Travel Stories with Your iPhone
with Jennifer Spelman
October 19 – 23, 2026
Course Description
We all aspire to be perceptive photographers when we travel the world, and telling our travel stories became a lot simpler with the remarkable cameras in our mobile devices, with Apple’s iPhone leading the way. The remarkable photographic features of an iPhone now rival a professional camera in their ability to create images and share stories. It’s a tool that is always accessible, lightweight, and easy to use once you learn its wide-ranging features. Making photographs with an iPhone while traveling offers the added benefit of going unnoticed and not drawing attention to yourself.
World-traveling photographer and now an exclusive iPhone user, Jennifer Spelman leads this new workshop in one of her favorite places in the world—San Miguel de Allende. She helps you develop the technical skills, the creative mindset, and therefore an implicit permission to exclusively use your iPhone to create memorable photographs as you travel. The key to turning your photographs into memorable travel stories is a mixture of understanding the technology, combining it with a visual sensitivity for light, moment, and composition, and then weaving and sequencing them to tell a compelling tale.
Daily field sessions taking advantage of the beautiful first light of morning and then again in late afternoon into the evening provide ample opportunities to explore the historic town of San Miguel and its surrounding countryside to practice technique as well as creative approaches to travel storytelling. In the classroom, Jennifer shares easy-to-understand, step-by-step techniques for using the camera’s many features, including:
- Focus and exposure controls
- Lens and format decisions
- Burst mode
- HDR
- Night photography
- Long exposures with Live Photos
- Macro techniques
- Maximize the potential of Photographic Styles
- Explore select apps for capturing and editing
- Strategies for safely archiving iPhone images
Additional classroom time includes discussions on storytelling techniques, as well as editing and sequencing strategies. Each day, Jennifer reviews your new images that reinforce her lessons and encourage new habits leading to more striking and compelling travel stories.
Discover multicultural San Miguel de Allende, a magical place of rich culture and vibrant colors, with Jennifer as your guide. She believes good travel stories incorporate cityscapes, landscapes, the culinary scene, architectural, as well as environmental portraiture to visually evoke a sense of place. Learning to be comfortable recording such diverse subject matter is the fun and rewarding challenge of this workshop.
Additional Information
WHO SHOULD ATTEND:
What You Should Know:
An iPhone 13 or higher is required, along with a basic understanding of the camera functions of the iPhone.
Special Notes:
Participants should plan to arrive in San Miguel de Allende no later than Sunday evening, October 18. Workshop check-in will be first thing Monday morning, followed by breakfast and orientation. The workshop ends on Friday evening, October 23, with a final dinner; travel home should be scheduled for no earlier than Saturday, October 24.
Visit the San Miguel Campus page on our website for details on accommodations, meals, transportation, and more.
Activity Level:
To get the most from your workshop experience, participants should be in good physical (mobility, stamina) and mental health. Come prepared for the high elevation of San Miguel de Allende, long days, and seasonal weather. You must be able to carry your own belongings and gear at all times, both on campus and on location. You are responsible for being open and honest about your physical fitness, and we reserve the right to remove you from the workshop if we find your fitness to be less than that which you have described.
Participants should be able to engage in moderate outdoor exercise for up to an hour or more at a time including walking on uneven terrain such as cobblestone walkways and roads, dirt, and loose rock. Location work is likely to include early morning and/or late evening shoots.
Policies:
View Payment, Refund, Withdrawal, and Transfer Policies for this International Program.
Accommodations:
We encourage participants to stay on campus at Hotel Posada de la Aldea for ease of proximity to workshop activities and well-priced rooms. Double accommodations (for couples or friends taking workshops together) are $415 per person for 6 nights (approximately $70 per person, per night), Sunday through Friday, or $830 per person, single accommodations for 6 nights (approximately $140 per night), Sunday through Friday. Additional nights at the hotel can be arranged for participants; please discuss needs with the Administration Office in Santa Fe.
Package Price INFO:
$2,995 (USD) includes tuition, breakfast Monday through Saturday, lunch Monday through Friday, final dinner on Friday, and model/location/materials fees if applicable to the class. Hotel accommodations are not included in the package price; see details above.
about
Jennifer Spelman is a sensitive documentary and fine-art photographer, as well as a playful observer of the subtleties of human activity. Her images pop with insight and imagination, exciting curiosity and suggesting secrets. As an educator and trip leader, Jennifer is in high demand for her creative instructional insights, easy-going nature, and sharply honed international photography travel acumen.
Since 2011, Jennifer has co-instructed domestic and international photography workshops for National Geographic Expeditions, OneWorldSeen, and Santa Fe Workshops through Iraq, Morocco, India, Cuba, Turkey, Romania, Mexico, Vietnam, and Japan. She is especially proud of the many imaginative and immersive photo trips she has co-led in elusive Cuba. Jennifer also co-founded the niche publication, CubaSeen, and is engaged in Santa Fe Workshops’ popular Mentorship Program ».
Website: jenniferspelman.com
Instagram: @jennifer_spelman
