Heart of Voodoo

Into the Heart of Voodoo (WKBV_1_25)

Voodoo (or vodun as it is known locally) was born in Benin and still accounts for around 20% of the country's religious coverage with people turning to it in moments of agony, trouble, happiness, fear and anger, looking to their local priests for support, assurance and spiritual help. In this trip we'll meet 6 different sects, from the light to the dark, learn about their customs, ceremonies, music and celebrations. We'll experience many different sacrifices and witness dances few outside Benin have ever experienced and documented.

This is the workshop to really push your organisational and creative juices, teach you to think on your feet and massively expand on your ability to come up with new ideas on the spot. Combining this with your use of studio strobes on varying locations and conditions and you have the making of an extremely productive, challenging and ultimately rewarding workshop.Our voodoo workshop goes beyond mere photography and embeds raw authenticity and truth in every aspect. We will witness multiple ceremonies involving animal sacrifices and experience how the locals embrace every aspect of voodoo. We do not interfere, change or challenge the ceremonies but we work with their practitioners to craft meaningful and powerful images.One thing you really need to keep in mind is that during this week we'll be experiencing voodoo like the locals and as such, we're always subject to the whims and moods of the gods and deities, so sometimes we may need to adjust our program on the fly or switch things around to ensure the best experience for everyone - us and the local people.

Day 1This is our teaching and preparation day. Today we meet each other, explore our lighting equipment and modifiers, we test our knowledge and build on it and, above all, we learn how to put those pesky strobes to work for us. Depending on how our morning evolves, we will get a chance to test what we learned with real subjects on location and prepare for the coming days.Your leader will walk you through the entire workshop structure and pace, discuss your research and ideas and help prepare you to make the most of the workshop.

Day 2

Today is when the fun begins. We'll travel to the first village where we'll meet our first chief Gamballa voodoo priest and his adepts at the village shrine. We'll undergo a purification ceremony and then we'll walk through the process and pace so we can best plan and organise our shots. During the ceremony we'll learn pacing and sharing of lights, light management (balancing ambient with strobe), scene setup and adjustment, studio portraits on location.After the ceremony, we'll head out to the forest for the second part of the day where we'll experience an important Kulio sacrifice ritual and create, together with the abbot and adepts, powerful images.

Day 3Today we meet the powerful Gou voodoo priest, his adepts and priestesses where we'll experience a highly complex ceremony. Here we'l be combining multiple external (both open and covered) locations, tight quarters and fast-paced action. Here we'll test our previsualisation concepts and our ability to think on our feet and create images and portraits.In the afternoon will move to a secondary location where we'll view a full - and very rare - Glele dance (including the Crown of Fire) and shoot the group, the masked dancers and the priests in different locations - a long day but one filled with wonder!

Day 4

Meeting the Dada Langan and witness a simple ceremony, allowing us to focus on staged environment portraiture on location and working with our subjects in a collaborative and, above all, compassionate way. We'll meet both priests and adepts but also the locals in the temple compound and test our image-making capabilities.The afternoon is where the "magic" happens - deep inside the sacred forest we'll experience a Sakpatasi dark voodoo ceremony (so please, prepare yourselves), sacrifices and the associated dance performance. Our focus today is the sacrificial elements and the people involved in them.

Day 5

Speaking of sacred, today we foray into the forest by the lake, a place of white voodoo and human hope. We'll meet a Danmagon voodoo priest in a completely mystical but unassuming location and shoot one of the most impressive shrines in Benin, one rarely open to visitors!Working closely with the priest, we'll not only witness a ceremony but also start bringing practical effects into our photography, enhancing the traditional practices to augment our images and the story behind them. Later we will witness and document an Egungun dance, with all its chaos, noise and associated challenges!

Day 6

Travelling to meet the Kinninsi voodoo is an experience in itself at every stage and we'll work with the priests and adepts to craft powerful images of this secretive sect.But the focus of our day is the Kokru voodoo ceremony, one of the most complex and chaotic ones, frequently involving more than a hundred people. If we are fortunate, we will witness incidents of possession and death-defying knife slashing, combined with colours, dancing and - no way of hiding this - extreme sacrifices.Subject to the will of the Thunder god, we will have access to a forbidden Heviesso temple where we will create incredible images.

Day 7Today is a special day. Today we'll be meeting Agbo Uchecakou and the Zangbetto by the lake and witness both the ceremony and the famous masked performance. This is not the place for taking it easy. We'll have a few minutes - no more - to photograph the infamous "empty" masks. Today is about the people for who voodoo is real - their source of solace and hope. Today we work on environmental portraits and we learn how to apply all our lighting techniques.However it would not be a workshop if we did not push the envelope, so with the permission of the spirits and the support of the local priest, we will have the rare opportunity to shoot 4-5 dancing masks with our lights and help document the divine.

Day 8

This is our buffer day, specifically designed to allow us to expand on our experience and take advantage of our close ties with the local communities. Very frequently, during our workshops, we build relationships which allow us to venture further than our original schedule and to document things in more ways than we might have initially thought of.We have always used this day (whether in the middle or the end of our program) and has always resulted in breathtaking results, allowing us to truly flex the lighting muscles we've been exercising the past week - or, relax by the pool or beach and rest our weary bones.

Nothing would give us greater pleasure than to have you join us in this remarkable experience - we are truly passionate about documenting and sharing the stories of the heart of voodoo and the people of Benin and doing that in truly different images glorifying the amazing people who serve and believe in it. And we would love to share our passion for light, for authentic image crafting and for story-telling with you. So come, join us for the learning experience of a lifetime.

Confirmed Date(s):

Saturday 19th July - Sunday 28th July 2025

€4,750 / £3,950 / $5,300

Our workshops tend to fill-up really quickly, so we always add new dates to accommodate our participants. We also run limited participation workshops on-demand (to accommodate professionals who want to add another tool to their arsenal and want a more personal/private experience. Please contact us for more information.

Workshop-specific FAQs

What will the average day look like?

Voodoo ceremonies are comfortable, easy-going affairs in terms of timing. As such, our usual day starts around 8-9am (depending on travel) and sometimes involve a break around the middle of the day (usually between 2-4pm). The afternoon sessions start between 3:30 - 4 and we usually wrap shooting around 6pm (unless we have been able to organise an extremely rare night ceremony). We return to our hotel around 7pm where we rest, clean-up and have a well-deserved dinner where we discuss our experience, review challenges and plan the following day.

What behaviour can we expect from our subjects?

This is what makes this workshop extremely exciting. While our relationship with the voodoo community ensures we will be able to work closely, discuss our ideas and request specific setups from our subjects, the eb and flow of a ceremony is never fully scripted and the participants are what make it alive. This means it's up to you to draw on the inspiration of the moment, adjust and create new visuals. The priests and adepts are very generous with their time and happy to work with us, so expect easy but demanding interactions.

I get queasy at the sight of blood - will this affect me?

The simple answer is "probably yes". The core of every voodoo ceremony is the ritual sacrifice. This ranges from a couple of cockerels or chickens (so you should realistically expect little blood and not immediately obvious) to ducks, goats, cows and dogs where things are, well, different. If the concept of seeing multiple sacrifices performed right in front of your eyes makes you uncomfortable, then this workshop may not be the one for you. Please make no mistake, we will experience ALL of the above ceremonies, multiple times and in different combinations.

How physically demanding is this workshop?

This is by far the least physically demanding workshop we run. We go everywhere by vehicle and in all locations there will be seating (stone or cement benches, wooden benches or chairs and sometimes the horrible, omnipresent plastic chairs). Of course, you should expect to walk a couple of hundred meters to the various shrines or to the sacred forest, but these tend to be comfortable walks.

Are there any special preparations I should make for this workshop?

Really, there's only one: access to shrines and sacred forests is only permitted without shoes. So be prepared to walk around either barefoot or with your socks (we recommend socks). Please take this warning seriously as the priests are completely uncompromising in this. Remember this is not a tourist trip or a photo tour - this is a real, in-depth, exploration into voodoo and to do this, we need to follow the rules.

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