SPIRIT OF PLACE:
SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE
Santa Fe Workshops
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
Travel/Destination Workshop
October 26 - 30, 2026
Revitalize your photography while exploring your relationship to your subject, your camera and yourself. This workshop is about integrating (or even finding) your spiritual practice with your photography practice. Through very specific photo exercises, assignments, readings and even writing exercises, along with daily field trips, participants will learn to deepen their visual awareness while clarifying their approach, making their images both more personal and more meaningful. And often more powerful as well.
More info below…
Revitalize your photography while exploring your relationship to your subject, your camera and yourself. This workshop is about integrating (or even finding) your spiritual practice with your photography practice. Through very specific photo exercises, assignments, readings and even writing exercises, along with daily field trips, participants will learn to deepen their visual awareness while clarifying their approach, making their images both more personal and more meaningful. And often more powerful as well.
This workshop provides a unique opportunity to rethink our expectations of what it means to 'see'. We will work on cultivating simplicity, supporting the notion that a photograph is not 'taken' but rather ‘made’. The image makers mindset and inner landscape are just as important as the outer stimulus or chosen subject. We become better photographers by becoming more in touch with ourselves and then use that awareness to deepen our connection with our subject, whether it’s a person, place, or thing.
This is a challenging invitation to redefine not only what is personally suitable subject matter but our whole approach to image making. Inspiration will be sparked by a balance of conversation, meditation, demos, critiques, shared readings, poetry or whatever means necessary. Photographic exercises, assignments and critiques will be a big part of this experience. They will be site specific and are concerned with both internal and external experience and growth. Most afternoons will be spent in the field with Doug on daily photo adventures.
If you’ve taken Doug’s popular Zen & the Art of Photography class in the past and want to revisit the concepts and exercises this will be the perfect place to delve back in. You don’t have a Zen practice or have any spiritual practice at all to benefit from this workshop. You just need to show up and be curious.
The beautiful colonial mountain town of San Miguel de Allende and the dramatic surrounding countryside will play a big part in this workshop with our daily field trips. Our workshop will be held at Hotel Posada de la Aldea, the headquarters of Santa Fe Workshops, the country’s premier workshop center, with a staff that is second to none. This is a week of total immersion in your own artistic development.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND: While participants must have a working knowledge of their camera, the creative process of image making will be emphasized over the mechanics of camera use. Both digital and film, in all formats, welcome. Open to all levels of experience but better suited to those looking to expand their creativity and vision.
CLASS LIMIT: 12 students
DATES: October 26 - 30, 2026. Workshop begins Monday morning October 26, 2026 and ends Friday evening October 30, 2026
COST: $2,995 includes tuition, lodging and most meals
DEPOSIT: $1,500
REGISTRATION: please contact Santa Fe Workshops or info@santafeworkshops.com
FOR MORE INFORMATION: https://santafeworkshops.com/workshop/spirit-of-place-san-miguel-de-allende-2/
STUDENT TESTIMONIALS FROM THIS WORKSHOP
“Thanks for a life-changing workshop experience. I know my “extra” week in San Miguel de Allende was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. You should know “spontaneous” is not a usual mode for me. I am working to stay in the zen place you brought me to.”
— Ann Howley, Culver City, CA
“I’ve had time to reflect a bit on your class and I wanted to thank you again for such a wonderful week! What a blessing that you generously share so much of yourself, your talent, experience and wisdom... I feel richer as a photographer and richer as a person from the experience last week.”
– Kathy Oliver, Houston, TX
“I have been thinking of you lately and feeling so grateful for your class. I have grown so much thanks to your guidance. With your class I am in love with photography again.”
– Susan Boe, Santa Fe, NM
“I found your workshop to be very expansive to my way of viewing and potentially creating photos. “This way of seeing is just a glimpse now, but I hope to continue to develop that part of me. Which I think is actually just letting my authentic voice/vision be heard instead of stifled by how I think I should be photographing. Thank you for creating an open and supportive atmosphere.”
– Mary Lynn Sasso, Kensington, CA
