Tribes of Ecuador I

Tribes of the Ecuadorian Amazonia - The Huaorani

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This is one of our Ecuador workshops and by far the most challenging but equally infinitely rewarding. The logistics make it risky and expensive, it's shorter than you might otherwise like and you will have to be prepared to put up with fewer creature comforts for a week...and yet, there are few places in the world where your heart opens up, where you will feel welcomed from the smiles of the people and where there is a stunning image everywhere you look. And this is what we'll teach you to do: turn normal, ordinary corners of the world into photography studios. With the help of our local fixers well discover corners of the rainforest and, with the collaboration of the amazing Huaorani, we'll learn how to craft emotive, glorious, beautiful and different images.We'll do individual and group portraits, we'll do environmental and action portraits inside challenging but beautiful scenery and we'll learn lighting, balancing between ambient and strobe, practical and special effects and directing our subjects. It'll be creative and very, very enjoyable.

Day 1

Today we meet at our hotel in Quito, Ecuador's capital, and we start our journey into lighting and strobe photography. 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.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. We we also discuss the logistics of the next few days, packing essentials, prioritisation and handling the challenges we'll be faced with.

Day 2

Today we start our journey into the Amazonia region. After driving to the small military airport at the edge of the rainforest, we'll board small, 3-4 person planes and, weather permitting, we'll fly to the small airstrip close to the Bameno community.If all goes well, we should be at the community in the early afternoon and spend the rest of the day meeting the tribe, getting to know the people who'll be our hosts for the next 5 days and, with their help, walk the surrounding area looking for shot ideas, discussing them and planning how we'll shoot them. Remember, Bameno is a living community, so to ensure the best outcome, preparation and planning are paramount.

Day 3-7

Over the course of the next 5 days we will venture out all over the hundreds of acres of forest the community is responsible for guarding and create images around the sacred trees, fast-flowing rivers and tributaries, lakes and waterfalls. We'll shoot in and around canoes, we'll accompany the Huaorani while they venture out on the hunt and, while observing their daily lives, use our lights to tell the story of this incredible community.During these days we will balance photography with building relationships with the community as this will allow us to develop greater insights into the lives of this extraordinary people and we will learn how to put these insights into our images

Day 8-9

As we start our journey back, we'll do things differently - we did mention challenging logistics, right? To make the most of our Amazon experience, we'll board our canoe and start out 2-day (well, almost, not quite) journey towards "civilisation". During the next 18hrs we will observe life along the Kona-Nako river, see how life unfolds in this part of the world and, of course, explore how to quickly and efficiently, setup our lights and take photos. This part of the trip will push your thinking-on-your-feet muscles and test how well you absorbed the learnings of the past week.At the end we'll drive back to Quito where our adventure ends.

Confirmed Date(s):

Saturday 6th December - Monday 15th December 2025

€4,400 / £3,670 / $4,900

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.

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