Bologna
The method is constant. The city is the setting.
Nine working days of daily photographic assignments, shooting in markets, workshops and streets — and image review with Per every evening.
A city that never hands you a picture for free.
Bologna is chosen because it offers very different photographic situations within walking distance: covered porticoes with hard lines of light and shadow, markets with pace and unpredictability, workshops where people work with their hands, and streets where the light moves hour by hour.
That makes it possible to apply the same principles to very different assignments — and to return to the same corner at another time of day and see what the light changes.
We photograph people, craft, markets and everyday Bologna. We use the city to work in — it is not the product itself.
Nine days. One purpose: to find your own eye.
You photograph every day. Each day carries an assignment with a clear photographic purpose — an environment, a challenge and something specific to work on. You solve it alone and with the group, select your images, and we review them together in the evening.
Along the way we work with how composition, movement and rhythm change the way an image is experienced — how the eye travels through the frame, and why one light, one angle or one moment makes a stronger photograph than another.
- 01
Living craft
People who work with their hands — and the rooms their work shapes.
- 02
The environmental portrait
The portrait as an encounter. A person seen in context, not in front of a backdrop.
- 03
Markets and everyday life
Bologna's daily life in pace, noise and light — where the city stops posing.
- 04
Architecture and porticoes
Repetition, rhythm and line as narrative structure in the frame.
- 05
Light, shadow and texture
Light as feeling and atmosphere — not as technique or set-up.
- 06
Street photography and observation
Waiting, watching, recognising the moment before it happens.
- 07
Selection
Daily review and honest critique — the whole series before the single frame.
The method is constant. The city is the setting.
The method gathers around MEANING: what the photograph is actually about. Around it we work with SEEING (noticing and choosing the subject), FEELING (deciding the mood and the encounter), INTENTION (making choices deliberately), RHYTHM (timing, movement and repetition) and IDENTITY (the choices you repeat, which make the images yours).
In Bologna we apply these to concrete assignments and move into the deeper layers of the method: THE THIRD DIMENSION, HIDDEN SHADOWS & LIGHT, THE SACRED DIAGONALS and LUMINA SYNTHESIS — depth, what the light withholds, the tensions of composition, and finally the selection of a coherent series.
Bologna is not the subject. Bologna is where the method is used — day after day, in light that is never the same twice.
The rhythm of the journey.
The days share the same basic rhythm: a briefing and an assignment in the morning, photographing in the city, selection and editing, and a shared image review with feedback in the evening. The theme changes from day to day.
Please note: we are in Italy. The rhythm may shift — the weather, the light, the city and the day itself may decide otherwise.
- Arrival
Arrival & meaning
We land in the city and in the method. Why do you photograph — and what are you actually looking for?
- Movement I
Seeing Bologna
The eye before the camera. We train observation before we begin to gather images.
- Movement II
Feeling & human encounter
Presence as a photographic tool. The meeting with a person becomes part of the picture.
- Movement III
Intention & craft
Deliberate choices. We work close to the craft and to what is made by hand.
- Movement IV
Rhythm & movement
The pace of the city, its repetitions and lines — and how the eye travels through the frame.
- Movement V
Identity & personal language
What you keep returning to is your language. We begin to give it form.
- Depth I
THE THIRD DIMENSION
Depth as narrative — space, layers and distance in a two-dimensional image.
- Depth II
HIDDEN SHADOWS & LIGHT
What the light withholds carries as much as what it reveals.
- Depth III
THE SACRED DIAGONALS
The inner tensions of composition — direction, balance and deliberate unrest.
- Closing
LUMINA SYNTHESIS
We gather the journey: selection, series and a personal direction to travel home with.
Bologna, seen through the method.
Everything is shaped by light and shadow — even color itself.
What it involves.
- Destination
- Bologna, Italy
- Dates
- 24 August – 2 September 2026
- Duration
- 10-day journey · 9 working days
- Group size
- Max. 12 participants
- Accommodation
- Zanhotel Europa · half board
- Status
- Registration closed
Included
- 9 days of intensive photographic development
- Daily one-to-one guidance
- Daily image critique
- Series development and personal direction
- Hotel and half board: breakfast and dinner
Not included
- Travel to and from Bologna
- Lunch
- Drinks beyond what is included
- Travel insurance
- Personal expenses
- Single-room supplement (optional)
Price and payment plan are given at registration. A single room is available at a supplement.
Per Valentin.
Per Valentin is a photographer and the man behind The Lumina Method™. He cares less about technical tricks than about the choices you make before you press the shutter.
He is present throughout: he sets the daily assignment, photographs alongside the group in the city, looks at your selected images every evening and gives concrete feedback on your choices of subject, light, composition and timing.
My work is not to give you my pictures. My work is to help you find yours.
More about Per Valentin“I have begun to understand why I took the pictures I took. I photograph differently now.”
“After intensive guidance my view of composition and colour changed. I have never worked so consciously with my own expression.”
“I came to Bologna to photograph a city. I travelled home with a series about myself.”
The practical side.
Join the interest list
Hear first about upcoming LUMINA journeys, talks and photographic events with Per Valentin.
Bologna 2026.
LUMINA Experience Bologna took place 24 August – 2 September 2026. The next LUMINA Experience is Palermo, 1–9 March 2027, with a maximum of 12 participants.
Max 12 participants · One group in 2026