meet, a gesture of tenderness, a gift, is the surest way. Travellers have always carried gifts to the peoples and the strangers who received them. And what is the most precious gift a photographer can give? An image.

My suggestion is simple. Take one of those small photo albums, ten by fifteen, and fill it with the pictures you love most, printed small. Give them to the people you meet along the way. Write on them with a suitable pen: hello, your name, thank you, whatever you wish. The print becomes a personal object, made for that person alone. It costs you nothing, and it is an extraordinarily powerful gesture.

And it will raise you onto another scale as a human being. You will no longer be someone who arrives, takes an image and leaves. You will be someone who gives something back, who leaves a trace of gratitude instead of only carrying one away. The people before your lens feel that difference at once, and they meet you as a person, not as a camera. That is where the finest photographs are born, and something more than photographs: a bond.

A mask can conceal a face and reveal a character. During Carnival, Venice gives us both possibilities in the same frame. Our task is to build an editorial story in which the clothes, the gesture, the city and the light appear to belong to one imagined life.

From an idea to an editorial story

We will begin with references, mood and the character you want to create. You will learn to translate these into decisions about styling, location, colour and the relationship between images. A close portrait, a full-length figure and a wider scene have different work to do within an editorial.

Casanova gives us a starting point for ambiguity and performance. You will develop your own response, learning to keep a visual intention coherent as circumstances change around the set.

Directing the model

We will work on clear communication, the movement of clothing and the small gestures through which a character becomes believable. You will learn to give useful direction without fixing the model into a succession of rigid poses. Her contribution, comfort and understanding of the story shape the session.

You will also practise noticing what happens between instructions: a turn, a glance or a moment of stillness that offers the photograph a less predictable expression.

Working with the Models

Venice invites transformation. A face disappears behind a mask; a gesture becomes theatre; costume, architecture and reflected light begin to speak to one another. Yet the person before the camera never disappears. Our models are professional collaborators, not characters available without limits. Costume and performance may create intimacy, seduction or ambiguity within the image, but those qualities belong to the photograph. They must never be mistaken for personal invitation.

Directing a Presence

Direction should be clear, courteous and attentive. You may ask for a movement through a doorway, a turn of the head, a particular relationship with a mask, a costume or the light. Explain the image you are attempting to construct and leave space for the model’s own intelligence. Do not physically arrange her body, costume, hair, mask or accessories without asking. Elaborate clothing may require assistance from the model herself or from the appropriate member of the team. Patience is part of the work. A request may always be refused, altered or interrupted. No explanation is required.

Costume, Intimacy and Boundaries

Carnival allows identity to become fluid, but professional boundaries remain exact. An apparently intimate scene is still a constructed photographic situation. Proximity, touch between performers, suggestive gestures or any change in clothing must be discussed and agreed before the camera is raised. Nothing is introduced as a surprise. If nudity or partial nudity is part of a specific session, the same principle applies: consent is limited to what has been clearly agreed and may be withdrawn at any moment.

Working in Venice

Venice requires awareness of narrow passages, bridges, wet stone, cold air and public space. The model’s safety and privacy take precedence over the continuity of a sequence. We do not block movement, expose a model unnecessarily or continue a session when the environment has become intrusive. Be ready before asking the model to enter the frame. Light, lens, exposure and intention should already be understood. A model should never remain waiting in costume or exposed to the cold while a photographer resolves basic technical problems.

The Camera Stops When the Session Stops

No photographs may be made while a model is changing, resting, eating, travelling between locations or adjusting her costume privately. Behind-the-scenes photographs and video require explicit permission. Comments must concern the work: light, expression, gesture, rhythm and space. Familiarity is never assumed, and courtesy is not optional. Images made during the workshop remain governed by the agreed release. Publication, social media, exhibitions and portfolios are not separate from professional responsibility.

The mask may conceal a face, but it never removes the person’s right to dignity, consent and control over her image.

The arrival

Whenever possible, participants are invited to arrive on the Sunday preceding the workshop. That first night is offered by London Photographic Workshop, allowing the group to settle into Venice before the city, the production and the early light begin to demand attention.

The welcome dinner

On Wednesday 4th of February evening, we gather for a welcome dinner offered by London Photographic Workshop. It is not a formal lesson, but the first scene of the week: a shared table, introductions, practical questions and the beginning of the visual conversation.

Inhabiting Venice

Accommodation will be selected in the historic city or in a closely connected area, with the daily photographic rhythm as the guiding principle. The final property will be chosen for character, comfort and practical access to the locations, rather than for generic luxury detached from the life of Venice.

LPW workshops run from Monday to Saturday, but we would love the experience to begin even before the first photograph is made. Whenever possible, we suggest arriving on the preceding Sunday.

That evening we gather for an informal welcome dinner: a light-hearted, convivial moment to get to know one another, meet the team and the other participants and, where the workshop includes them, the models and the people who will work with us during the week. It is not a lesson and it is not a formal briefing.

It is the first meeting of the journey: a shared table, a few stories, practical questions and that special atmosphere which arises when a group of people is about to begin a photographic adventure together. Likewise, we recommend arranging your departure for the following Sunday.

For those who choose to leave on the following Sunday, London Photographic Workshop offers one extra night of accommodation: an invitation to stay a little longer, say goodbye without rushing and bring the workshop experience to a close together. It is a time to share final thoughts, exchange a small memento and let the photographs, conversations and friendships born during the workshop find their final space.

Venice welcomes the world, yet moves to a rhythm of its own. In the historic centre there are no cars: we walk through narrow lanes and squares, up and down the bridges, or travel aboard the vaporetti. Walking, waiting and boarding all take time, and that time is part of the work. Luggage travels over the bridges by hand, which is the real reason we ask you to come light.

We always work in pairs, and this is the heart of the method. The photographer inside the viewfinder stops seeing everything else: the bag left on the ground, the person arriving from behind, the edge where the stone ends and the water begins. So the one who is not photographing is not resting. They watch the equipment, their own and their partner's. They watch the situation. And when we are working with a model, they stand with her: keeping the space around her when a crowd gathers in seconds, staying close, and doing whatever she asks. One of you looks into the frame. The other looks after everything else.

Part of the work happens on the water. The model works aboard a gondola, photographed in turn by the participants on board with her. Our gondolier is an experienced one, who has already worked with us on a great many photographic sessions. Getting on and off is the moment that matters: let him help you, take the time you need, and never hurry. You do not need your whole kit aboard a gondola — bring the essentials, and protect them, because spray is part of being on the water. We also photograph from the bank: standing on a bridge or a fondamenta, following the model on the water, it is easy to forget where your feet are. That is exactly when people slip.

During Carnival the city fills. Piazza San Marco and the main routes may be regulated, made one-way or closed at peak hours, and we plan the day around those hours rather than against them. A model in costume attracts a circle of phones almost immediately: that circle is managed by the pair, never by the model alone. Between sessions she needs a place to change, to sit and to get warm, and costumes and masks limit her sight, her hearing and her movement far more than you would expect. Pickpocketing is a reality of any crowd, and cameras are visible.

February is cold, damp and often windy off the lagoon. Stone becomes slippery with rain, fog and the algae on the steps that descend into the canals, and those steps are where people actually fall. Many fondamente have no parapet: a tripod set close to the edge, in the dark, is a decision that concerns the pair, not the individual. High water is ordinary in this season. Tide forecasts are checked the evening before, walkways appear in the lower squares, and when the water rises the plan changes location rather than forcing it.

Tripods are restricted in some areas and under certain arcades, drones are not permitted, and a set with models can require agreement with the people whose space we are working in. We will tell you where and when each of these applies.

Bridges are steps, and steps are barriers. If you have specific mobility needs, speak to us before booking and we will review the route together, with the accessible alternatives the city allows.

After leaving Venice, with masks, costume, gesture and the first imagined cover still moving through the work, the images need the cohort that shaped their story together.

I did not include six months of post-workshop contact by chance, nor as a simple service.

Many years ago, I was teaching an online course that could easily have felt impersonal. Instead, when it ended, the group did not want to dissolve. We had never all sat around the same table, yet years later we are still a living community. From that experience came conversations, magazines, books, friendships and shared ways of looking.

It taught me how valuable a small circle of people can be when they have lived and worked through an experience together.

For this reason, every workshop includes six months of continued contact at no additional cost, and those months are where the photographs are carried to their end, together. A private group keeps the images moving between us: feedback, and a tuition that goes on, fed by cultural prompts — a book, an image, a thought, an exhibition, an occasion that opens a new direction. Each of you brings your images to a master file ready for fine print, and then we sit down, one to one, before the finished work. Then the group meets again, and there is a particular pleasure in it: seeing how far each of us has travelled since we parted. A Second Eye, an editor or a curator, reads the work as the profession reads it. And the work takes form, a collective book or a zine, depending on the event, and a public life, on a gallery wall or in the pages of Follow the Light. The images do not go back into a drawer. They go out into the world, and they go out together.

The event ends. The adventure in photography begins.