Photography Workshop by Kayak in Sweden
5 days of photography workshops in stunning settings around the Saint Anna Archipelagos in Sweden
What's Included?
Small ‘Like-minded’ Groups
Solo-friendly by design, our small n’ sociable groups of up to 8 like-minded, active and outdoorsy people…
Take your photography to the next level whilst kayaking around the stunning archipelago of Saint Anna with expert photography and kayaking guides.
Try your hand at capturing the stars learning night photography skills: no light pollution to worry about out here.
Combine your love of photography and adventure, as you wild camp on remote islands and fall asleep to the sound of the water.
Key Information
Day 1
The basics of photography
Start your photographic expedition getting to know your group over lunch and ensuring your camera is all set up. As you set off paddling into the maze of islands, your expert photograher Rob will show you how to get comfortable with photographing scenes from the kayaks. You also have a kayaking guide to show you the basics of kayaking if you're new to paddling. Double kayaks are really easy to get the hang of and very stable.
The first camp is nestled amongst clusters of islands and islets in one of the most stunning settings in Sweden. The day ends with a delicious dinner and share stories as darkness falls over the archipelago.
Day 2
Developing your creative eye
The day starts by discussing the different elements of photography over fresh coffee and learning how you can creatively manipulate those elements to enhance your images. After launching the kayaks, you'll paddle through the outer edge of the archipelago with its barren islets and endless blue horizon. Keep your eyes peeled for interesting birdlife, as you put your new skills into practice.
By late afternoon, you arrive at a beautiful forested island which will be your base camp for the rest of the time on the water: an ideal spot near fantastic locations to explore. If the skies are clear, there is an opportunity to try your hand with night sky photography as the sun sets.
Day 3
Exploring different styles
We’re off on a big paddle today! First exploring the lookout Kupa Klint, which offers amazing opportunities for Landscape and Macro photography. Then onto St. Tallskär, arguably one of the most beautiful and wild islands in the archipelago. Here we experiment with Portraiture and Adventure photographic styles. We continue our learning process of how to approach a scene or subject, and explore the compositions available through our lens.
As we paddle back towards base camp, we watch as the sun begins to set and the character of the light creates a different mood in our images. Back at camp, we enjoy dinner and some rest. This is our last evening in the wild and we try our hand at night photography, astro photography, light painting and night portraiture.
Day 4
The final edit
Pack down the camp and head back towards the mainland for a little luxury after your days in the wild. For your final night, you'll stay in charming cabins by the water with full amenities. After lunch, you'll sit down as a team to process your images. Your guide will show you all the steps involved in post-production, from importing, editing and presets to exporting and posting. You'll spend the evening reviewing your pictures, play around with edits, critique each others work and have one last meal as a team to reminisce over the trip.
Day 5
Farewell to the archipelago
After a lie-in and a leisurely breakfast, the pickup crew will come get you around 10:30 and take you back to Norrköping. If you have some extra time before heading home, we really recommend wandering around the historic industrial landscape in Norrköping. The old factory buildings along the river and all the locks, waterfalls and bridges make for excellent compositions too!
Day 1
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Day 2 – Day 3
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Day 4
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Day 5
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
What is the food like?
Fact - food always tastes better in the wild. You’ll cook delicious meals together as a team, using lots of typical Swedish ingredients, with the menu planned by our own wilderness chef. Vegans and vegetarians can be catered for and if you have any other dietary requests, just let us know beforehand and we will do our best to accommodate them.
What is the accommodation like?
Wild Camping
You'll spend the first four nights wild camping on remote islands. You'll sleep in Hilleberg’s sturdiest and highest quality free-standing tents - either solo or twin share depending on your preference. You’re also provided with Haglöf sleeping bags.
Included in the price is an inflatable, insulated sleeping mat to ensure a good night’s sleep, plus some handy extras to help you feel more at home in the wilderness, including a thermarest foam pillow and a comfy camping chair. This is wild camping in luxury!
Cabin
On your final night, you'll sleep in small cabins by the water, with full amenities. The cabins have single or twin rooms, with two people per cabin (shared bathroom).
The Area
Logistics
Starts
Norrköping Train Station, or your hotel in Norrköping
10:00 on Day 1
Ends
Norrköping Train Station, or your hotel in Norrköping
17:00 on Day 5
Transfers
Norrköping is the major hub of the area. Your host will pick you up at 10.00 from either Norrköping Train Station, or your hotel. It’s a beautiful city to spend the night before your adventure. At the end of your trip, your host will drop you back at either Norrköping Train Station, or your hotel at around 16:30-17:00.
It is very easy to get to the meeting point from the airport from whichever airport you fly in to. For example:
From Stockholm Skavsta Direct bus transfer 55 mins to Norrköping
From Stockholm Arlanda Direct train 2 hours to Norrköping
Travel options
The closest airports are Stockholm Linköping and Stockholm Skavsta, but you can also fly to Stockholm Arlanda or Copenhagen. Stockholm Arlanda is Sweden’s main airport and served by all major airlines. Your host can help you plan your journey from the airport to start point.
Enjoy 12.5% Off Outdoor Gear
In need of a few more items? All bookings receive a 12.5% discount to use at Cotswold Outdoor, Snow + Rock and Runner's Need.
What's included?
Everything you'll need for camping and kayaking
What do I need to bring?
A couple of sets of clothing, shoes for water & land, towel & swimwear. Sunglasses, sun cap, sun block & toiletries. DSLR camera and a laptop if you have one (for the post production workshop)
No optional extras are available for this trip.
From booking to the end of the trip the communication, guides, food, kit, attention to detail were brilliant. A beautiful part of the world to see by kayak, with a business that has incredible attention to detail to ensure an amazing time. Brilliant guides, food, photography support. Amazing
I had to wait 2 years (due to the pandemic) to finally go on this trip in 2022 and I'm glad that I waited - it was an amazing adventure from start to finish. The company managing the trip has nailed all the logistics and you just feel very looked after every step of the way.
The food was definitely a highlight and exceeded my expectations. Knowing it was wild camping I wasn't expecting much but we got some amazing meals with fresh ingredients the whole way through.
The photography aspect was great as well, with Rob giving the group little exercises every day to help you "see" the amazing environment through many different perspectives. What you shoot from day to day will be highly weather dependent but we were blessed by good weather most of the trip. Expect less "shoot this thing" and more guidance on how to find your own creativity and style.
The kayaking wasn't very strenuous at all - from what I remember the longest day was 4 hours of kayaking but mostly was just a couple of hours a day at an easy pace.
A shout out to the guides as they really made the trip something very special. Both Rob and Audrey were amazing - super patient with everyone and made sure to spend enough time with everyone individually to make sure that you were getting what you wanted out of the trip.
All in all I think the trip is great value and I don't think many people would regret booking this adventure!
This is an amazing trip! I am so happy I decided to book. Our guides were the best, couldn’t have asked for better! From the photography workshops to sitting around a stove cooking meals, it was a fantastic experience!
An amazing experience. Combining the adventure of kayaking and wild camping with photography was a real winner for me.
Every member of the team was passionate about the company and I would like to thank everyone from the driver who picked us up from the hotel, Helena who remained in touch after my booking to our guides for the trip Lovisa and Rob.
The trip was a good mix of adventure, paddling and photography and I learned lots of new skills to practice at home and on future adventures.
We partner with the World Land Trust to ensure this trip achieves Net-Zero emissions. We also support their Buy an Acre programme, helping local communities to buy and protect natural habitats in perpetuity.
What's the number?
It works out on average at 70kg of CO2 emissions per person, including all local transport, accommodation, food, activities, guides, staff and office operations.
The only thing it doesn’t include right now is flights and travel to the destination. We do make an overall estimate across all our customers separately, but as we don’t book flights, have customers from all corners of the world, and no way of reliably knowing their travel plans, we simply can’t include an individual number in the figure on display here. We’ve got a goal to fix that, so that when you book, there is a way to measure and mitigate the carbon emitted by your flight too.
But what does the number mean?
Yep, hard to picture eh? To give you an idea:
- Driving 1000miles/1609km would be approx. 281kg of CO2 in an average car (or 140.5kg per person if there was 2 of you in it).
- A return economy class flight London - New York would be approx. 1,619kg (1.66 tonnes) per person.
- 10 trees in a temperate forest are estimated to remove approx. 250kg of CO2 from the air in a period of 5-10 years.
What are we doing about it?
Our trips are relatively low-carbon by design, and we're working with all our hosts to develop long term carbon reduction plans. We partner with the World Land Trust to ensure this trip achieves Net-Zero emissions. We also support their Buy an Acre programme, helping local communities to buy and protect natural habitats in perpetuity, ensuring the protection of the reserve and its wildlife.
Want to know more?
Amazingly, no international travel company has ever publicly published their carbon measurements before, as far as we know. We believe that must change, quickly. So we’re openly sharing the method we used in the hope that other companies will be able to more easily follow suit and build on what we've done so far. You'll find it all here.
Photography: The trip is suitable for all levels from amateurs to experienced photographers. Individuals can all learn new skills at their own pace.
Kayaking: You must be able to swim and have a taste for adventure. Kayaking beginners are most welcome. The trip is not very physically strenuous: you'll focus most of your time on photography and the distances covered are relatively short. Appr. 2.5-4 hours of paddling per day with breaks for workshops. You'll be in double kayaks which are very stable as easy to use. Weight limit: 120 kilo per person.
A DSLR camera is a must, bring a laptop for post-production if you have one. Otherwise we’ll have laptops to share.
The photography element of this trip is lead by the very accomplished photographer Rob Mcnamee. He is renowned for leading arctic wilderness and northern lights photography excursions in northern Sweden, and is now bringing his expert workshop approach for this photography adventure in Saint Anna.
Rob has fully immersed himself in a Scandinavian wilderness lifestyle. Originally from the UK, he has spent many years guiding multi-day kayaking expeditions in the Saint Anna and Gryt archipelagos. In the wintertime, he lives 200 km inside the arctic circle, leading photography tours in Abisko.
After completing a degree in Film Production and Photography, he worked for several years as a Director of Photography for an environmental film company. The next natural step was combining his two true passions – nature and photography!
Rob is also an experienced wilderness cook, forager and woodcarver. His love for photography and the outdoors is truly contagious, and spending time with him in the wild is always a fun and inspiring experience.
Sure can! Over 70% of our travellers travel solo, it’s a great way to meet like-minded people.
The beginning of September offers the ultimate warm light for taking photos in the archipelago. Also, sunrise and sunset times are perfect for capturing golden hour, blue hour and night sky photography.
Yes. Any excess luggage can be safely left with your local host at the launch point.
Your host will pick you up from any hotel/hostel/airbnb in Norrköping. However they recommend:
_The Lamp Hotel
This chic little hotel in a refurbished 18th-century building has a great atmosphere. It’s located 700 meters from the train station, and also offers spa services and a great restaurant. Breakfast is included. All rooms are equipped with shower & WC, TV and Wi-Fi.
Pronova Hostel
This hostel is a more budget alternative, 1.4 kilometres from the train station. It’s located right in the city centre in the historic “Industrial Landscape” with great views of the river and the old magnificent factory buildings and chimneys. All rooms have TV and Wi-Fi. En suite or shared shower & WC. Self-serving breakfast buffet included.
Our recommended travel insurance provider is Campbell Irvine.
Travel insurance is compulsory for all of our adventures and you are required to provide your policy information before departing.
Your insurance should include adequate protection for overseas medical treatment, evacuation/repatriation, your baggage and equipment and the specific activities involved on your adventure. We also strongly recommend it includes cancellation and curtailment insurance, should you be unable to join your trip for specific reasons such as illness.
We fully endorse Campbell Irvine as their insurance offers all of the above, so get in touch with them or call on 020 7938 1734 to get your insurance sorted. We suggest that you book travel insurance as soon as you book your adventure, just to cover you for any last-minute life changes. We know you’re an active lot and injuries do happen!
We automatically convert prices from the local currency that a host receives to your chosen currency. We update our exchange rates on a daily basis so this does mean that prices displayed on the site are subject to currency fluctuations, which is why you may see them change over time.
If you wish to change the currency you pay in, head to the bottom of the page.
All of our group adventures are specially designed for adults to enjoy (18+) as we want these adventures to bring together outdoorsy people who are truly like-minded. Children can be accommodated on some private departures.
You're always in good company on one of our adventures.
Our trips are typically made up of a mixture of solo travellers and small groups of 2 or 3 friends, with most in their 30s-50s.
Our sociable adventures are solo-friendly by design and naturally attract outdoorsy people with a shared mindset; a love for adventure, a desire to push themselves and meet awesome, like-minded people along the way.
It’s this camaraderie that has so often turned a great adventure into a life-changing one.
Don't just take our word for it:
- 95% of people rate the group dynamics on our trips 5/5
- 90% of people recommend joining a trip to make new friends
- 75% of people have met people on our trips that they would now consider friends
See here for more info about the Much Better Adventures tribe.
Interested in a more exclusive experience? Opt for a 'Private Group' through the dates and prices tab to book this adventure for just you and your chosen companions.
Our team of Adventure Hunters create exclusive adventures with highly vetted, specialist hosts. We only work with independent, local in-destination experts who know the very best places to explore and how to stay safe. See here for more info about the local teams we partner with.
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Secure your spot with the minimum deposit and pay off the remaining balance in as many instalments as you like, with no interest or fees.
Happiness Guarantee
We’re so confident you’ll have an amazing time we’ll put our money on it.
Full financial protection
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We’re rated ‘Excellent’ on Trustpilot with over 900 verified trip reviews averaging 4.8/5.
Connect before you go
You'll be invited to join a WhatsApp group to get to know each other before your big adventure together.
DEPARTURE DATES
Go private and split the bill with ease.
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