Unknown Ecuador – Cuenca – Ecuador

Bazan Photos has the pleasure to announce a new workshop destination in South America by offering its first 11-day course in Ecuador.

For the first time, I have decided to extend the workshop for an extra day to allow the students to photograph without time pressure both in Cuenca and Quito.

The colonial city of Cuenca, the amazing Bull’s festival in Giron and the capital city of Quito will be the source of inspiration of this new Ecuadorian workshop that I will be teaching in November.

Cuenca was designated Cultural Patrimony of Humanity by UNESCO on December 1, 1999, and more recently it was named Cultural Capital of the Americas.

The city offers a unique blend of colonial charm and untouched surroundings. And indeed, it takes no more than a leisurely stroll through the city's narrow cobblestone streets or the extraordinarily radiant countryside that surrounds it to see all that has been glorious in this charming city, past and present. During our stay we have been granted special permission to photograph the intimate feast of the Bulls in Giron, a small town close to Cuenca.

Quito has a very lively old section, a wonder blocks and blocks of colonial architecture, some of it dating to the mid 1500s when the Spanish founded the city (Quito was an important Inca settlement before).

Vintage facades line the streets and cathedrals and stately public buildings surround large open plazas. Old Quito is also a busy workaday place rather than a sterile historical park. It's full of shops and vendors, and most cater to Quito residents more than tourists. In fact, the whole place seems like one immense outdoor market. This part of the city has also been recently declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It will be the perfect setting to photograph daily life in the last few days of the workshop.

Our first meeting will be the day before the workshop starts in the lobby of the cozy hostal in Quito where we will be staying upon our return from Cuenca. The next morning we will take an early flight to Cuenca.

This city of Cuenca will be our base for the first 7 days of the workshop. Every day we will be going out to take pictures of daily life in Cuenca and some of the outlying villages.

Upon arrival in Cuenca and the check in at the hostal, we will talk about logistics and the details of our shooting schedule for the entire week. In the early afternoon, you will start wondering around Cuenca to take pictures. After dusk, I will carefully review each participant’s portfolio. At night, I’ll invite you to a welcome dinner at a typical Ecuadorian restaurant.

Each morning, (alone or in small groups) we’ll go out shooting on the streets of this fascinating town. Some other days, we will visit, by taking taxi collectivos or busses, some outlying villages and the farmers’ communities.

The main attraction of this workshop will be the amazing feast of the Bulls in Giron. We will spend several days shooting many different moments of this very intimate celebrations. It’s probably one of the most fascinating feast taht I have photographed in Latin America.

We will primarily concentrate in seeking out the essence of daily life in the myriad nuances of these celbrations. We will also walk around the corners of this palpitating city; we will photograph the flow of life unfolding before our very eyes in Cuenca and in the appealing small pueblos. At the end of the fifth day, the film will be shipped by air courier to Quito where the lab will be processing it. These rolls will be ready to be edited by the time we arrive in Quito. We will also find time to enjoy the music, food and the culture of this charming colonial town.

In the four final days in Quito, we will devote ourselves first to editing, critiquing and selecting the best images taken by each student in Cuenca. After we are done with that, you will have the opportunity to take pictures of this very fascinating city. In the remaining days, we will also start editing the photos taken in Quito. The last day of the workshop will be devoted entirely to do our final edit of the best images taken by the students both in Cuenca and Quito.

We will have group editing sessions in which the whole class will discuss many photography topics such as framing, composition, form and content within the context of each individual images.

As in all the other workshops I teach, my ultimate goal is to help each participant create an appealing body of work with personal strong individual images. Each student will be encouraged to develop his or her own photographic language, and to search for the invisible thread that ties a personal vision together. I’ll help you to improve your ability to see and create new photographs, and to discover your hidden potential. It will definitely be a valuable educational experience where I’ll teach you to develop the skills to look at your own work more critically, and also to appreciate and discuss yours and other people’s work by learning a new and more complex visual vocabulary. Our final objective is to produce a series of revealing; lasting images that will display a sense of the place and of its people. You will return home with a new commitment to your work and your creativity.

For those of you that have already had the opportunity to take a workshop with me, I'll only add that you are in for another great learning experience where we’ll be sharing, as always, photography and life.

Travel to Quito from the US
From many US cities there are several air carriers flying into Quito, Ecuador’s capital. Please check with your travel agent and start making reservations ahead of time to secure availability and a good fare.

I'd advise all participants to arrive to Quito one day before the workshop begins to get some needed rest and acclimate yourself before catching the plane to Cuenca early next morning. If you decide to arrive a day earlier, I need to know it by the end of August in order to make reservation for you at the same hotel in Quito where you will also be staying the last five nights of the workshop. You should plan to return home the next day after the workshop ends. Once you have secured the international leg of your travel, we will reserve the Quito-Cuenca r/t portion of your trip.

Hotels
Both n Cuenca and Quito we will be staying in comfortable colonial hostals.

Film
The best B&W film to bring are Kodak Tri-x-film 400 asa or Ilford HP5 400asa.. For night shooting I’d advise to bring Fuji Neopan 1600 asa b&w film. Color enthusiasts are advised to shoot with color negative film such as Kodak Gold, Kodak Portra or Fuji Superia with C41 processing. You are more than welcome to shoot with digital cameras.

Internet Access
There are Internet Cafes both in Cuenca and Quito. Connection charges are very inexpensive.

Refund Policy
I rely on your attendance to organize many of the workshops’ logistics, so if for any reason you decide to no longer attend the workshop, please notify me at least 60 days before the start of the workshop. At that time I will refund your full deposit. If you cancel between 30 and 60 days before the start of the workshop I will retain $200 as a cancellation fee. If notification is made less than 30 days before the start of the workshop no monies will be refunded to you.

Please note that in case of exceptional and unforeseeable circumstances such as hurricanes, earthquakes, major floods, tsunami, a war or governments' change of policies in the countries I teach courses, BazanPhotos will only offer as a refund a new workshop in any of the other venues during that same calendar year. No other forms of refunds will be available.

For further information on the workshops and the cost of the 10-day workshop please write to workshops@bazanphotos.com or ernesto_bazan@hotmail.com