About Master Macro with Martyn

Photo workshop in Dumaguete

After a long wait, 2022 sees Martyn return to the Philippines, and an area he loves. Atmosphere resort in Dumaguete is well known to seasoned photographers and dive staff that know intimately what subject is hot and where to find them. You can log a lot of hours underwater here. The diving day offers plenty of scheduled departures, with the option to add extra shore dives or night dives. Most diving is by boat and sites are rarely more than 5-10 minutes from the resort. Atmosphere resort has an excellent purpose built camera room and TV screen for presentations and is conveniently placed directly opposite the dive centre.

Goals of the trip

This holiday will enable guests to brush up on and learn new macro skills, including various lighting techniques, snooting and super macro. This is an outstanding muck diving location and with a day at Apo Island included, you will hone your turtle reef shots on a wide angle day.

Your workshop includes 24 boat dives plus free nitrox (3 dives/day plus 1 day Apo reef). On your no fly day there is a chance to take land shots with a trip to the Malatapay Farmer Market included.

May is the key month for frogfish, when they become very active - big, small, painted, hairy or giant... May is frogfish month! It's also a wonderful time for pipefish. If you have longed to photograph ghost pipefish, don't miss this workshop! Either individually or in small groups, pipefish are seen hovering around coral heads or tucked in behind sponges. Year round you will find all manner of nudis - in every shape, size and colour. Philippines favourites abound - octopus, Nudibranchs, Rhinopia, anenome fish,as well as shoals of Batfish.

With hands on instruction through group image reviews and evening presentations as well as underwater instruction for those needing it everyone will have the opportunity to return with a great portfolio.

Who is this workshop suitable for?

With only 10 participants, this workshop delivers quality instruction as well as a large number of dives. It trip is aimed at intermediate underwater photographers upwards. You will have some experience with a camera underwater and ideally will be using a mirrorless or DSLR camera set up. You don't have to be a pro already! But you will be looking to expand on your existing skills as well as learn some new ones. Go beyond the simple fish ID record shots. Martyn will help take your photography to the next level.

As Martyn says, from my experience of going on these type of trips over the years you get out what you put in but having said that the guests are on holiday so if they prefer to nod off during a talk or not turn up because they didn't wake up after the last dive! its not an issue for me. The other point to make is that this is a trip for photographers so the resort and I will ensure that we are in our own designated boats and put on the right sites at the right time of day and that we repeat the dive as many times as we want to if necessary so that we get the very best opportunity to build a great portfolio of images.