PUERTO GALERA – PHILIPPINES
Small and Spectacular Macro Workshop
Arrive Puerto Galera on 13 May 2027 – Depart 23 May 2027
10 nights & up to 36 guided boat dives
Puerto Galera sits inside one of only four UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in the entire Philippines. The water here is extraordinary — teeming with life in a way that stops even the most experienced underwater photographer mid-fin-kick.
Frogfish in colours you didn’t know existed. Pygmy seahorses the size of your thumbnail. Nudibranchs so elaborate they look designed. Reef walls that cascade into the deep, scattered with the kind of subjects that fill a hard drive in a single day.
This workshop is built around that abundance — but it is about far more than critter lists and check boxes. Over ten days, we are going to work on the images themselves: what makes them sharp, what makes them lit, what makes them creative. And then we are going to go deeper still, into the questions that matter most — what are you trying to say with this image? What do you want your viewer to feel?
Because that question changes everything. And answering it is what turns an underwater photographer into an artist.
I teach photographers at every level, with every kind of camera system. Some of the participants who have had the biggest breakthroughs on my workshops came in convinced they were too much of a beginner to keep up — and left with a portfolio that shocked them. That is the point. You do not need to arrive ready. You just need to arrive willing.
A Reef and Critter Paradise in the Heart of the Philippines
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 around Puerto Galera are part of the Verde Island Passage — a narrow stretch of sea that scientists have called the centre of the centre of the world’s marine biodiversity. It sits at the heart of the Coral Triangle, which is home to more marine species than anywhere else on the planet.
What this means in practice is 40+ world-class dive sites within minutes of the resort, a critter list that reads like a macro photographer’s wish list, and the kind of reef that keeps even the most experienced divers wide-eyed. The diving is varied: muck slopes, rubble, dramatic reef walls, and one extraordinary day trip to Verde Island itself.
What This Workshop Is About
Photographers come to this workshop from every starting point imaginable.
Some are brand new to their cameras and still finding their way around their settings. Some have been shooting underwater for years but feel like they’ve hit a ceiling — technically capable, creatively stuck. Some want to be more deliberate: less reacting to whatever appears in front of them, more arriving at each dive with a clear vision. And some, honestly, are not quite sure what they are missing — they just know something is.
What every participant shares is a genuine desire to grow. And that is all you need.
This workshop covers the full arc from technical foundations through to advanced creative lighting, compositional mastery, and the mindset that produces images with real emotional power.
The sessions are progressive — each one builds on the last, to ensure you grow as you learn — and the programme is shaped by your goals. Before you arrive, you tell me where you are and where you want to go. I build from there.
You will be amazed at what you can achieve, and will leave having learned skills you never thought possible – and I’ll be with you, every step of the way!
Techniques, Creativity and Mindset
By the end of the workshop, you will be able to:
Understand Your Camera Settings: Know instinctively which settings to reach for and why — so that great exposures happen through understanding, not trial and error.
Use a Diopter: Get close, fill the frame, and reveal the extraordinary detail in subjects most photographers overlook entirely.
Control Your Lighting: Place your strobe(s) with intention — flattering your subject, eliminating backscatter, and creating the quality of light that makes an image feel crafted rather than captured.
Master the Snoot: Light and isolate your subject with precision — one of the most transformative tools in macro photography once you understand how to use it.
Capture Beautiful Bokeh: Create images where the background melts away and your subject commands the whole frame.
Use Creative Lighting Techniques: Work with coloured torches, blingy backgrounds, and motion blur to push your images into genuinely original territory.
Compose Beautiful Shots: Build frames that work — learning to see composition not as a rule to follow but as a tool for guiding your viewer’s eye and emotion.
Develop Your Style: Start to recognise and trust your own photographic instincts, and begin making images that feel distinctively yours.
Enter Competitions: Understand what judges respond to, how to identify your strongest work, and how to approach a submission with confidence rather than anxiety.
Think Like an Artist: Build the mental library of approaches for different subjects — frogfish, pygmy seahorses, nudibranchs, octopus, ghost pipefish — so you walk out to the boat knowing how to shoot whatever you see on your dive.
What Awaits You Beneath the Surface
Puerto Galera is a destination that rewards patience and supports curiosity. You can spend a morning hunting pygmy seahorses on a gorgonian fan and an afternoon watching a frogfish stalk its prey on a sandy slope. The variety here is one of Puerto Galera’s greatest strengths.
Verde Island, included as a day trip, sits right at the heart of the Verde Island Passage — widely cited as the most biodiverse stretch of ocean on earth. A dive at Verde is one of those experiences that gives you a new benchmark for what a healthy reef looks like.
In Puerto Galera, you can expect to encounter:
- Pygmy seahorses — tiny and extraordinary
- Frogfish in multiple species and colours
- Ghost pipefish and ornate ghost pipefish
- Nudibranchs in spectacular variety
- Blue-ringed octopus and mimic octopus
- Rhinopias and other rare scorpionfish
- Flamboyant cuttlefish
- Rich reef life including anthias, lionfish, and cleaning stations
- Night dive subjects that are only ever seen after dark
Because this is a workshop — not a bucket-list trip — we have time to actually photograph our subjects properly. The focus is always on the image, not the count.
The Resort – Scandi Divers
Scandi Divers is set right on the white sands of Big La Laguna Beach — one of the most picturesque spots in Puerto Galera.
It is 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.
The Rooms
Choose from a selection, with sharing and single occupancy options available. Spaces are filled on a first-paid for, first-served basis.
- Ocean Front Room: direct ocean views
- Poolside Room: pool access and garden setting
- Superior Room: comfortable, well-appointed standard rooms
Prices:
- Ocean Front Room, double occupancy: US$ 3,450 (per person)
- Ocean Front Room, single occupancy: US$ 4,155 (per person)
- 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)
- Superior Room, single occupancy: US$ 3,195 (per person)
Included:
- Round-trip group transfers between Manila 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
Excluded:
- 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
How to Book:
- Please email me on kate@underwaterphotocompany.com to book your spot.
- For all the details of how my workshops work, please read here.
- I will then send you a booking form and waiver to complete, after which we will issue you with an invoice for your deposit.
- Bookings can only be reserved upon receipt of your deposit and confirmed on receipt of your final payment.
