Do you feel like you are the last on the list behind your partner, children, work commitments, cats, dogs, shopping, running a household and there is never enough time for you to do the things you love?
Back in the year 2000 before I left my life this is exactly how I felt. I felt like I put everything else before me and doing the things I loved. I was always way down at the bottom of the list. I never stopped and made time for myself and what I loved. It always felt like there was something more pressing or important to do.
Well, one day I did something drastic about it when I could no longer stand the feeling of coming last. I left my life, my job, my apartment, my country and my friends and went off on an adventure to find out what I loved in life. But I am not recommending you do that right now!
I have another solution.
If you would like to walk away from your life for just a week, try something you thought you might be good at or take your photography skills to new levels we’d love you to join us on the Caravan Travel Photography Workshop in beautiful Puglia.
We (me, another talented photographer and my fabulous staff) promise you one thing. You will be at the top of the list for a full 7 days. There will be no washing up, no organising accommodation or restaurants, no booking hotels and transfers, no-one to look after except yourself, your camera and the photos you want to take!
The ‘main event’ the statue of San Antonio di Padova in the streets of Ceglie Messapica copyright Carla Coulson
I love the feeling of arriving in a new place, my ‘photographer’s antenna’ on overdrive at all the wonderful nuances and differences of that town or country. I am endlessly fascinated by the food, the architecture, the scents, feelings and excitement it all inspires.
I have always loved to travel and it was by no accident I passed the first 12 years of my photography career as a travel photographer. I knew in my heart the day I started photography school that was what I wanted to do.
One of my favourite aspects of travel photography is shooting a cultural, sporting, musical, religious or fashion event that is particular to that place.
There are many great reasons why you should shoot an event as part of a travel story. When we are photographing a place we are trying to tell a story of that place, it’s people, it’s culture, they way they live, eat and enjoy life.
An event inspires powerful feelings. As photographers to tell a great travel story means more than a sun setting over the sea, it means showing emotion, belief, joy, happiness, devotion and connection of the people to that place. Lots of these emotions naturally occur at events.
It’s also a great way of using the place as a backdrop whilst something rich is going on.
An event often has deep historical significance, it’s part of a tradition that can go back for centuries and the whole town turns out in their best outfit for it!
Oh and there are fabulous costumes, brass bands, fairy lights and a whole lot more depending on the particular event.
Before I shoot an event, I research it.
Shooting around the event nun arriving at the church copyright Carla Coulson
These are some of the things I take into consideration when I shoot an event:
1. What’s its history, what is the story or legend behind the event?
2. I want to know how the event ‘works’. What time it starts and finishes. This is really important in regards to shooting it as often events are held at sundown or night and this needs to be calculated when planning your equipment and degree of difficulty.
3. Where it is and is there a particular route it follows? I walk the route if this is possible looking at all sorts of vantage points where I could shoot from.
4. I do light tests if an interior venue is to be used..
5. What’s the main event? In these pictures the main event is the men carrying the statue.
6. What’s going on around the event? This often is more interesting than the main event. It could be people arriving, worshipping, selling things, children together playing. All sorts of things happen around the main event and there are many beautiful storytelling moments to be captured.
7. I am constantly looking, scouting around to see what I can find that isn’t the ‘main event’. I have learnt throughout the years that often the best shots around to be found in the streets around the main event, backstage or afterwards when everyone is relaxed.
8. When someone points something out or suggests something I will go and check it out.
9. I have fun.. cause an event feels like a big fabulous party..
A new angle on the main event copyright Carla Coulson
The Boys in the band during a break copyright Carla Coulson
The statue of San Antonio di Padova just before it leaves the town copyright Carla Coulson
The statue leaving the old town copyright Carla Coulson
Shooting around the event.. fairy lights that decorate the town copyright Carla Coulson
Families who join the ‘after party’ copyright Carla Coulson
A selfie with the lights behind.. copyright Carla Coulson
All these photos were shot during last years Caravan Travel Photography Workshop in Puglia Italy. If you would like to eat, breath and live travel photography for 7 days next June in beautiful Puglia please click here for more information.
I hope you enjoyed this insight into travel photography.
“As a young boy growing up in rural India, most of what I knew of the world was what I could see around me. But each night, I would look at the Moon – it was impossibly far away, yet it held a special attraction because it allowed me to dream beyond my village and country, and think about the rest of the world and space.” Naveen Jain
Imagine a town that has survived for hundreds of years on making beautiful hand-made ceramics. Add a twist of Southern Italian charm, workshops dug into soft stone to form grottos (grottaglie – that’s where the name comes from) and hundreds of artisans turning clay into pots, jugs, plates, cups, saucers, statues and other works of art – then you would have Grottaglie.
I discovered Grottaglie a couple of summers ago when Francesco and I were at the beach and it became too crowded so we decided to head inland for lunch (no Italian in their right mind would do this in August) but this is one of our tricks to finding something magical and real.
And that is exactly what happened. We found the magical Grottaglie.. I could hardly wait to finish lunch to start snooping around the hundreds of ceramic workshops.
So when I started planning the Caravan Travel Photography Workshop I started to think of all the things I loved about Puglia and Grottaglie sprang to mind.
I decided to include the things I would do if I was to shoot a story on a region, include the things that I love, that visually excite me and I knew would make for interesting pics.
Collection of antique water jugs Mimmo Vestita Ceramics
So back I went to Grottaglie and with the help of Francesca Frisa we toured many beautiful workshops and met many great artisans.
hand painted plates in the workshop of Giuseppe Patronelli
Grottaglie has been inhabited since the Paleolithic age and is just up the rode from one of the first Greek settlements in Italy, Taranto.
The local stone is called tufo In Italian and is soft enough to be able to dig into. Since Medieval times there have been caves dug around what is now the castle and slowly they were taken over and used as ceramic workshops.
But on any given day you can turn up in Grottaglie and walk the area known as the Quartier dell Ceramiche and go from one workshop to the next and see artisans turning clay, painting, dipping statues in white and creating every imaginable statue possible.
Whilst walking from workshop to workshop with Francesca she told me about Mimmo Vestita who had an incredible Mediterranean garden right in the middle of town and who recently whilst renovating the garden had discovered the floor of a Roman Villa and a byzantine crypt.
I had co-incidently seen his garden and crypt in the beautiful magazine Cote Sud and begged to have a look.
Ancient wine pots in the Mediterranean garden of Casa Vestita
It was a garden like I had never seen before. So beautiful in it’s simplicity and it’s devotion to the Mediterranean climate, plants and his collection of over 4000 pieces of ceramic.
Mimmo Vestita in his splendid Mediterranean garden Casa Vestita
Mimmo generously opened his garden to the ‘Caravaners’ and kindly showed us the floor of the Roman Villa his renovator found whilst restoring the garden.
Whilst restoring another part of the garden and pulling away broken debris and trees the gardener found a carved column. They called in the archaeological society and together they went on a magical mystery tour and found a true treasure the underground crypt.
Grottaglie’s Mediterranean garden in front of the castle entrance.
If you are in Puglia don’t miss a visit to beautiful Grottaglie. She’s real, she’s artistic, she hasn’t been trussed up for the tourists and there are many wonderful photos to be had.
The fabulous Ceramics Museum has a collection of ceramics from the beginning of time, it’s a journey through history and habits, of simplicity, decoration and form and…. it’s free.
A giant round of applause to the all the artisans who gave their time and talent to us, who allowed us into their bottega’s to see how they work, create and maintain an ancient tradition. True southern hospitality at it’s most generous. I look forward to showing the participants work soon.
This is a private Mediterranean garden and the best one I have seen to date. Mimmo Vestita, the owner has a ceramics workshop up the road and not long ago unearthed a Byzantine Crypt underneath his garden and the floor of a Roman Villa. He opens the garden to the public for a small fee in August from 6pm to 10pm and regularly has exhibitions of some of his 4000 pieces of antique ceramics. DON’T MISS IT!! Follow on Facebook here.
Mimmo’s bottega is up a little set of stairs and removed from the street but worth sourcing out. He sells beautiful objects for the home, vases and water jugs.
This is the local tourist office and one of the most helpful in Italy. This should be your first stop when you arrive in Grottaglie to gather information on what you are looking for and where to eat!
“Each has his own happiness in his hands, as the artist handles the rude clay he seeks to reshape it into a figure; yet is is the same with this art as with all others: only the capacity for it is innate; art itself must be learned and painstaking”. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
If you want to know how you can live more wholeheartedly, reconnect to your joy, creativity and purpose, download my Free Workbook above.
Long before you arrive at Masseria Cimino you are struck by the sight of ancient olive trees that resemble sculptures, twisted over hundreds of years with winds, run and the scorching sun.
Ancient Olives Trees Puglia Copyright Carla Coulson
Olive Trees Puglia Copyright Carla Coulson
These ancient olive trees have always been one of my favourite things about Puglia, a reminder of how old this land is and how deeply ingrained the olive tree is in the culture and history.
Masseria Cimino Copyright Carla Coulson
I decided to make Masseria Cimino a part of the first Caravan Travel Photography Workshop for a couple of reasons. I loved it’s exquisite make-over, not too flashy and not too rustic, somewhere in between.
And I knew it would make the perfect setting for the photographers to take interior and exterior shots and as a background to shoot food.
The sun beds copyright Carla Coulson
Masseria Cimino is an exquisite palette of white broken only by the local vegetation of cactus trees, olives and rosemary and the soft blue they have chosen for the doors, windows and furniture.
Entrance Masseria Cimino Copyright Carla Coulson
There is one original red wall and we all went mad shooting it.
And Masseria Cimino has the coolest uniforms.. beautiful Viviana in her gorgeous uniform.
The Bar Masseria Cimino Copyright Carla Coulson
The furniture in the interior of the bar has been constructed of concrete in the simple way they do in the Greek Islands and a clever interior designer has added lovely soft furnishings in white and beige. Cactus leaves hang as decoration in the main room. I learnt later on the trip this was a traditional custom, the Pugliese do this to conserve the fruit that grows on this plant so they can eat it fresh for months to come.
Details of the Cactus leaves Copyright Carla Coulson
I was a little bit excited about the cactus leaves!
Rooms Masseria Cimino Copyright Carla Coulson
Although I was teaching and didn’t have a lot of time to shoot it was such a graphic exterior to shoot I couldn’t help but grab a couple of shots on the hop.
Rooms Masseria Copyright Carla Coulson
I adore the textures of traditional stone paving, white walls dotted with blue and a grapevine for shelter. Divine colour palette..
Athalee Brown and a stone wall Masseria Cimino Copyright Carla Coulson
Workshop organiser Athalee Brown’s caftan matched the stone wall and cactus and I couldn’t resist a pic..
Masseria Ciminio has respected many traditional ways and incorporated them into the decor, design and food. Tomatoes hang in the dining room, food is served on locally made ceramic plates with beautiful white linen and the menu is ladened with local products.
Tomatoes Hang in the dining room Masseria Cimino copyright Carla Coulson
I hoped you enjoyed a little glimpse into this beautiful space in Puglia. I loved staying here and if you are visiting Puglia you might like it too! You can check out their website here.
“There is a single thread of attitude, a single direction of flow, that joins our present time to its early burgeoning in Mediterranean civilization.” Arthur Erickson
If you want to know how you can live more wholeheartedly, reconnect to your joy, creativity and purpose, download my Free Workbook above.
View from outside our classroom of beautiful Martina Franca
I was bewitched by Martina Franca and her white village cousins on my first trip to the Valle D’Itria years ago. So taken with it that I made it our base for the first four days of the Caravan Travel Photography Workshop this June.
The Caravan travel photography workshop started in the hillside town in the Valle D’Itra of Martina Franca. If you love Baroque architecture you will love Martina Franca. Every door, archway and facade has been carved in stone with loving care and as the local mayor explained to us, even the most humble doorway is baroque.
A magical lampost, a blast of sunshine and a local.
Blue doors, white stone and ornate door frames.
I loved this window that I saw each day from my terrace just needed Sophia Loren to pop out of it.
A little boy comes out to see what I was up to.
This man is a local legend in Martina Franca. He runs the gorgeous Cafe Tripoli which is a historic cafe and at seventy something is up at 5am most days to serve coffee and charm his clientele. Love Vito!
More baroque streets in Martina Franca.
Whilst out scouting for the workshop I pulled into a beautiful Masseria above and found this handsome man working there.
A fab archway in Martina Franca
Ceglie Messapica getting ready for the big procession..
The locals at Bar San Antonio in Ceglie Messapica..
A flower lined street in the historic centre of Ceglie Messapica
A corner of Ceglie Messapica and the lady that in lucky to live there.
I adored this wall and the tea towel drying in the sun.
The basilica of San Martino in Martina Franca.. A baroque feast.
Hanging the washing out in Monopoli.
Waiting for the procession in Ceglie Messapica
I couldn’t resist these two.. All photos copyright Carla Coulson
Puglia was kind and gentle to us photographers, the locals opened their arms and hearts and showed us what true Southern Italian hospitality is all about.. Puglia Rocks!!
“Travelling is the ruin of all happiness! There is no looking at a building after seeing Italy.” Fanny Burney
PS: If you love travel photography and would like to travel to this part of the world you might like to join me in Puglia in June 2015 at the Caravan Travel Photography Workshop.
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