Photolycia Holiday Review

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Stephen and I have recently returned from a wonderful trip to Turkey with Photolycia, where we spent a hectic week in the company of professional photographer Faruk Akbas.

Our select group were given opportunities to photograph both the places and faces of Turkey, with an excellent photographer whose passion for both the subject and the people was unbounded. Coupled with superb accommodation and food, the trip although fairly expensive was worth every penny.

A couple of words of warning:

  1. Take lots of storage cards (two of us used 4x4Gb and 3x2Gb cards in 5 days)
  2. Be prepared to walk over rough ground and end up lying on the floor for a good angle
  3. Don’t expect too much time to process photographs, even eating is something you might need to make time for.

The whole trip was well planned and executed and with Faruk’s eye for light and texture the quality of the photographs we were able to obtain was beyond what I had hoped for from the holiday. Although this is not a “full on” photography course, but rather a holiday with photo opportunities, Faruk takes great pleasure in helping you shoot the subjects you want and helping you to improve the composition and lighting of the subjects.

It’s a good idea to have a grasp of your camera functions before you go, you really need to know how to set your camera’s aperture, ISO and how to switch modes quickly. Practice before you go, you don’t want to miss a shot. It’s also worth making sure you have a “fast” standard lens, as for us at least we did a lot of shoots in doors, handheld, so a faster lens really helps.