This series will be a travelogue. I did it last year, and it was well received. Our first workshop of 2011 is People & Culture of Belize, and we like to fly in a couple of days early in case there are weather delays with the airlines. We flew through Houston. Remember what is was like just a few days before the Super Bowl? Fortunately, the snow was gone, at least along our route, and there were no delays.

The Gulf of Mexico was fairly calm with the occasional boat and wake showing up a pristine white against the blue-green of the water.

That color was nothing, however, compared to what we flew over in the Caribbean on our way from Belize City to Caye (pronounced “key”) Caulker. It was quite windy, and the whipped-up lines of translucent white made interesting counterpoint lines to the ones on the sea floor…

You can’t put two photographers anywhere without their taking their cameras out to go exploring. Sure, we wer

… It has been about a month since we shared good-bye hugs with our alumni participants and “spousal units” (affectionate term) after our final workshop of the season. This was an experiment. Some of our alumni kept asking for an alumni-only workshop, and so, we went to Yosemite National Park for our first of this kind. It was a grand success. Some people knew each other, but most alumni did not … at least at the onset. Our imaging and critique sessions, the evening ones held in the bar over wine and beer, quickly changed that. In fact, most of our alumni said we should have all our imaging sessions in the bar!

Wow! It’s hard to believe that it has been nearly two months since we finished our Lighthouses of the Outer Banks workshop. We had great weather for photography, albeit a bit “breezy” at times. Another great group came and hit it off right away. That always makes Arnie and me feel good, because if people are having fun, they are relaxed and learn so much more. They are also willing to take chances and experiment, because the group is so supportive. That’s one of the wonderful things about a photo workshop or any workshop, for that matter … like-minded people coming together for an intense and fun time, feeding off each other, challenging each other, learning from not only the instructors, but from one another.

One of the things Arnie and I like to do is to continually challenge our participants, to not allow them to get lazy, to push them beyond their comfort zone, to encourage them to experiment. It’s how they improve so much and why our student galleries are so strong.