Photography...

An English Travel Company photographic holiday offers you the chance to practice your skills, in a relaxing environment. Your enjoyment of your holiday is just as important to us as the photography. To that end, we do not offer photographic holidays in which you are part of a group. Nor do we provide lessons or instructions, or a set itinerary. Rather, the emphasis is on individuality. We can provide a daily guide, if you wish, and we can arrange for your photographs to be looked over by a professional if you would like advice, hints and tips.

Each cottage, hotel room or apartment contains a selection of books on photography, giving both basic tips and more advanced advice. Films can be processed daily, and digital files can be downloaded and copied to CD each evening.

Datça has excellent bus and taxi services and we can advise you on the best places to visit each day, so that you see a wide variety of local village life, scenery and nature. Guests can also enjoy a range of activities other than photography, including walking, shopping, horse riding, swimming, mountaineering and cycling. At the English Travel Company, we aim to ensure that every member of your group enjoys their holiday – whether or not they are photographers. If there are members of your group to whom photography doesn't appeal, they can take time out to relax on the harbour, sunbathe on a number of beaches, or lazily explore the local shops.

We firmly believe that Datça is the ideal location to practise and improve your photography, enjoy beautiful scenery and have a wonderful holiday.

Technical information:

• A standard 50mm or wide-angle lens is good for scenery and people shots.

• If you are an avid photographer you may want to bring two SLR camera bodies of the same type so you will not have to constantly change lenses.

• Skylight and haze filters are useful for lens protection as well as picture enhancement.

• Polarizing filters are useful when taking pictures over water and with wide-angle shots with sky and clouds.

• Tripods are cumbersome and you may find them problematic to use on roads and uneven countryside. If they are lightweight you may want to bring them along, but we have found that a small beanbag is very handy for resting your camera and lens on the roof of vehicles.

• Remember to bring plenty of spare batteries for any equipment that uses a non-standard size. You can buy batteries locally, but they tend to be standard AA or AAA size.

• Also remember to bring leads, cables and so on. It is highly unlikely that you will be able to replace them in Datça.

• We recommend that you check your insurance before you bring expensive equipment with you. Whether it is home or travel insurance, you need to be very sure that you can claim the full value of your equipment should anything happen to it.

Photograph © Veronika Kemper 2004