The Dolomites Photography Workshop runs October 23–29, 2027 — seven days timed for the narrow window when European larches turn gold, valley fog settles in at dawn, and the summer crowds clear out. We meet at the Munich Airport Hilton at 12 PM on Day 1 and drive south through Germany, Austria, and Italy to Ortisei in Val Gardena, our base for the first three nights, then shift east to Cortina d'Ampezzo for the back half. Locations include Alpe di Siusi, Val di Funes, Seceda, Tre Cime di Lavaredo, Lago di Braies, and Cinque Torri, plus smaller alpine tarns worked in along the way. My local partners at Lofoten Tours have been running photographers through this region for years and know exactly where to be when conditions deliver — my role is the teaching. Tuition is $5,700, with the group capped at minimum 6, maximum 10 photographers.
The Workshop
$5,700 per person
FTOP alumni rate available
A $2,000 deposit reserves your spot.
Dates October 23–29, 2027 · 7 days / 6 nights
Group Minimum 6, maximum 10 photographers
Included Lodging, ground transport, lift tickets, and guiding · flights and most meals separate
The Rhythm
The Rhythm of the Workshop
Each day is built around the light. That means pre-dawn starts on most mornings — often leaving the hotel by 4:30 or 5:00 AM to be in position for blue hour. We shoot through sunrise until the light goes flat around mid-morning. Breakfast comes after, not before. The middle of the day is for rest, food, or editing sessions when conditions aren't worth being out in.
Afternoons build toward sunset — sometimes returning to the same locations we hit at dawn, sometimes new ones — and we work golden hour through blue hour into astrophotography when moon phase and skies cooperate. Evenings end with group dinners where we review the day's images and plan tomorrow. Weather sets the agenda: if a fog inversion is forecast at Passo Giau, we reposition. If the Milky Way is up, we stay out late. My role throughout is to be standing next to you as the light unfolds.
The Dolomites in autumn
The Italian Alps' Dolomite range is known for dramatic landscape photography opportunities, including traditional alpine vistas and night sky astrophotography under some of Europe's darkest mountain skies. This 7-day photography workshop is one of the most comprehensive Dolomites photography tours scheduled in autumn, when fall colors transform the European larches into golden curtains and morning mist fills the valleys at first light. The workshop caters to amateur, intermediate, and advanced photographers with a working understanding of manual camera settings, and participants can expect hands-on field instruction throughout to advance their technical and creative abilities. Sunrise shoots and sunset shoots anchor every shooting day, alongside post-processing tutorials in Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop between field sessions to develop your photography skills. Iconic photography locations on the itinerary include Tre Cime di Lavaredo, Lago di Braies, Alpe di Siusi, Val di Funes, Seceda, and Cinque Torri.
The Season
Why October (and Not Any Other Month)
Summer is ideal for photographing alpine meadows and wildflowers, and it draws the biggest crowds — but it doesn't deliver the gold larches, the dawn fog inversions, or the low directional light that define Dolomite autumn. Autumn offers opportunities for moody landscapes and vibrant foliage that no other season here matches, and October is the two-week heart of it.
The Light
October's lower sun angle creates warm, directional light that holds for hours instead of the brief windows you get in summer. The harsh midday light of July and August gives way to sculptural illumination that reveals every texture in the pale dolomite rock — the cracks, the shadows, the vertical striations on the jagged peaks that make these mountains photograph like nothing else on Earth.
The Atmosphere
Temperature differentials between valleys and peaks in October create morning fog inversions — those dawn moments when you're shooting above the clouds while villages below disappear in mist. These conditions happen reliably here in October.
The Larches
The European Larch is the star of Dolomite autumn. Unlike other conifers, it's deciduous. For roughly two weeks in mid-October, entire mountainsides turn from green to brilliant gold before the needles drop. We time this workshop for that window.
The Quiet
The summer crowds are gone. Mountain refuges have closed for the season. Tour buses have stopped running the passes. The locations are largely ours to work without competing for position.
Read the complete guide to the transformative power of autumn light in the Dolomites.
The Italian Dolomites are known for dramatic landscape photography opportunities, including traditional alpine vistas and night sky astrophotography under some of Europe's darkest mountain skies.
This Dolomites photography workshop is scheduled in autumn to capture the seasonal transition when the larches turn golden and the landscape is enhanced by low sun and morning mist.
The workshop caters to amateur, intermediate, and advanced photographers with a working understanding of manual camera settings, and participants can expect hands-on field instruction throughout to advance their technical and creative abilities. Sunrise shoots and sunset shoots anchor every shooting day, alongside post-processing tutorials between field sessions to enhance your photography skills.
The Itinerary
A Day-by-Day Look at the Itinerary
Each day is designed around the light, and this itinerary represents our planned locations. Weather in the mountains is our collaborator, not our obstacle — so we stay flexible and reroute when the forecast calls for something better than what was on the schedule.
Days 1–3: Ortisei (Val Gardena)
Day 1 — Arrival and Alpe di Siusi at sunset.
Pickup at the Munich Airport Hilton no later than 12 PM, then four hours south through Germany, Austria, and Italy to Ortisei. After check-in we head out for the first sunset shoot on Alpe di Siusi — the largest alpine meadow in Europe, with the Langkofel range as backdrop. We work golden hour into blue hour, then head back for dinner in town.
Day 2 — Alpe di Siusi at sunrise, Santa Magdalena at sunset.
Pre-dawn return to Alpe di Siusi for first light on the Langkofel range. In the afternoon we move to Santa Maddalena in Val di Funes, where the iconic St. Maddalena church and St. Johann church both sit beneath the Odle range — we work them from the classic angles and from quieter viewpoints the tour buses don't know about.
Day 3 — Seceda and surrounding locations.
We take the Seceda cable car up to one of the most dramatic viewpoints in the entire range. The Fermeda towers jut up in formations that seem almost alien, and the slopes beneath are a tapestry of gold in October. We work both wide compositions and intimate scenes using telephoto compression.
Days 4–7: Cortina d'Ampezzo
Day 4 — Move day + Tre Cime at sunset.
Drive east to Cortina d'Ampezzo, our base for the final three nights, with a stop at Carezza Lake along the way — a small lake in the Dolomites known for its emerald waters and picturesque mountain backdrop. Sunset at the Drei Zinnen area — a 30-minute hike from the parking area opens up spectacular views of Tre Cime di Lavaredo. We work blue hour through full dark before heading back for dinner; if skies are exceptional, we'll grab an opportunistic night-sky frame on the way out.
Day 5 — Lago di Braies at sunrise, Cortina region at sunset.
Lago di Braies is one of the most iconic photography spots in the Dolomites, famous for its mirror-like reflections and dramatic mountain scenery — and pre-dawn departure gets us there before thermal winds kick up and the crowds arrive. Sunset is a choice between Lago Limedes or Cinque Torri depending on conditions.
Day 6 — Tre Cime at sunrise, then Passo Giau or hidden lakes.
Tre Cime di Lavaredo, known as the Three Peaks, is a prominent landmark in the Dolomites offering breathtaking views and numerous landscape photography opportunities — pre-dawn departure to Rifugio Auronzo positions us for sunrise on the peaks, then we walk sections of the circular trail that reveals constantly changing angles. Later we drive to Passo Giau for its 360-degree panorama and grasslands that glow ochre in autumn light.
Day 7 — Final sunrise and departure.
One last sunrise — location depends on forecast, picking the spot with the best odds for fog inversions or alpenglow. After breakfast and checkout, drive back to Munich Airport, arriving by 2 PM for afternoon and evening departures.
The Teaching
What You'll Learn
Every technique gets taught in the field, in real conditions, while the light is doing what it's doing. The goal is to teach you to read what's happening in front of you and respond to it.
Workshops usually include specialized training in techniques like focus stacking and astrophotography, alongside foundational composition and post-processing skills that translate to any landscape work.
Composition techniques such as the rule of thirds, leading lines, and framing are emphasized throughout for creating visually compelling photographs. Understanding natural light and its effects on landscapes is central to everything we teach — directional sun, low autumn angles, and fog-diffused light all shape mood and reveal texture differently across the day.
Post-processing techniques are essential for enhancing landscape and wildlife photographs, allowing photographers to adjust exposure, contrast, and color balance to achieve the desired artistic effect.
Technical Mastery
Exposure strategies for high-contrast alpine scenes — bracketing, graduated filters, exposure blending, and knowing when each approach works best
Working with fog and atmospheric conditions — reading inversions, anticipating clearing, using mist as a compositional element instead of fighting it
Reflection techniques — polarizer control, wind reading, long exposure for smoothing rough water, composition for symmetry
Focus stacking — building front-to-back sharpness in scenes with strong foreground and distant peaks, and when to skip it in favor of a single frame
Reading low-angle autumn light — working the steep-shadow side of October, when the sun barely climbs above the southern peaks and every dolomite face turns into a sculpted relief map
Compositional Vision
Reading natural light — understanding how directional sun, low autumn angles, and fog-diffused light shape mood and reveal texture across a landscape
Composition fundamentals applied in the field — rule of thirds, leading lines, framing, and foreground anchoring for grand alpine scenes
Scale and perspective — using human elements, telephoto compression, and wide-angle distortion intentionally
Visual storytelling beyond the postcard — developing your personal vision at iconic locations where everyone else is shooting the same angles
Post-Processing Workflow
RAW processing fundamentals — exposure recovery, color grading, and targeted adjustments in Adobe Lightroom for landscape photography
Exposure blending techniques — luminosity masks and manual blending for natural HDR results
Color and atmosphere — enhancing the mood of foggy scenes, golden hour warmth, and blue hour cool tones
Learn more about the exposure foundations behind every workshop technique.
Your Instructor
Michael Schultz
Landscape & Travel Photographer, Workshop Leader
I'm Michael Schultz, founder of Face The Outdoors Photography. I was born and raised in Alaska, and I've spent years photographing this state professionally — its bears, its aurora, its coastlines, its weather. Face The Outdoors has been featured in National Geographic, and I've led photography workshops from Alaska to abroad. Alaska is home, and Lake Clark is one of the locations I return to every year.
For the Dolomites, I've partnered with Lofoten Tours — the same team I work with in Norway. They run workshops in this region regularly and know it inside out: where to be at sunrise, which pass holds the fog inversion, which hike gets you to the alpine tarn before the wind kicks up. Between their location expertise and my teaching, you get both — guides who've worked every shoot location a hundred times, and an instructor focused on how you're actually making images while you're there.
On gear, I shoot with FLM tripods and Maven filters — happy to help you make informed gear decisions before the workshop if your setup needs work.
In the Frame
Gallery: October in the Dolomites
These images show the conditions we'll be chasing together — fog inversions at dawn, golden larches at peak color, alpenglow on pale dolomite rock, still water at blue hour. October in the Italian Dolomites delivers these reliably, and this gallery is a preview of what your memory card can look like at the end of the week.
