As 2020 draws to a close, we’re once again looking for your best pictures from the year, and we’re giving away a free place on a weekender for the top shot! Don’t worry if you haven’t been able to get away anywhere exotic! We’re looking for all kinds of pictures; from lockdown still lives to portraits from Nepal.

Just send your competition entries to hello@frui.co.uk (please try to keep each file under 1mb)

The Rules

1. Up to 3 images per entrant

2. Photos must have been taken on, or inspired by, a Frui course or holiday

3. …and have been taken since November 2019

It’s the last chance to get away to some sun and creative inspiration in the Mediterranean this year. Frui have been putting the finishing touches to the itinerary and accommodation for our exciting new holiday to Sicily.

We’ll be taking a road trip across this diverse island, staying in beautiful maserias (farmhouses) along the way.

Here is a rundown of what we’ll be doing:

Day 1

We’ll land in Catania and check into our accommodation just outside the hustle and bustle of the city: the charming Tenuta del Gelso. In the evening we’ll head into the bright lights of this ancient port city for our first taste of Sicilian food and wine.

Day 2

We’ll start the day with some photography exercises: designed by your tutor to get your creative juices flowing. As we shoot, we’ll explore the ancient streets of Catania and it’s port.

After a tasty local lunch, we set off for another world: Mount Etna. With a local guide, we’ll explore Europe’s tallest active volcano by Jeep and on foot. We’re sure to come back with some spectacular photos of the lunar landscape which we’ll look at over dinner back at the lodge.

Day 3

Checking out after breakfast, we’ll head south towards the Syracuse and Ortigia Island. There’s an ancient Greek amphitheatre, a seafront castle and a gorgeous warren of medieval streets and Baroque Plazas by the sea, your tutor will be on hand to help you capture the best of it all.

After lunch, it’s time to check in to our our home for the night: another beautiful farmhouse surrounded by olive trees. The afternoon will be free to relax, take a dip in the pool, or get some one-to-one photography feedback from your tutor.

Day 4

Today we cross the spine of Sicily; a scenic drive that will take us through breathtaking panoramas and quaint mountain towns. We’ll call in Enna, explore it’s winding streets and spectacular castle, and grab some lunch before continuing on to the Northern coast. We’ll arrive at the accommodation for the last two nights as the sun starts to go down over the surrounding mountains: a great landscape photo opportunity before we settle down to an aperetivo before a delicious dinner of local produce.

Day 5

After a relaxing morning at the maseria, We’ll drive down the mountain to Cefalu, whose pretty old town is sandwiched between the beach and a huge, dramatic crag. We’ll spend the afternoon wandering the photogenic streets and the beach, working on our photography projects and eating gelato. The town is famed for its sunsets; the perfect spot for our last evening in Sicily.

Day 6

This morning we’ll rise and check out early. We’re heading for the airport, but Sicily has one highlight left for us: the city of Palermo. With a distinctly North African vibe, Palermo shows the influence of civilisations from across the mediterranean. After capturing some stunning final street shots, it’s time to say arrivederci to Sicily and board our flight home.

Very limited spaces! Reserve now for only £200!

Book without risk: Full refund if the FCDO or Italian authorities apply restrictions to travel

We recommend the following flights: (Only £90 return at the time of writing!)

10th October: BA2592

Depart London Heathrow 10:00, Arrive Catania 14:25

16th October: BA0611

Depart Palermo 15:00

Arrive London Heathrow 17:15

Frui’s last-minute photography and painting holiday to Tuscany is an amazing last chance to escape the UK this year and soak up the sights, tastes and sun of this stunning region without the usual crowds. We’re also taking a few precautions to minimise the risk from coronavirus. These are:

-Everyone on the holiday will be asked to take a test for Covid-19 before the trip, and to keep outside contact to an absolute minimum between taking the test and departing the UK, including carefully following precautions at the airport and on the plane.

-The whole group will be staying in a self-contained villa in the Italian countryside, forming one safe ‘household’ with minimum outside contact.

-All transport within the country will be in our own vehicle.

-All meals will either be in restaurants with outdoor tables, or cooked and served by Frui’s own tutors in the villa.

And with everything so uncertain at the moment, we’re guaranteeing a full refund of your deposit if the FCO changes it’s guidance or introduces a quarantine requirement on Italy. Fights with BA are also fully flexible up until you check in. What have you got to lose?

After much anticipation, Frui’s American Deep South Road Trip is finally happening this October. That’s right- like Robert Frank, William Eggleston and countless other master photographers before us, we’re hitting the highway, cameras in hand, in search of inspiration. Over ten days we’ll drive from Atlanta to New Orleans via the Great Smoky Mountains, Nashville and Memphis. Why this region? Because the ‘Deep South’ has inspired some of the greatest photography and cinema, but it’s also home to some of the world’s music capitals and, importantly for Frui, distinctive and delicious regional food and drink.

We’ll stop at photogenic small towns, roadside diners and expansive American vistas. We’ll watch live music in dive bars, boat through swamps and bayous, visit plantation houses and learn to cook cajun food.

This holiday will be all about the spirit of adventure and the open road. Although we’ve planned the most important stops and destinations, we don’t know exactly what we’ll find along the way and that’s all part of the fun!

Here is an idea of where we’ll stay on each night of the trip:

Day 1: Atlanta

Day 2: Smoky Mountains

Day 3: Nashville

Day 4: Nashville

Day 5: Memphis

Day 6: Natchez

Day 7: Thibodaux

Day 8: New Orleans

Day 9: New Orleans

Day 10: Depart

Dates: 31^st October- 9^th November 2020

Cost: £2799 (Includes accommodation, all transport, excursions, breakfasts, some lunches and photography tuition. Flights, some lunches and dinners not included).

Before we launch the trip officially, we’re offering our email subscribers and blog followers the chance to hold their place for £150. We expect this trip to be very popular so don’t miss the chance to reserve a spot!

Frui is excited to announce the latest of our new destinations for the summer! The perfect location for a Frui photography and painting holiday, Portugal is packed with picturesque locations as well as a delicious local cuisine and of course, plenty of wine.

Frui’s expert yet down-to-earth painting and photography tutors will be there to guide you as you get to know the location through creativity. Portugal certainly isn’t short of subject matter. From ancient and colourful streets of Lisbon to fairytale castles hidden amongst the forest on Europe’s westernmost point, you’re sure to find inspiration for for some stunning imagery. And when the sun sets we’ll down paintbrushes and explore the nightlife of the city. After all, there’s a rich and hearty local cuisine to sample and bars that come alive with the sound of traditional Fado music.

Here’s a taste of what we’ll get up to on this seven day trip:

We’ll start in the winding and narrow streets of Lisbon. Rua da Galé, in the city’s oldest district, boasts buildings with perfect pops of colour. It’s a wonderful area to get lost and explore a typical Portuguese neighbourhood- with camera or paintbrush in hand of course!

Then there’s the amazing 19th Century Funicular railway of Elevador da Bica- we’ll paint and shoot this iconic scene by day, and come back for the area’s renowned nightlife; this is a Frui trip after all!

From the tops of the city’s hills we’ll take in stunning views over the rooftops, rivers and the rugged Atlantic coastline.

We’ll also visit Europe’s most westerley point; Sintra. The pastel-hued palaces here are a hodgepodge of architectural styles that look like they’re straight from a fairytale. It’s an inspiring place that your tutors will help you to capture in your artwork.

But it’s not just about photography and painting – let’s talk food, another favourite Frui activity! With smart new restaurants offering new-wave Portuguese dishes, old-style establishments serving classics and plenty of bars and food markets, it’s the perfect foodie destination.

As well as unforgettable sights and mouthwatering flavours, Lisbon also has a unique sound: Fado – life, struggle and passion in song! We will seek out the best bars in which to experience this wonderful Portuguese art.

Come along, it’s going to be a great trip!

21st- 27th July 2018
£2050 per person
There is already lots of interest in this holiday, so we are giving our regular Fruisters a chance to hold their place in advance and receive a £100 earlybird discount before it goes on live on our website. You can do this through the link below for a deposit of £100. If you have any other questions please email hello@frui.co.uk, we’d love to hear from you!

A lot of your commercial work centres around food. How did you get into this kind of photography originally?

Well I’ve always been food obsessed and I naturally gravitated towards food and lifestyle photography – who does’t love a bit of food porn? I originally had dreams of being a photojournalist out on the front line – but the realities of war and the lifestyle that work would bring didn’t fit my reality. I still love photojournalism and documentary photography which is my first love – but I went down the food photography route commercially to pay the rent! When I first started out I assisted for a few years and worked with every type of photographer out there to see which areas of the industry I enjoyed. Working with people who are passionate about food is inspiring and of course the shoot leftovers are a bonus too!

Your work has a lovely bright, airy feel to it. Do you have any tips for achieving this kind of look?

I always prefer to shoot food with natural light if possible – it’s much softer and forgiving. I want my food photography to look natural and of course like you want to eat it. My go-to set up is to find a nice natural light source like a big window and place the light source to one side of the plate.  If it’s a bright day then I will use a diffuser in front of the window to soften the light. Using white or black pieces of card on the set to add shadows, contrast and light is a great way to lift an image. A reflector is your best friend to bounce light into your subject too – or if you don’t have one of those then some foil or a shiny takeaway lid or piece of mirror are handy tools. Shooting with natural light has it’s restrictions though – especially if you want consistency – and of course these dark short winter days don’t help.

Is it important to be a good cook in order to be a great food photographer?

Not necessarily. In the commercial world a food photographer will often work on a shoot with a food stylist (who makes the food look amazing for the camera) and a prop stylist (who picks out and sources props like crockery, utensils and surfaces), sometimes a chef or home economist too – who do all the cooking – there is often big team behind a food shoot. But other times when you are shooting personal work, testing or working with small budgets you will have to do a lot of this yourself as well – so a passion and skill for cooking, styling and food definitely helps. I love to cook for pleasure and I’ve been on quite a few cooking courses to try and further my skills – but I will happily leave the cooking to the pros when it comes to photography.

As well as food and lifestyle, you also shoot much more serious documentary projects, including one about survivors of the docklands bombings. Are there any similarities between this type of thing and photographing food, or do you think of them as completely separate practices?

This is a question that I’ve been struggling with myself my whole career! My areas of expertise and skills lie in two very different specialisms that don’t really sit together as they are very different – but I feel I have a particular natural, emotive and simple aesthetic across all my work so people can recognise my style – which is really important in such a competitive and saturated industry. You’re always told to specialise in one area of photography so that you can make a name for yourself in that area and people commissioning you will trust you can deliver – but you also need to be versatile. In reality freelancing is really tough and you need to be able to take on all sorts of work – then focus your personal work and portfolio around projects you are interested in. For ages I tried to be someone I’m not and I’m only now just coming back around to shooting what I’m passionate about and it’s reminded me why I want to be a photographer in the first  place. I love telling stories and much of my work is about storytelling and documenting life. It’s said a lot but; if you shoot what you love it will come across in your images.

Any more upcoming projects that you have planned?

I’ve just finished a big personal project on mental health – I’m really excited to get it out there and share it soon – it’s a very hard hitting project looking at the language and stigmas surrounding mental health issues using portraiture, food/still life and first person stories. I hope to put on an exhibition sometime later in the year.

You tutored on Frui’s Puglia and Vietnam holidays last year. How did you find that experience?

Inspiring, exhausting, fun, indulgent, rewarding…I loved sharing my love of photography in such amazing locations and getting to explore these places and of course trying the all the local food and tipples. Did someone say snake wine?

Which trip are you particularly looking forward to in 2018?

I’m really excited about the list of amazing trips in the Frui diary this year – with some fab new destinations – I’m particularly looking forward to visiting Oman as it’s part of the world I’ve never been to, heading to beautiful Myanmar and going back to the crazy streets of Hanoi in Vietnam.

What’s the most interesting person or place you’ve photographed?

Every stranger I meet and photograph has a story to tell – each and every one is interesting in their own way. I visited South Sudan to shoot an advertising campaign while the country was on the brink of a civil war – that was certainly interesting!

Which well-known photographers do you most admire?

Steve McCurry is probably my ultimate inspiration – beautiful emotive portraits, capturing cultures and stories, beautiful travel shots – his work just makes the perfect coffee table book.
Groundbreaking female documentary photographers like Dorothea Lange inspire me a lot – and modern day heroes include young photojournalist Daniella Zalcman who founded Women Photograph – an organisation to support an elevate female voices in a very male dominate industry. Matt Stuart is my favourite street photographer – his ability to capture everyday moments in such a stunning way is incredible – his work is funny, clever and candid. David Loftus is the king of food photography (he shoots all of Jamie Oliver’s stuff), I spend far too many hours drooling over various food photographer’s work like Jonathan Gregson and Louise Hagger.

Jerusalem; the sacred hub of the Abrahamic religions and one of the oldest cities in the world. A living mosaic of Babylonian, medieval and Ottoman architecture and the best opportunity you will have to see 360 degrees of the living historical panorama.
Make your photographic pilgrimage here with Frui to discover the narrow passages of the old city where these cultures meet and see how such a deeply woven history can make for unique and fascinating images.

Director James has personal contacts that live in this great city,  giving us unfettered access and unique queue jumping abilities. We are also planning to have a talk with Skynews camera-man and war zone correspondent Jake Britton on how to take meaningful images in challenging situations.

On this five day trip, we ‘ll start at the coastal town of Jaffa, explore the world-famous and the less well known among Jerusalem’s sights, and journey into the desert to see the Mar Saba monastery. There’s Mahane Yehuda and Etz Chayim street markets, Temple Mount, Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Western Wall. The images you bring home will ring with church bells, the refrain of the call to prayer and the strain of the shofar.

The itinaray will be:

Day – 1
Arrive Ben Gurion
over night in costal town of Jaffa
Check into hotel
walk around the town explore the beautiful old town
Dinner at Manta ray

Day – 2
Drive to Jerusalem
Check into hotel
Lunch in the old city
Export the labyrinth of the old city
guided tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Western Wall
Drive to mount of olives for evening light
Drinks Hotel Notre Dame over looking the old city

Day – 3
Morning head to Bethlehem
Tour of the wall
exclusive tour of bethlehem church nativity
Lunch traditional Palestinian falafel
Visit to Mar Saba monastery in the desert
Back to Jerusalem for tutorials
Dinner in the old town

Day – 4
Morning got to the famous historical market in the old town
Lunch the market
Explore the Hezekiah’s Tunnel
Garden of Gethsemane
Temple Mount
Review of images and final dinner

Day – 5
Relaxing morning transfer to airport.
visit The Garden Tomb
Few time for shopping
Late lunch
Transfer to airport for 8pm flight

Dates: 22 – 26 February

Price: £1899

Because we have limited spots on this trip …and it’s so close, we are giving the chance to our regular customers to hold their place in advance before it goes on live on our site. You can do this through the link below for a deposit of £150. If you have any other questions please email hello@frui.co.uk

With a certain important annual competition coming up, here’s a few tips from Frui’s head of photography about how to pick the winning images from your collection.

1. Read the brief

Make sure your picture fits the brief or title of the category. If it’s in the wrong category otherwise it doesn’t matter how good it is as an image.

2. Check out the previous winners.

Most competitions have a certain ‘house style’. By looking at the winners from the previous years you can get an idea for the kind of thing the judges will be looking for. Do they require all the photos to be technically perfect? Do they want classically ‘pretty’ images or more gritty, thought provoking ones?

3. Get other opinions

It’s hard to see your own work objectively. Ultimately it’s your art and you should trust your own judgement, but sometimes when selecting images it’s helpful to get an outside perspective.

4. Bribe the judges

Only joking. Frui’s judges are of the utmost integrity.

Entries for the Frui Awards 2017 close on 1st November. See the previous blog post for more details.

See last year’s winners here:

It’s awards season and we’re going to be giving away bumper prizes to the best photographs and paintings that you’ve made on our 2016 or 2017 holidays!

As always this is going to be a fun afternoon- it’s a chance to have a glass of wine (on us) and catch up with other past guests and tutors. We’ll also be showing off your wonderful works of art and fabulous photos throughout, and of course announcing the winners of the competition!

The overall winner of the night will win 50% off their next Frui holiday!

The winners of each category will receive either a framed print of their winning photograph or a bottle of bubbly for the painters.

Photography categories

Painting categories

When & Where

Saturday 11 November from 3 – 6pm

London, E1 7JF

Terms & Conditions

Art Camp in Spain, 5 – 12 August 2017

£1799 per person.

Introduction.

Join Frui on the Art Camp in Spain where you can have a go at painting, drawing, photography and even try your hand at a bit of traditional Spanish cooking, all in one week. There will also be lots of opportunities to relax in the summer sunshine.

Based in an ‘eco-chic’ hideaway surrounded by spectacular 360 degree views of the Alto Planos, one thousand meters above sea level, Cortijada Los Gázquez is an ‘off-grid’ destination for creatively minded travellers high in the mountains of Andalucia.

In the heart of the Parque Natural Sierra Maria-Los Velez, Europe’s most dramatic alpine desert, this guesthouse is surrounded by areas of extreme natural beauty, profound peace and tranquillity and awe inspiring wilderness. But ‘remote’ and ‘eco’ doesn’t mean basic. Quite the opposite, in fact. Here every en-suite bedroom has been exquisitely designed and furnished, blending the traditional and modern.

Here is an outline of the itinerary:

Day 1 Sat 5th August

Arrive at Alicante airport etc. Easyjet do Granada these days. arrive at Los Gázquez. Home made traditional paella.

Day 2 Sun 6th August

AM. Tapas workshop and simultaneous food photography workshop.
PM. Photography assessment from the morning workshop and recipe giving.

Day 3 Mon 7th August

AM. Photography field trip to El Altiplano, Spain’s high altitude desert landscape. Asador lunch in local restaurant, local provenance food.(€15 per head).
PM. Photography criticism from the mornings field trip before supper.

Day 4 Tue 8th August

AM. Studio workshop, ‘Confidence in Drawing’ overcoming the main obstacle in art making, confidence. Lunch.
PM. Tagine workshop, ‘cooking with wood fire’ and simultaneous photography workshop. (learning exposures using the fire!?!?!).

Day 5 Wed 9th August

AM. Photography field trip to the historic town of Vélez Blanco. Visit Spain’s first Renaissance castle and the ‘pueblo blanco’ of Vélez Blanco and it’s market day. Lunch at a local restaurant (€15 per head).
PM. Studio workshop. ‘Fundamentals of colour’ how to paint using subtle and beautiful colour. Criticism of the mornings photography field trip. Supper.

Day 6 Thurs 10th August

AM. Traditional food of Almería workshop. Cheese making. Lunch.
PM. Studio workshop. Composition, how to grab attention with strong principles of composition. Photography and painting/drawing. Supper.
NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY. In southern Spain at this period we have the ‘Lagrimas de San Lorezo’, a spectacular meteor shower…

Day 7 Friday 11th August

AM. Studio Painting still life/portraiture or landscape or photo excursion on foot with your host Simon back through sedimentary time in the cool recesses of local canyons.
PM. Assessment of the mornings photography / painting Spectacular final supper.
NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY.

Day 8 Saturday 12th August

Leave for Alicante.

As it’s hot this is based on a 9am breakfast, 10.00 start til lunch at 14.00 siestas then start again around 14.30 until drinks at the spectacular sunset followed by supper around 21.30 under the stars.