THE CARNIVAL WITH CASANOVA

Camera and Lenses

Light

London Photographic Workshop will coordinate the principal production lighting and shared modifiers used during the directed sessions.

Working in Venice

Editorial Practice

Over the years, we have developed a welcome package to make your stay as comfortable as possible and help you make the most of your experience. It brings together a thoughtful selection of essentials—things that are easily forgotten or can be difficult to arrange from abroad.

We begin with one of the most important: staying connected.

Your welcome package includes:

Everything is packed in a protective, waterproof expedition dry bag, ready to accompany you throughout the experience.

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 all its own. In its historic centre, built on water, we travel on foot through narrow lanes and squares, up and down the many bridges over the canals, or aboard the vaporetti, Venice's waterbuses. Walks, waits and stops all take time: here, getting somewhere is part of the journey.

Expect steps, walking and boat boarding during the workshop; comfortable shoes, light luggage and sure footing are welcome companions. Please bear in mind that stepped bridges can create physical access barriers. If you have specific mobility needs, contact us before booking so that we can check the workshop route and any accessible alternatives. Venice reveals itself one bridge at a time.

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: a private group, image sharing, feedback, and a form of ongoing tuition shaped by cultural prompts — a book, an image, a thought, an exhibition, or an occasion that may open a new direction in the work.

The event ends. The adventure in photography begins.

1–8 February 2027. In Venice, sunrise advances from approximately 07:32 to 07:23, while sunset extends from approximately 17:17 to 17:27. Each day adds a little more light, but winter still keeps the city within a narrow, theatrical interval.

Morning may arrive through mist, reflected brightness or a cold, colourless sky. In the calli and interiors, this restraint is an advantage: masks, fabric, skin and old walls can be photographed without separating atmosphere from subject. Late afternoon brings warmer reflections to the canals before blue hour gathers the city into a quieter register.

The moon moves from a waning crescent through new moon and into the first thin light of a new cycle. The darkest nights of the week favour artificial light, illuminated windows and the private theatre of interiors; the returning crescent becomes a small, precise presence over the lagoon.

February in Venice is cool and humid, commonly around 1–9°C. Rain, fog, damp air and the Bora or Sirocco can alter both comfort and visibility; they are not interruptions to the visual programme, but conditions that change the emotional temperature of the image.

The tide remains an essential clock. It changes the height of reflections, exposes or covers steps, transforms quays and redistributes movement through the city. Exact tide tables will be checked close to the workshop, when operational planning can follow measured levels rather than seasonal expectation.

Here the Light Map is a choreography of masks, water and winter. We follow the moment when daylight withdraws and Venice begins to illuminate its own fiction.