Ten days. One destination. A group small enough that you get real, personal coaching, not lost in a crowd.
Small & Spectacular Workshop — Puerto Galera, Philippines
13-23 May 2027
Scandi Divers, Big La Laguna Beach. Ten nights, 36 guided boat dives including night dives, one destination sitting inside one of only four UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in the Philippines.
This is the only Puerto Galera workshop on the calendar for 2027.
Places are confirmed first-paid, first-confirmed.
3 spots remaining
Email kate@underwaterphotocompany.com to check availability.
Leave as a better underwater photographer
Create images you couldn’t have imagined making before you arrived.
Ten days of structured, personal coaching and focussed time in the water at one of the world’s best macro destinations.
Not rushed. Not generic. Built around your goals, from your very first dive to your last.
Confident in the water. Proud of your photos.
Whether you’re picking up a camera for the first time, you’ve been shooting for years and want fresh inspiration, or you just know something in your photos still isn’t quite working, this workshop meets you exactly where you are and takes you further than you ever imagined.
Does this sound familiar?
You’ve been self-teaching for years. YouTube, photography blogs, trial and error on your dives. You’ve bought better gear hoping it would fix things. You’ve been on mixed dive trips where the group is moving too fast for you to actually take photos.
You’ve got a snoot that’s been sitting in your bag for years. You’re technically solid, manual mode might not be the issue anymore, but your photos still look the same. Nobody around you truly understands what you’re trying to achieve.
Perhaps you’ve got a new camera you’ve never used before and feel overwhelmed and clueless.
That changes here.
This isn’t a dive trip with a photographer along for the ride. It’s ten days of structured coaching, built around a small group of photographers who are all trying to do the same thing you are: stop taking pictures, and start making images.
Workshop Format
The Creative Ladder
You want to feel confident in the water and proud of the images you bring home, not just once, but on every dive of the trip. It matters because you’ve invested in the gear, the flights, the time away, and you know the images you’re capable of are in there.
You just haven’t been able to unlock them alone. Whether you’re building these skills for the first time or you’re already comfortable with the basics and want to push further, every technique includes genuine progressions, so you keep growing right through the workshop, not just in the first few days.
By the end of the workshop, you’ll be able to:
- Understand your camera settings and create tack-sharp images consistently, not by luck
- Use a diopter to fill the frame and unlock super-macro
- Control your lighting, positioning your strobes for creative, flattering, even results
- Master the snoot to light and isolate your subject beautifully
- Capture beautiful bokeh with silky background separation
- Use creative techniques, torches and accessories to add mood and personality
- Compose beautiful, intentional shots that tell a story
- Develop your own signature style
- Enter competitions with confidence, knowing what judges look for
- Think like an artist, building the mental filing cabinet every great critter photographer uses
Here’s How the Ten Days Unfold
Each skill builds on the one before it, foundations first, then technique by technique, so what you learn early makes everything after it easier. Even my advanced photographers learn new tips or tricks here!
We start with the fundamentals, settings, composition and lighting, so every image from here is sharp and well-exposed, not by luck. From there, we move through specific techniques, one at a time, each with real settings and real troubleshooting. By the final stretch, we shift into the creative techniques you’ve told me you want to try on your pre-workshop questionnaire, so the workshop bends toward your own goals, not a fixed script.
Woven through every day:
- Mindset sessions like Essential Techniques, The Filing Cabinet, and Entering Photo Contests, so it’s never just about settings
- Read Your Images every evening, individual first, then group
- In-water coaching, whenever you want it, never forced on you
Here’s what you get
- 10 nights full board accommodation at Scandi Divers, an award-winning resort on Big La Laguna Beach
- All meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner, each served with a soft drink
- 36 guided boat dives, including night dives
- A day trip to Verde Island, sitting at the heart of the Verde Island Passage, one of the most biodiverse stretches of ocean on earth
- 1 complimentary LeFeet underwater scooter dive
- 1 complimentary 1-hour massage
- A farewell fire-dance party
- A pre-workshop questionnaire, sent as soon as your deposit is confirmed, so the workshop is planned around what you personally want to walk away with
- Free access to Kate’s Workshop Foundations online course once your final payment is received
- Daily illustrated lecture sessions and physical reference sheets
- Individual and group Read Your Images sessions every evening
- A WhatsApp group community before, during and after the workshop
- A detailed pre-trip document, delivered as a short series of emails, plus a packing list
- Open access to Kate at any time during the workshop
What photographers are saying
For the Bold and the Curious
Join a community of passionate photographers ready to grow, share, and dive deeper into their craft.
This workshop is for photographers who:
- Want to learn, improve, and refine their underwater macro photography
- Are open-minded, willing to trust the coaching process, and ready to implement new techniques even if they challenge existing habits
- Are respectful, collaborative, and enjoy a positive group environment
- Are keen to learn how to use their gear and capture amazing images
- Are equipped with the necessary photography gear
What You’ll Need to Succeed
Arrive ready to grow, explore boldly, and capture magic beneath the waves.
To get the most from this workshop, you should have:
- A sense of adventure and be willing to be pushed outside your comfort zone!
- The ability to share critters and dive guides with your dive buddies, sharing is caring on Kate’s workshops!
- TG or Compact Camera, DSLR, or Mirrorless Camera
- Minimum 1 working strobe
- Diopter (for compact, DSLR or Mirrorless) and the ability to attach it to your port
- Snoot (Snoot torch, Backscatter Mini-Flash & snoot or compatible snoot for your strobe)
You won’t be left to figure it out alone
Once your deposit is confirmed, you’ll receive a pre-workshop questionnaire covering your goals, your current struggles and your equipment, and you can update it any time before departure. I plan the workshop around what you personally need, not a generic itinerary.
If you’re travelling solo, you won’t be diving alone either, we pair solo travellers with a buddy for the whole workshop, and it’s one of the most common pre-trip worries that disappears fastest once you’re in the water.
In the months leading up to departure, you’ll get a short series of emails covering everything you need to prepare, and once your final payment is received, you’ll get instant access to the Workshop Foundations online videos and the group WhatsApp.
In the water, coaching is on request whenever you want it. Every evening, Read Your Images means your unedited files get personal, honest feedback. And throughout the workshop, you have open access to me, any time.
This isn’t a dive trip with a photographer along for the ride. It’s ten days of coaching built around you.
A few things people ask before booking
“Am I the right level for this, beginner or advanced?”
Either. The coaching adjusts to you, not the other way around, first-timers get a solid foundation, and advanced shooters usually find their biggest breakthroughs in what they didn’t know they didn’t know.
“I don’t have all the fancy gear, snoots, diopters, coloured filters.”
You need the essentials in What You’ll Need to Succeed, a working strobe, a diopter if your camera needs one, and a snoot. Beyond that, we build your skills with what you bring.
“What if conditions or visibility aren’t great during the workshop?”
Some variation is normal anywhere, and it’s part of diving. The coaching and structure don’t change, and muck diving in particular rewards technique over perfect visibility.
What makes the Puerto Galera Macro Workshop different to the others?
Every Underwater Photo Company workshop runs the same signature framework, Get It Sharp, Light It Right, Tell The Story, and you get the full workshop experience wherever you join me. But the content adapts to the level and goals of each group, so if you’ve done one of my workshops before, this won’t be a repeat, we’ll build on what you already know and push further.
Puerto Galera sits on the northern coast of Mindoro Island, about 130 kilometres south of Manila in the central Philippines. The name translates as ‘port of galleons’ — a nod to its history as a sheltered anchorage for Spanish trading ships. Today it is better known for something far more interesting: the marine life.
The waters here are part of the Verde Island Passage, what scientists call the centre of the centre of the world’s marine biodiversity. Expect frogfish in colours you didn’t know existed, pygmy seahorses the size of your thumbnail, and reef walls scattered with the kind of subjects that fill a hard drive in a single day, more reef-based than Dauin or Lembeh’s muck diving.
And then there’s where you’ll be staying. Scandi Divers sits right on the white sands of Big La Laguna Beach, one of the most picturesque spots in Puerto Galera. It’s an award-winning resort with a genuine reputation for quality: in 2026, Scuba Diving Magazine’s Readers’ Choice Awards rated it the number one overall dive operator in the Pacific and Indian Oceans for quality of staff, the only Philippines resort in that category. The classroom and large-screen presentation facilities are excellent for our lecture sessions, and the camera room is exactly what you need after a day’s shooting. Meals are served together, and those mealtimes, debriefing the day’s dives, sharing finds, planning tomorrow’s creative approach, are one of the parts of the workshop I love most.
Small & Spectacular Macro Workshop – Puerto Galera
Arrive on 13 May 2027 – Depart 23 May 2027
Scandi Divers, Puerto Galera, Philippines
Very Important: In order to cross the channel to the Island, it is vital that you are ready for pick up from the airport in Manila no later than 12:00 (mid-day) on 13 May 2027. Transfers back to Manila on 23 May can start at 6am. Please book your return flights departing from the early afternoon to evening.
Rooms:
- Ocean Front Room, double occupancy: US$ 3,450 (per person) – FULLY BOOKED
- Ocean Front Room, single occupancy: US$ 4,155 (per person) – FULLY BOOKED
- Poolside Room, double occupancy: US$ 2,990 (per person)
- Poolside Room, single occupancy: US$ 3,495 (per person)
- Superior Room, double occupancy: US$ 2,750 (per person) – FULLY BOOKED
- Superior Room, single occupancy: US$ 3,195 (per person) – FULLY BOOKED
Included:
- Round-trip group transfers between Manila airport and Scandi Divers Resort
- 10 nights’ full board accommodation
- All meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner, each with a soft drink
- Complimentary tea, local coffee, water, snacks
- 36 guided boat dives (includes night dives) including cylinders, weights and weight belt
- Verde Island day trip
- 1 complimentary LeFeet underwater scooter dive
- 1 complimentary 1-hour massage per guest
- Farewell fire-dance party
- Free access to Kate’s Workshop Foundations online course before arrival
- Free daily underwater photography lectures and personal image advice
Not Included:
- International and local flights to/from Manila
- Transfers outside of group transfers
- Travel Insurance: We strongly recommend that you take out comprehensive travel insurance immediately upon booking your workshop.
- Diving insurance is mandatory and must include diving and equipment cover
- Gratuities and tips for dive guides, boat crew and resort staff
- Gear rental (please book with us in advance)
- Blackwater dives
- Extra day dives
- Nitrox32
- Alcoholic beverages, additional soft drinks, land excursions, personal purchases
Booking:
- A US$1,500 deposit confirms your place (non-refundable)
- The balance is due 60 days before departure
- Payment by bank transfer in USD only
- Places are confirmed first-paid, first-confirmed
Ready to book your spot?
Here’s what to do next.
Step 1: Email kate@underwaterphotocompany.com to express your interest and confirm availability.
Step 2: I’ll send you a booking form and waiver for completion
Step 3: As soon as I receive your booking form I’ll send you a deposit invoice.
Step 4: Your US$1,500 deposit secures your place.
Step 5: You’ll receive your pre-workshop questionnaire and a series of short emails to prepare you for the workshop.
Step 6: 60 days before departure, your final payment is due. Once it’s received, you’ll get instant access to the Workshop Foundations course and an invite to the group WhatsApp.
Email Kate to book the workshop
PS — Your prep starts the moment you book
Your deposit secures one of a very small number of places, and starts your pre-workshop questionnaire so I can begin planning around your goals right away.
In the months before departure, you’ll get a short series of pre-trip emails to keep you fully prepared.
Then, once your final payment is received, your Workshop Foundations course and WhatsApp group access unlock, so you arrive already knowing your camera, not learning it for the first time in the water.