UWT NAD Lembeh Photo Workshop 2019 Trip Report

We are happy to report that we have recently wrapped up another fantastic Lembeh Photo Workshop 2019 at NAD Lembeh Resort! 2019 marked our 7th Annual Photo Workshop and 4th with Adobe wizard Doug Sloss. Once again we hosted a 7 night/17 dive week of fun and great diving.

This year’s event ran from the 27th of July to the 4th of August with 17 wonderful guests. This year we welcomed folks from: Australia, France, Germany, the U.S., South Africa, Italy, and the U.K. We were happy to welcome back many return guests who have joined us in Lembeh many times over the years. We were also happy to see many new faces this year who we hope will also become returnees! NAD is the perfect host for a photo workshop with a large camera room with loads of space. The camera room is the perfect spot for presentations too. No time was wasted as everyone could work on their housings while listening.

Our schedule for the week:

Saturday – arrival day, everyone met in the bar for an introduction and run down of how everything would be run. Everyone introduced themselves and we enjoyed a slideshow of critters of Lembeh by NAD owner Simon.

Sunday – 2 morning dives, return to the resort for lunch, short presentation in the camera room.  Third dive, post processing and photo critiquing/question and answer period in the camera room. Amazing BBQ night by the fantastic service team at the resort

Monday – 2 morning dives, return to the resort for lunch, short presentation in the camera room. Third dive, black water photo techniques and photo critiquing/question and answer period in the camera room. Optional black water dive for night divers. Dinner

Tuesday – 2 morning dives, return to the resort for lunch, short presentation in the camera room. Third dive, post processing and photo critiquing/question and answer period in the camera room. Optional black water dive for night divers. Dinner

Wednesday – 2 morning dives, return to the resort for lunch, short presentation in the camera room. Third dive, post processing and photo critiquing/question and answer period in the camera room. Optional black water dive for night divers. Dinner

Thursday – 2 morning dives, return to the resort for lunch, short presentation in the camera room. Third dive, post processing and photo critiquing/question and answer period in the camera room. Optional black water dive for night divers. Dinner

Friday 2 morning dives, return to the resort for lunch. Gear drying or continue diving for those who are staying longer. Afternoon spent optimizing images and submitting for the slideshow. Evening slideshow and final goodbye and thank you speeches. Social activity in the bar followed by another amazing BBQ presented by Tommy and his kitchen/restaurant staff.

Saturday – departure day

What Our Lembeh Photo Workshop 2019 Entailed

Our main goal each year is to host a fun and informative workshop that anyone can attend. Both beginner photographers and experienced ones enjoy our events. We offer a relaxed atmosphere so every participant can learn at their own pace without pressure. This year we had a mix of people from advanced photographers to those using their camera for the first time. As always, we started the week with a rundown of basic macro settings and strobe position. Adobe guru Doug Sloss introduced everyone to effective Lightroom techniques on the first day as well. Once everyone was on the right path, we introduced new ideas each day. Topics discussed included shooting bokeh, effective black backgrounds using edge lighting, slow shutter speeds, and more!

Underwater, we conduct our workshops differently than most. All 3 instructors dive without a camera and spend every dive with participants. The instructors carry slates in their hands to communicate and give immediate feedback where it counts most, underwater! We break the participants into 3 groups with one instructor on each boat. With the 2:1 guest to guide ratio that NAD offers, everyone enjoyed incredible personal attention underwater throughout the week.

The Stars of the Show

The list of critters this year was off the charts. We concentrated on the dive sites with the highest critter counts. We also returned to several a second time later in the week. With new ideas and confidence as the week went by, everyone welcomed the chance to visit sites a second time.  Iconic Lembeh regulars like the hairy frogfish are the perfect model to put theoretical ideas into use. Hairy frogfish, rhinopia, coleman shrimp, mimic octopus, wonderpus, pygmy seahorses, all kinds of frogfish, coconut octopus, and several encounters with blue ring octopus are a few of the highlights. Everyone was able to capture amazing images of all of these creatures and a whole lot more. The end of week slideshow was a showcase of great images and amazing critter encounters.

Have a look at the following gallery for amazing images from our attendees. Click on the thumbnail to see it full size.

We would like to thank everyone who took time to join us this year in the Lembeh Strait. This was a great trip and we look forward to seeing everyone’s images on social media for weeks to come. We will be releasing information about the 8th Annual Underwater Tribe Lembeh Photo Workshop soon, stay tuned for more details!

We will be announcing the dates for the 2020 Workshop on our Blog.