takayna / Tarkine Photography Workshop - Feb 2023

Join Luke Tscharke and Paul Hoelen on an unforgettable 5-day Tarkine photography workshop visting one of the great hidden jewels of landscape photography in Australia, the wild and magnificent Northwest coast of Tasmania. Over the workshop we will delve deeply into the magnificent takayna / Tarkine area, photographing some of the most rugged coastline, pure rainforest, and pristine rivers in the country.

We have deliberately set no fixed itinerary, ensuring that we can match each location with the best conditions, relative to the weather, light, and our in-depth local knowledge to achieve the best image creation windows possible. Your two expert leaders will be with you the entire time, helping you to make the very most of your equipment and craft your imagery as well as possible: both through composition on location and post-processing back at our very comfortable base.

By booking you acknowledge and accept our Terms and Conditions

takayna/The Tarkine is home to the largest temperate rainforest in Australia, a large array of wild and endangered creatures and possesses one of the most rugged, varied, and photogenic coastlines you’ll ever witness. The Tarkine photography workshop has a comfortable base at Arthur River. We’ll have access to an incredibly varied selection of photographic locations, so we’ll have something to capture and explore no matter what nature throws at us – moss-laden trees for the rainy days and jagged dramatic seascapes for those colourful sunrises and sunsets. Best of all, you’ll be guided to these places and educated on how to best capture them by two extremely passionate photographers with hard earned local knowledge and a committed relationship to this landscape! Both Luke and Paul have been involved in many conservation campaigns to educate and inspire the protection one of the most astonishing jewels of wild landscapes left in the world – takayna.

Dates	24th – 28th February 2023
Workshop Start	Hobart and Launceston, Tasmania
Workshop Base	Arthur River, Tasmania
Group Size	5-7 Participants
Fitness Level	A basic level of fitness is required
Experience Level	Beginner / Intermidiate / Advanced

Once we settle into our accommodation right on the edge of the Arthur River, we will assess which of the incredibly varied set of locations nearby will best suit relative to the wind, sea, tide, weather, and lighting conditions at the time. This is perhaps a little unusual relative to a fixed itinerary, but we can assure you that this is a massive benefit to our experience.

The weather in Tasmania is highly changeable, especially on the wild west coast, and your leaders are experts at reading weather conditions across the state. By being flexible we can ensure you the highest chance of being at the best location in the most ideal conditions. We will coach you on how we read the conditions to make the best possible judgement, using essential planning skills that you can take away and use to plan your own shoots!

Some of the target locations we may visit during the trip are listed below, which will be prioritised relative to which best align to the conditions at the time.

*The Arthur River Cruise is an optional extra that is weather and operator dependent

This experience is all about being in the best place at the ideal time to create the most impactful and powerful imagery we can. We will review the conditions on an hour-by-hour basis and use that information to make the best judgement of which location we target.

Again, as this is an active photography workshop, the leaders will be there shooting next to you and can assist with composition choices and setup in the field, as well as postproduction and image critique back at base.

We will prioritise the magic hours earlier in the morning and later in the evening (sunsets are particularly relevant for the west coast) but will also shoot during the day if the conditions work for us. Overcast and still conditions are ideal for the nearby rainforest areas for instance.

As conditions present themselves over the course of the trip, we will have the potential to explore a wide range of photographic genres including:

Our accommodation base is at the Arthur River Lodge, nestled along the banks of the beautiful, tannin-stained Arthur River that emerges onto the wild west coast from deep in the rainforest hinterland. The base is fantastically situated, being right on the rugged takayna coast at the ‘Edge of the World’, yet it’s only a short drive from incredible regions of old growth Tasmanian rainforest, part of the largest temperate rainforest in the Southern Hemisphere.

The lodge is well appointed with two cooking areas, two bathrooms, two separate lounge areas and plenty of room to set up for processing your images between location shoots.

Due to the remote nature of our accommodation and very limited local infrastructure, it’s not realistic or possible for us to eat out for all our meals. We will provide continental breakfast each day, some snacks and one dinner and lunch out as part of the trip cost, but the rest of the meals you will need to create independently.

We will be assisting guests with purchasing their own food for three dinners and three lunches, and we will provide ample opportunity to visit supermarkets for everyone to stock up. Guests will cook their own meals in the two separate kitchens at the accommodation, and we may even eat the meals out on location depending on where we go. The leaders will provide meal suggestions for those that need a little help.

This workshop prioritises photography and this approach ensures we can be in the right place at the right time to make the best possible images in this remote and very special location.

We will conveniently have two participant meeting locations; one located in Hobart, and one located in Launceston. Please note the embark/disembark times below.

Ensure your flights arrive with sufficient buffer time to arrive at the meeting location well on time. The meeting location will be provided during the information sessions.

Meeting Location	Embark	Disembark
Hobart CBD	Friday 24th February at 8:00 am	Tuesday 28th February at 4:00 pm
Launceston CBD	Friday 24th February at 12:00pm	Tuesday 28th February at 12:00pm

How does booking with a deposit work?

You can choose to pay either a $500 deposit or the full cost at time of booking.

If you book your place via a $500 deposit, you will be required to pay the remainder on or before Wed 25th January 2023 (30 days prior to the event). If you don’t pay by this time you may forfeit your booking. We will discuss this with you before anything serious happens.

Read our Terms and Conditions for more detail.

How does a couple booking work?

We have provided a discount for those that book as a couple. Please select a quantity of two when purchasing as a couple. If you would like to book each of your positions separately please let us know in advance via email.

As we have limited rooms it is important to note that a couple booking acknowledges you will be sharing a Queen bed with each other.

What happens after I book?

After booking, guests will receive a booking form requesting relevant information required to attend. Your information will always be treated with the strictest privacy.
As the workshop dates approach, we will send out further information including what to bring and meal ideas.
We will also hold a short zoom information session where participants can ask questions and be provided any extra detail required.
When you are picked up at the start of the experience we will provide you with a paper copy of a waiver that is required to be signed to participate.

What is your COVID-19 policy?

Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, the leaders naturally require anyone feeling ill to cancel their booking. If you notify us in writing that you are cancelling for this reason and provide us with a doctor’s certificate verifying your potential symptoms, you will be issued a full refund or can have the payment transferred as credit to another event.

Above all, we encourage responsibility for your own health and for the protection of others.

Read our Terms and Conditions for more detail.

More information can be found in our Terms and Conditions