Our Approach — X-PEDITIONS

Our Teaching Approach

At X-Peditions, our focus is on helping you to become a more complete photographer.

We’ll help you to see and understand light. And just as important, we’ll show you how to make your camera record light more closely to the way you experience it.

We’ll also push you to look for more layered compositions. Because this is how we move past the quick-read, eye-candy photos and start making images that can better hold a viewer’s attention.

But photography is about more than just being a good camera operator. So we also focus on developing better instincts and interpersonal skills.

Having good instincts can get you to the right place at the right time. We like to think of this process as building a sail to catch good luck. Interpersonal skills help you to better engage with your subjects, even across language barriers.

Together, these soft skills allow you to get into the right spots and then nurture the moments that lead to more meaningful photos.

A camera is just a black box that records an experience. So as photographers, our goal is always to create better experiences, which lead to better photos, which in turn help to lock in the memories of those experiences.

This is the positive feedback loop that will make you both a better traveler and a better photographer.

Working in this way can yield photos that are more intimate and meaningful. You tend to work in closer when shooting, rather then sniping people from a distance with a longer lens. You’re more engaged with your subjects, and your photos are more likely to reflect those personal connections.

As visual people, we can show you better than we can tell you. Download our 2022 X-Peditions photo book (180mb, Google Drive) to see some of the student work from last fall. As you look through the pages, think about the circumstances under which some of the photos would have been made.

When you see a photo that resonates, don’t think, “What lens were they using? And what were their camera settings?”

Instead think, “What thought process did that photographer use to end up in that spot, in that time, to have a shot at making that image?”

Because that’s what photography is really about. It’s not about megapixels, or maximum apertures, or frames per second. It’s about working, all of the time, to solve the little dynamic puzzle that puts you in the right place at the right time. It’s about always being a thinking photographer.

Just so other people will look at your photos and say, “That guy’s so lucky. I coulda taken that shot.”

“It is not just a workshop, it is meeting new friends and practicing a new philosophy of photography.”

— Dietrich Grimme, Germany

“David is like your favorite teacher in high school.”

— Larry Mah, USA

Photo at top: Martin Stephens (X-Pedition Havana ’19, Hanoi ’19, Hanoi ’22) is reflected in a dressing room mirror as he photographs backstage at the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre in Hanoi.