TIMELESS TUSCANY IMAGES FROM MY TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP

MY LAST TRIP TO TUSCANY WAS BACK IN 2009

I had a great time in Italy back then (we were right near the charming town of Montaione), but I didn't come back with a lot of great photos from that trip because I didn't do enough research beforehand, and so not only we were not in an ideal place for those classic "Tuscany" photos, I didn't even know where they were. But this time, I wanted things to be different.

Above: This is what I'm talking about - waiting for the sun to come up over that mountain and light up that fog.

I spent a ton of time researching locations before the trip, and I knew the exact right area to be in thanks to advice from my dear friend Serge Ramelli, who has hosted workshops in that area for years, so I was set. I had an ideal location, a quirky but fun hotel, and a well-crafted plan for the workshop, so I was set to head back to Tuscany with ten awesome, super fun photographers, my co-instructor, the wonderful Mimo Meidany, and Jason Stevens from my video team at KelbyOne (super cool, very talented guy). Jason and I went a few days early so we could scope out locations I had read about online, and while there, I could record two classes for KelbyOne on shooting travel with an iPhone (or using an iPhone as your 2nd camera). After that, the students would arrive and we'd kick off the workshop.

Amazingly, something happened at this workshop that really happens: everything just came together perfectly. The weather was perfect, the location was on the money, we never had a drop of rain, or wind, or anything but lovely temperatures and great cloud-filled skies, and with the minor exception of a few very minor hiccups, it was about as perfect of a week as you could have, with some of the most fun, up for anything, awesome group of folk you could ever hope for in a workshop.

IT'S A 'LANDSCAPEY TRAVEL" TYPE OF SHOOT

One thing that's interesting about shooting in Tuscany is that some of the best shots are made AFTER sunrise, rather than just before, like with traditional landscape photography, where the best light happens before sunrise. As soon as the soon comes up, about five minutes later the shoot's over. Not so in Tuscany – in fact, you're waiting around for the sun to rise and make its way over the mountains so it can rake across the rolling hills and, with any luck, the low-lying fog which makes the valley below look like a fairytale land.

MY TRAVEL GEAR

I stressed to my workshop students the virtues of going light gear-wise because we were often hopping on our workshop bus and moving to different shots throughout the day. I took my Canon EOS R6 mirrorless body and just two lenses. My workhorse 24-240mm lens (absolutely perfect for travel – lightweight, sharp, a perfect range, and very affordable) and a 14-35mm super wide angle which I only used one single time the entire workshop. I actually could have left it at home. I took a lightweight tripod, ballhead, a Platypod, and some ND filters (a 10x and 3x, which I didn't get to use until Florence).

Above: Another weird but awesome thing about Tuscany is you can take daylight landscape shots, and they look pretty decent. The later in the day, the better, so around 5:00, it's shootin' time again until around 7:00 when the sun tucks back behind a mountain, which is usually ideal, but here it just makes everything look flat, but a two-hour shooting window is pretty rare, so I'm not complaining.

GLORIOUS BELVEDERE

Our hotel, in the small town of San Quirico d'Orcia, was literally at the doorstep of the famous Belvedere area of Tuscany – one of the most popular areas with photographers, though we only saw two or three other photographers at any of our dawn or sunset shoots if there were any at all. The one thing I was hoping for, for our workshop crew was low-lying fog. When Jason and I were scouting here, we had no fog. When Mimo joined us the next day, we had a decent amount of fog, and for our group's first sunrise shot at Belvedere, we had fog galore, and I was thrilled for everybody. It also meant we'd be shooting well after sunrise.

Above: I took lots of panos. How could you not?

Above: once that sun comes over that hill, the light beams are awesome! This is a tiny church made famous in the movie "The Gladiator," and it's literally 5 minutes from our hotel home base.

Above: I shot at Belvedere on three different days and got different looks, but I also used different white balance treatments as well.

Above: This is another example of what happens after the sun clears those mountains and the sun hits those rolling hills and the fog.

Above: One of our rare before-dawn shoots (Belvedere is to the right, so if you turn your camera that way, you have an entirely different scene)..

Above: A very famous row of cypress trees. After we took the shot from this location, we went to the far right end to shoot right down the row (see the next image, taken about 40 minutes after this one was taken).

Above: this row of cypress trees leading to the house is really popular with the Instagram crowd. Luckily, they don't get up early – they're all shooting it later in the day in the worst possible light. We went there just after dawn (after shooting it from up on the hill – a spot Mimo found), and when we got down here, not another photographer anywhere in sight.

Above: I saw this row of trees on top of a hill on my way to a different shoot, and I fell in love with it. It was totally backlit, so I thought it made for a perfect black and white.

Above: Another afternoon shot. Tip: Don't climb up the hill like the tourists all did (and we got suckered into doing). The shot is from down below – there's not much to shoot up at the top. I think I took one shot up there, and it's not good – the shot is definitely from down below. Here's a black and white done "Mimo style."

WONDERFUL MONTEPULCIANO

Above: It's beautiful to see a city like Montepulciano up on a hilltop like this, but walking up that city's steep inclines to reach its pedestrian areas with shopping, restaurants and charming piazzas is...well...let's say the climbs are not charming. I said several words along the way that I feel might be inappropriate for this post, but I would say if I dropped something like a cinder block on my foot. At least when you get up, the view over the valley is beautiful, and the restaurants are wonderful and worth the climb.

My buddy Kelly (who was on the trip with us) told me about this wonderful little town about 30 minutes from our hotel in San Quirico d'Orcia. It's called Montepulciano, and it's on a hilltop, with a wall around the whole city, and it has a beautiful church named San Biagio. What makes this church unique is (1) it's outside the city walls, and (2) it's all by itself, surrounded by beautiful green trees, and that's pretty rare – usually, a big church like this is in the center of everything with buildings all around. I went there twice, but because of my tight schedule, I never even stepped inside (and of course, now I wish I had), but I was really taken with its exterior and location. I was also surprised that both times I visited, there was hardly anybody there. No tourists. No locals. Pretty much just us. Cool.

Above: Sunset above the beautiful San Biagio Church in Montepulciano.

Above: OK, I probably overshot this church.

Above: Another one of our shoots was a sunset pano in Sienna – such a beautiful night (though I could have used a cloud or two).

AND THEN, THERE WAS FLORENCE

I have to admit, I've never been a fan of Florence. I went there in 2009 with my family, and I was underwhelmed big time. It was crowded and expensive, and outside the famous Duomo and the river bridge, there was not much to shoot. But since I was already flying back home out of Florence, and Mimo was catching a train from there to Venice, we decided to leave right after the workshop and drive to Florence to catch sunset over the city from Piazza Michelangelo, which offers a great view of Florence from on a hill. However, I misread a turn on my GPS and wound up getting to Florence 20 minutes later than we'd hoped, and we just missed sunset.

Above: The view of Florence from up at Michelangelo piazza.

After spending a day or so in Florence, I have to say I liked it a lot, lot better this time around. It was still crowded and expensive (I wound up using Hilton points for my hotel room – the regular rates were pretty crazy) and packed to the gills with American college students and tourists, but still…I came away with a totally different feeling after shooting there at sunset, and dawn, and driving all over in my rental car, and having an amazing dinner at Trattoria Zaza (Mimo knew it from having lived there 15 years ago. It's been there 45+ years). Highly recommended, but get reservations in advance, or you'll wind up waiting in a crazy long line as we did, but totally worth it. Best meal of the entire trip.

Above: Since we missed Sunset, we had to wait for blue hour. We were not the only ones up at Piazza Michelangelo that night. It was packed, packed, packed!

Above: The next morning, we got up before dawn to shoot the Duomo with mostly empty streets (for a while, anyway).

Above: I left my ND filters back in my hotel room so I borrowed Mimo's NDs and his tripod, which he often sets up so high you can barely reach the touch screen to fire off a shot.

Above: There was so little movement in the clouds you had to use an ND filter to get any movement. This one was a 30-second exposure. Yes, I know the building is leaning back. I like it that way. :)

Above: Another shot from up at Piazza Michelangelo – this of the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge over the Arno river. If you look at the center of the bridge, you can see all the tourists packed in there, giving you an idea of what every place in Florence looked like. Packed! The streets were packed; roads were packed, piazzas packed, and restaurants were packed. Packed, packed, packed.

Above: The Duomo zoomed in at 240mm. The dome is stunningly large in person. I never got inside, but I have to imagine it's incredible.

Above: Sometimes, it's just easier to use your iPhone. Look at how small that tiny puddle of water is, but when you put your lens that close to it -- my phone is upside down, but the iPhone automatically rotates the image for you. Thanks to Mimo for this and most of the other behind-the-scenes shots.

AND HERE'S A FEW MORE FROM THE TRIP

BEHIND THE SCENES

I was incredibly blessed to have this group of people in my workshop. They were the most fun, engaged, and up-for-anything group I've ever led, and it made every single thing we did so much fun. We laughed, wined, dined, and laughed some more. Everybody got along like we were all old friends. Everybody helped everybody, supported them, and it was really something special to be a part of. I'm so grateful to Belinda, Tim, Susan, John, the other John, Paul, Ringo (OK, there was no Ringo), Caroline, Howard, Kelly, and Erin – they are the best and an absolute joy to be around. I'm also so proud of the images they made and what a great job they did on the post-processing. It was a very special experience. Here are a few behind-the-scenes shots from the workshop.

Above: The night before the workshop, we have a fun group dinner at an awesome restaurant (thank you Kalebra for finding the perfect place).

We went from shoot to shoot each day in a 17-passenger van, complete with an authentic Italian driver. The problem was it had a mic, and I love mics, and well, let's just say I used it often. So, picture this; this gang of crazy photographers (they are crazier than they look), cruising through the Tuscan countryside, drinking bottles of wine, and singing Italian songs at the top of our lungs. Another average day. ;-)

Above: The magic bus.

Above: That's us out there shooting the fog just after dawn.

Above: That's me in the classroom teaching Lightroom and Photoshop. That's one of the shots of my students. They created some absolutely stunning images.

Above: This is us shooting that row of cypress trees you saw earlier.

Above: It still surprises me (though it probably shouldn't) that we're all shooting from the same place, yet everybody comes away with such different images. It doesn't seem like it should be possible, but you hear it again and again when we're editing in the lab – so many different images from pretty much the same location at the same time.

We like to add a themed portrait session to our workshops, and Mimo was able to find Anna, a Brazilian model, and marvelous violinist, to play and pose for our group on location at an ancient church with no roof (seen above). We brought her in from Florence (it took a train and a long taxi ride), but she was wonderful. Her playing really made it special for everybody.

Above: Here's one of my shots.

Above: Hey, that ground around the trees looked much greener in your photo. Why yes, yes it did.

Adobe: Mimo, my co-instructor, during dinner outside at Trattoria Zaza on our last night in Italy. Well, my last night, he went on to Venice the next morning, that rat.

We shared a lot of incredibly delicious meals. This restaurant was directly next to our hotel and it wound up being kind of a hangout for everybody.

THANKS FOR LETTING ME SHARE MY TRIP WITH YOU

Besides the two classes we recorded while I was there, I'll be doing a "Where to shoot in Tuscany" course as well – more on that once we have a release date. I had such a great week, such a great experience, I had great meals, and lots of laughs, made some new friends, and loved every minute of it. To take us out, here's one for the road:

Above: Once the sun clears the top of those mountains on the left, it lights the valley in such a beautiful way.

Created By

Scott Kelby

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