Finding our style. Developing our unique vision. Emerging from the sea of mediocrity.

These are all things that we, as artists, feel like we are required to achieve in order to realize our true self.

And yet, no matter how hard we try, most of the times those lofty goals elude us.

When this happens, we feel that our muse has abandoned us and we fall into a rut. We can't find the motivation to pick up the camera. Our work seems banal and bereft of originality, style or vision.

As Ira Glass once said:

Realizing we all have talent is the first step.

Recognizing the existence of the gap is next,  but that's not enough to overcome it.

In his show, Ira Glass goes on to say that the way to close the gap is to make a lot of work, and he's right. As others would say, you got to practice, practice, practice.

Malcolm Gladwell famously wrote that you need 10,000 hours of deliberate practice before you can be really proficient at any specialized skill.

Practice alone, however, can be detrimental if all you do is repeating the same mistakes. According to some studies, four essential requirements must be fulfilled for practice to be effective. Simple repetition of tasks just won't do. They are:

1. You must be motivated to attend to the task and exert effort to improve your performance.
2. The design of the task should take into account your pre-existing knowledge so that the task can be correctly understood after a brief period of instruction.
3. You should receive immediate informative feedback and knowledge of results of your performance.
4. You should repeatedly perform the same or similar tasks.

This all sounds very obvious, but like with physical exercise, it's easy to go all-in at the start, but to lose motivation after a while, especially when you practice on your own, without the encouragement of and even the competition with your peers.

We have designed a special and unique retreat to help you close this gap and reconnect with your muse through the guidance of professional photographers and with the support of your peers.

Finding your vision, reconnecting with your inner artist, and developing your superpowers would be reasons enough to attend our retreat, but there's no better place and time to do it than an idyllic countryside setting in the heart of Tuscany in the spring.

We will host you in a beautiful Tuscan villa, amid vineyards and rows of cypress trees. There, insulated from the maddening crowd and the lure of social media, you will be able to recharge your batteries and refocus, while you live and work together in a community of fellow photographers.

We have planned two separate retreats this year:

We get up in the morning at a leisurely hour and are greeted by a substantial continental breakfast, with coffee, tea, cappuccino, cornetti, fresh fruit juices, and other Italian specialties.

We then have a morning session where we talk about superpowers. Every day we introduce a set of practices and life hacks that will help you develop a specific ability. These include things like boosting your body, mastering your mind, achieving wealth, managing time, and more.

We then have some private time that could be dedicated to relaxation, meditation, exercise or maybe a yoga lesson. This is followed by a light lunch.

The afternoon will consist of a mix of classroom time and time spent outdoors, camera in hand. We will take inspiration from what we discussed earlier in order to practice. We might do a walk in the countryside or visit a nearby medieval village and your mentors will be there to help you with any questions you might have.

On some days, we might do a portrait session instead. The objective there is to empower you to connect with your subject on an emotional level and put them and yourself at ease, in front of and behind the camera.

We then return to our villa for some more relaxation and to take a shower. Then we review the day's work, receive assignments, and prepare our objectives for tomorrow. We think it's important to close each day with a list of things to accomplish on the next day.

At dinner we will savor some of the best Italian cuisine, all prepared on the premises with fresh produce from the local markets, and taste some great local wines.

After dinner, we might have more conversation about photography, but without any pressure to take part in it. We could do portfolio reviews or look at photo books together to gather some inspiration. It's OK if after a long day, someone prefers to retire to their own room, watch TV or read a book.

This program is purely indicative and might change depending on your feedback or on the weather conditions.

When we say this is not a workshop, we mean that there won't be lessons about exposure, focus or the most basic points of technique. We are always on hand to help you with any technical questions you might have, but that is not going to be the focus of our conversations.

You will learn to take photographs and judge them based on their effectiveness in conveying emotions and on their eloquence in telling stories. We will help you create a coherent body of work composed of a coherent series of images.

This doesn't mean there won't be work to do. Remember what we said above about deliberate practice? It is necessary to exert effort to improve your performance and this is what we expect from you. This is why this retreat is not open to anyone, but we select applicants based on their current body of work and their stated commitment to making an effort to get better.

When we are out shooting we will discuss things like aperture and shutter speed only as tools that we need to master in order to convey a feeling or to impart a certain mood to our photos.

On the other hand, there will be plenty of talk about composition, choice of subject, learning to recognize the best light and use it to your advantage.

Our sessions will be a mix of landscape outings, when we go out and discover the amazing Tuscan landscape, and indoors and outdoors portrait shootings.

Italy is rightly famous not only for its rich history, the ancient monuments, and the art that is everywhere abundant, but nowhere more than in Tuscany. It is also a sought-after destination for the quality and the amazing regional variety of food and wine.

A retreat in the heart of Tuscany would not be complete if it didn't allow you to experience some of its best cuisine and of its prized wines.

Thanks to our resident chef, every day you will be served local recipes prepared with fresh, natural products and cooked to perfection in our kitchen. We will of course cater to the needs of vegetarians and people with food intolerances,

It is said that Italians love life and they certainly demonstrate this at the table. Come savor the Dolce Vita with us!

We will host you in a villa is in the vicinity of the medieval city of Pienza, in the heart of the Val d'Orcia region. Our group will have exclusive use of the property (Full Monty program only).

The location is about 120km from Florence and 190km from Rome. If you come from outside Italy, you will probably fly or take a train to one of those two cities. We can arrange transportation, for a fee, to and from the airports and the railway stations of Florence and Rome.