Carey's Secret Garden Photography Workshop, Dorset

Last weekend I led a full day's photography workshop aimed at beginners in the beautiful Carey's Secret Garden near Wareham, Dorset. It started off with a practical session in the morning and finished with a photo editing session using Affinity 3.

A photography day always makes for a great day out and Carey's Secret Garden was the perfect location for this. Surrounded by an old Victorian wall and woodland, the gardens are peaceful and full of wildlife, offering a safe and accessible escape into nature. Exploring the gardens with a camera was a wonderful experience, from capturing the garden landscape to the flowers that were still blooming in Autumn and the fungi that was thriving in the old decaying wood.

Participant photographing fungi growing out of the dead wood.

One of the best things about the gardens here is the natural planting with biodiveristy being centre stage. Despite it being October, the bees, butterflies and even hummingbird hawkmoths were out. There were also plenty of robins and other birds.

The morning sunshine was a blessing and great for getting macro shots. However bright sunlight can be a challenge for photography by creating high contrast. I encouraged participants to photograph in both the shade and sunlit areas to practice adjusting their camera settings accordingly.

Orange flower macro shot.

As well as opportunities to photograph macro, the garden is full of interesting sculptures surrounded by plants, making for great opportunities to practice more wide angle photography to capture the garden landscape.

The egg sculpture in Carey's Secret Gardens surrounded by planting.

After a lovely lunch provided by the café, we headed into one of the workspaces and went over the basics of using Affinity for photo editing. Affinity is a free software that offers professional photo editing without the subscription fee. Photo editing can certainly be challenging and looks complex, but it can really transform photography and is an essential part of the art form. I always promote natural editing styles without the use of AI, which is easy to do in Affinity as the free version does not offer AI.

At the end of the day we looked through everyone's photographs briefly from the morning. There was a wonderful selection. It doesn't matter what level of photography you are, I believe there is always something you can learn from others and also teach others. It's always fun to share work, talk about photographs and see what other people see through the lens. Everyone sees and captures things differently.

Thank you to the wonderful staff at Carey's Secret Gardens for the work you do maintaining the gardens and also for hosting us. I am also grateful for everyone who came along to and participated in the photography workshop.

Future workshops

I am excited to announce that I have a series of upcoming art and photography workshops at the New Forest Retreat! The photography workshops are 2 hours long, entirely practical, outdoor workshops focusing on different topics to help develop camera skills and capture nature in different ways. My aim for the workshops is for them to be fun, creative and social offering an escape into nature as well as an opportunity to learn at your own pace.

If this is something you are interested in head over to Photography Workshops

I also offer 1-2-1 tuition. Get in touch if this is something you would like to find out more about.