Paris and the Châteaux of the Loire

June 3, 2025: Arrive in Paris this morning and transfer to our hotel. We will meet for introductions in the afternoon and to discuss our workshop activities over the coming days. Our dinner tonight will be at a uniquely Parisian restaurant, once a worker’s canteen and now an authentic brasserie offering the simplest of French cooking in fabulous art nouveau decor surroundings. After dinner, we’ll go out for our first evening photoshoot of some iconic street scenes around Montmartre before retiring for an early night.

June 4, 2025: An early start to photograph sunrise over the city from the panoramic vantage point of the Sacré-Coeur nearby. We’ll take advantage of the quiet of the morning to photograph the Basilica before breakfast. Later, we’ll join the bustle of the Place du Tertre, where dozens of professional artists and cartoonists will be at work. We’ll spend a few hours seeing a little of Paris from below in the afternoon. Some of the stations on the capital’s subway system (known as the métro ) are design works of art and make interesting photographic subjects. Our dinner tonight will be at a railway station restaurant—but this is no ordinary rail station restaurant. Le Train Bleu is one of France’s most stately and extravagant dining rooms, with its magnificent gold leaf and crystal Belle Epoque interior, and first-class gastronomic cuisine. After a leisurely dinner, we’ll enjoy a long-exposure evening shoot at the Arc de Triomphe and on the Champs-Elysées.

June 5, 2025: We’ll set out early this morning for a sunrise shoot from the Trocadéro, with the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop. After breakfast, we’ll head out again to the magnificent Opéra Garnier, the French National Opera building, and afterward venture into one of Paris’ smaller neighborhoods. Footbridges arch gracefully over the Canal Saint-Martin. Rue Montorgueil, one of Paris’ oldest streets, is vibrant, cheery, and bursting with some of the city’s finest food markets and pastry shops. After a café lunch, we’ll return to the hotel for some rest before heading out later to photograph one of the most picturesque churches in the city, Saint Chapelle. Dinner will be at another traditional Parisian restaurant on the Ile de la Cité. A short stroll after dinner will take us to a great riverside vantage point to photograph Notre Dame cathedral in evening and sunset light, and then to the Louvre museum, where the magnificent Renaissance-era buildings are beautifully illuminated at night, juxtaposed with the modern and spectacular glass pyramid.

June 6, 2025: An early start to go to the Pont des Arts to shoot sunrise over the Ile de la Cité, with the newly-restored roof of Notre Dame taking center stage. For the remainder of the morning, we’ll be busy exploring the river bank, including the Louvre Museum, the Musée d’Orsay, Invalides, and a number of the ornate bridges over the Seine. We’ll capture the magnificent old and new architecture around these landmark places. We’ll stroll through the Tuileries Gardens to enjoy the fountains, stone sculptures, manicured lawns, and colorful flower beds of the largest public park in Paris. We’ll take some time out in the afternoon before an image review session at the hotel. Dinner is at an iconic art deco restaurant near the modern Montparnasse Tower, where we’ll ascend 56 floors for a rooftop view of the city and its landmarks for sunset photography.

June 7, 2025: This morning is well-earned free time after breakfast and checkout. We will leave Paris for the Loire Valley late morning, stopping for an early lunch and arriving there in the mid-afternoon. Along the way, we’ll stop at one of France’s “most beautiful villages”, a small riverside medieval village, for some walkabout photography centered around the ruins of an eleventh-century castle. Onwards to our hotel for the next three nights, which is, in fact, a beautifully renovated château itself, located not far from the Château de Chenonceau, where we will have our golden hour shoot this evening.

June 8, 2025: Sunrise at the magnificent 16th century Château de Chambord, followed by a morning visit to the more modest Château de Cheverny, which has remained in the same family’s ownership for over six centuries. During the afternoon, we’ll have an opportunity to rest and then hold our second image review. Later in the afternoon, we will drive to our third location, Château de Chaumont.

June 9, 2025: We’ll shoot sunrise from the river at Château de Chenoceau, and after breakfast, head to Château d’Ussé, the castle that inspired the tale of Sleeping Beauty. We’ll break the day up with a tutored Loire wine tasting and picnic lunch among the vines near the town of Chinon before visiting two further distinctive castles – Azay-le-Rideau and Château de Villandry, with their resplendent and beautifully kept gardens.

June 10, 2025: A final sunrise shoot at Château de Chaumont from the river bank. After breakfast, we’ll check out and return to Paris, arriving just before lunch.