Inspiring and enchanting, Portugal is a dream destination for photographers. The colorful canvas will allow you to create with dramatic natural landscapes, beautiful streets, and Mediterranean neighborhoods and opportunities for portraitures, architecture, seascapes, low-light and nighttime challenges. Over an 8-day tour, you will refine the art of seeing the world through your lens with photography lessons and a chance to experiment in indelibly diverse destinations with Lisbon’s colors and character,...
Customizable Itinerary
Day 1
Lisbon – Photography Techniques and the Colors of the Port City
Lisbon exemplifies the photographic art of seeing. To the untrained eye, everywhere you look could be an award-winning photograph as glamorous architecture provides a backdrop, expressive locals dot the scenes, and contrasting colors shimmer as effervescently as the Tagus River. You will find open boulevards, charming alleyways, inspiring plazas, and waterside boulevards. Lisbon is where you come across a wonderful range of sights, but you will need to focus on visual perception. Your lessons will begin with informal discussions of technique with your expert guide and continue with a walk through the city that will connect the winding Alfama alleyways with the grandeur of Baixa.
This is a tour that suits all levels of photographers. Lisbon is a classic introduction that can inspire both amateurs and beginners while also presenting scenes that captivate professionals. You will be greeted at the airport and transferred to your hotel in the morning where you discuss your photography aims for the week over coffee. You will discuss photographic techniques, styles, and subjects, with your guide offering their expert insights. Your route can be customized slightly to your interests, although most of the itinerary is tailored to visit particular destinations in their best light. Your tour will be about inspiring your own creativity, which is ultimately what turns everyday images into extraordinary photos.
Traveling with an expert local photographer, you will set off through Lisbon. First Alfama, where the narrow alleyways mix the light and the shadows. The most obvious composition will usually not work, yet when you refocus, there are wonderful scenes of color and contrast, particularly of traditional people and architecture. Following the tramways, you will cross open plazas to Baixa, a hub of grandeur and glamour. There is an intense mid-afternoon glare here, but as the sun begins to dip the light bounces nicely off the city’s most stately buildings. Towards sunset, you will be down by the river where a lot will be happening, and the art of seeing continues to be your photographic focus. The evening will be relaxed, and TimeOut Market is an excellent place to dine on the city’s best.
What's Included:
Day 2
Lisbon – The Art of Seeing, Low-Light City Shots, and World Heritage Sites
Day 3
Sintra – Long Exposures and Architectural Photography in a Fairytale Landscape
Day 4
Lagos – Charming Cities and Portraitures
Day 5
Lagos – Dramatic Natural Landscapes and Capturing Local Culture
Day 6
Porto – Portraiture and Architecture in One of Europe’s Oldest Cities
Day 7
Porto – Shooting the Neighborhoods and Night Photography in the Alleyways
Day 8
Porto – Departure
Trip Highlights
- Enjoy expert classes and put your lessons into practice with Portugal’s unique photography challenges
- Find the right angles and composition as Lisbon is packed with color and life and a perfect place to refine your art of seeing
- View striking architecture ranging from UNESCO World Heritage monuments to facades created by blue ceramic mosaics
- Watch the light dance through the ancient streets of Porto, a great place to try nighttime photography
- Explore Sintra’s fabled landscape of castles and palaces in the late evening when long exposures can produce the fairytale images
- Be immersed in the staggering natural landscapes and Mediterranean culture near Lagos on the Algarve coastline as these two areas present contrasting photographic challenges and rewards
- Meet the people of Portugal, who nearly always make for riveting subjects as this tour will bring outstanding opportunities for portraiture
- Travel through Evora and Beja for insight into old rural Portugal, with charming little towns that seem tailor-made for postcard-type photos
Detailed Description
Portugal effortlessly combines photographic challenges but also brings rewards. Light dances down UNESCO World Heritage alleyways after dusk to deliver a perfect setting for seductive nighttime photography. Streets are laden with excessive color and light to bring great lessons that will teach the art of seeing and composition. Beautiful seascapes and natural landscapes abound and change with the sun while creating poetic images. The people of Portugal always make for great portraits while the towns and villages provide a postcard into the past. Destinations like Sintra look like fiction, best reproduced when you master long exposures after the day-tripping tourists have disappeared. You will find Mediterranean culture, ancient Portuguese customs, and a contemporary vibrancy, and these three different environments will mean very different images for every single day.
Guided by a revered local photographer, this 8-day tour is designed for photographers of all levels. The great highlight is the contrast as you will be presented with an opportunity to test your skills in a variety of conditions and create photos from eclectic destinations. Portugal’s contrasts can inspire the beginner or amateur photographer and provide semi-professionals with new challenges all while also offering an inherent inimitably for the most seasoned of professionals. You will travel at a fast pace, packing in a huge range of scenes into your eight days along with various technical lessons and discussions.
This itinerary will lead you into Portugal’s most photographic destinations in their best light, while also helping you to visualize a scene before starting to capture the moment. Such contrasting destinations enable creativity to sparkle and expand a repertoire of skills to take onwards to your next images. Portugal provides the dreamy setting, and your guide will offer technical insight while over your trip you will come to find that it is your own creativity that turns the standard shot into an astonishing image.
You will begin in Lisbon where the colorful streets resemble postcards while presenting many challenges. The streets are crowded and at times chaotic, the classic challenge of street photography. The next day, you will focus on low-light city shots and architectural photographs, with UNESCO World Heritage sites making for iconic subjects. Spend the following day in Sintra for another look at architecture and an ideal destination to play around with long exposures. Continue and photograph on the move, hopping between towns and villages on the journey south to Lagos and learning more about photography on the go.
The people of Portugal make for inspiring subjects, and there will be a lot of portraiture opportunities and very willing subjects. While around Lagos you will explore the seascapes, the Algarve coastline is one of Europe’s most dramatic natural settings. Local Mediterranean culture is also alive here, a beautiful composition of fresh colors meeting the whitewashed Moorish design of the past. Spend your next several days in Porto, arguably the most challenging of Portugal’s destinations. It will seem like every angle is an extraordinary photo, but you need skill and practice to make the neighborhoods come alive on film. Night photography is one of the techniques practiced here, and you will put a lot of the previous lessons into practice. Porto has an international airport for your departing flight. Portugal is a region unlike others; learn more by seeing how our partner Portugal tour operators can personalize the experience for you.
Starting Price
$2,600 per person (excluding international flights)
Your Zicasso trip is fully customizable, and this sample itinerary is a starting place for your travel plans. Actual costs are dynamic, and your selection of accommodations and activities, your season of travel, and other such variables will bring this budget guideline up or down. Throughout your planning experience with your Zicasso specialist, your itinerary is designed around your budget. You can book your trip when you are satisfied with every detail. Planning your trip with a Zicasso travel specialist is a free service.
What's Included
- Accommodations
- In-country transportation
- Some or all activities and tours
- Expert trip planning
- 24x7 support during your trip
Your final trip cost will vary based on your selected accommodations, activities, meals, and other trip elements that you opt to include.
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