Photo Expedition PenedaGerês National Park

Photo Expedition PenedaGerês National Park

This 3-day expedition will take you through one of the most beautiful mountain ranges of Portugal - The Peneda-Gerês National Park. Is a region of tremendous beauty, with breathtaking landscapes and well preserved habitats.
If you are a beginner and if you don't know how to use your camera in manual mode, please let us know after you book the expedition. We can schedule a video call to teach you the basics of photography. During this expedition you will learn various landscape and wildlife photography techniques. If you are already an experienced photographer, we'll discuss more advanced techniques. I will guide you through amazing rugged rocky mountains, crystal clear rivers with incredible waterfalls and magical pristine forests full of wildlife.
At the end you’ll have beautiful images of unique landscapes and hopefully of emblematic animals. The workshop is ideal not only for beginners, who seek to improve their work, but also for experienced photographers looking for someone to guide them through the beautiful Portuguese nature.

Itinerary

Day 1: Under The Stars, Surrounded By Nature
All the participants should arrive in the morning at our "base camp", the Parque Cerdeira, where we'll be staying and eating during the 3 days.
After a convivial lunch it’s time for a briefing, where I’ll explain the scheduled activities for each day and I’ll give you some other useful information.
Before the sun sets, we’ll scout the area around Vilarinho das Furnas lagoon and prepare everything for the night session. Knowing how to scout an area and prepare the image beforehand is a very important skill, because it definitely makes a huge difference in your work. After dinner we go out again to photograph the wonderful mountains and night sky, while we listen to the relaxing sounds of nature.

Day 2: In the land of wolves and wild goats
For the second day it’s programmed not only more landscape photography, but also a lot of wildlife photography. This day is reserved for one of my favourite hikes ever, the Carris hiking trail. We are going to start in the morning because we have some distance to cover, about 13 km. This region is so beautiful and biodiverse; hopefully we will see a lot of wildlife, including raptors, the iconic Iberian ibex and the Iberian wolf. These two last species are not easy to observe, especially the wolf is quite inconspicuous, but there's always some probability of photographing or seeing them. We will walk at a slow pace to avoid spooking any animal and we will stop often to look for them, that’s why we need all day.
At the sunset, we still have time to photograph the imposing landscape that follows us throughout the hike and if conditions are favourable expect great photos of this place. After that we go back to the base camp to have dinner and rest for the next day.

Day 3: Ancient forests and stunning waterfalls
During the morning we are going to visit the oldest forest of the country, the perfect place for woodland and wildlife photography. This place is absolutely magical and this trip wouldn’t be completed without visiting it. The forest is home to squirrels, many species of amphibians, roe deer, wild boar, reptiles as the water lizard, foxes, woodpeckers, the Portuguese wild horse and many more. Here you can expect beautiful mountain rivers with gorgeous waterfalls, great for long exposure photography.
After lunch we are going to do a critique of the photos we have taken during the 3 days, to analyse which aspects can be improved.
Finally, as a farewell, before sunset we will photograph another extraordinary landscape, that few people have the opportunity to see.